WAP Game Design Compelling Games in a Static Browser Environment Greg Costikyan

What is WAP? Wireless Application Protocol WAP Microbrowsers in Every Phone displays WAP “decks” Equivalent to Primitive Web Browsers Allows:  Text  Images (b&w bitmaps)  Hyperlinks  Text entry

Why Develop WAP Games? Better environment than SMS Links & Lists make for better UI Not limited to 160 characters Can rely on image-display capability Latency issues not as brutal Main Format for Games in North America and acceptable in Europe Functional business model

How Does it Work? a.User requests URL; phone connects to tower b.Tower passes request to WAP gateway (WTP) c.Gateway decodes, passes request to URL (HTTP) d.Server acts on request, returns data to gateway (HTTP) e.Gateway encodes, passes data to phone (WTP) f.Phone decodes, displays WAP deck to user.

Think COLS, not Internet Entering URLs is a Pain in the Ass People stick with the carrier’s navigational hierarchy People Pay—the Carriers, Not You Like the old Commercial Online Services  Need a deal to gain access to customers…  Customers funnelled to you  Share revenue with the carrier

WAP Is Inconsistently Implemented Inconsistent Browser Behavior Test for Nokia, Ericsson, OpenWave Use URL Links, not Select Lists Avoid Soft Buttons & Tables Cookies Not Always Available Use URL Encoding User Timers, Not Push Forget about WTAI & WMLScript

Game Session Should Take < 10 Minutes If They’ve Got More Time, They’ll Find a Real Game Machine Can Mean:  Short Game  Saved Gamestate  Playable in 5 Minute Chunks

Latency of 1-2 Seconds Unlike SMS (can be 1 min +) Multiple Interactions Within a Session  Each can be of modest importance Forget Twitch Games

Network Not Reliable Handle Drops Gracefully Design so Player Disappearance Doesn’t Matter AI Take-Over Allow Player Re-Entry Stand-bys? Allow Reentry Without Data Inconsistency Time-Outs on Decks

Decks Must be < 1.4k Unlike HTTP, Text & Images Sent as a Single Request Well, it’s better than SMS HTTP > WTP Encoding Includes Compression

Dealing with 1.4k Limit Write Tersely Use Graphics Sparely Make Animations Separate Deck with timer to autoload next deck Can Make Long Documents Multiple Decks Consider “Terse” Mode for Experienced Players

Making the Most of Graphics Make Every Pixel Count “Updating” image means another server request No imagemaps Still best to avoid “board” layouts

Keep the UI Transparent Select Lists (avoid) Soft Buttons (avoid) Text Entry (keep to a minimum) URL-link Menus (exploit to the max)

What Game Styles Work? Head-to-head Games Gameshows Text Adventures Boardless Strategy (e.g., Nuclear War)

Evolution of WAP Near-Term: WMLScript WTAI (Wireless Telephony Application Interface) WAP 2.0: Supports HTTP & TCP/IP XHTML (Mobile Profile) Cascading Stylesheets Local persistent storage MMS Integration WAP likely to no longer be the main event

Yes, Good WAP Games Are Possible, Virginia Multiplayer Persistent Fantasy that appeals to the Hard Core Media licenses (sigh)

URLs WAP Forum: OpenWave SDK (includes emulator): Nokia WAP emulator: asim_new.html asim_new.html Ericsson WAP emulator: pen/technologies/wap/tools.html pen/technologies/wap/tools.html