Fighting Game Notes: App in development (Catchy name needed) -- Community Feedback Thread

[Missing Person]

Hey guys,

I made an announcement for this announcement on Twitter, but sitting waiting to board a flight and decided to get this ready to announce.

This has been something that has been on my mind to do for over year, but took me taking web development courses to get motivated to start working on.

People may or may not remember but there was a "Matchup Notes" app in the Google Play Store, and it still exists. The issue with the app now is:

-It hasn't been updated in years
-Many things are just simply broken (I've tried on multiple devices to import databases, and the app crashes)
-The app was Android only
-The app only stored data locally, you were responsible for backups and if your phone died and you couldn't recover your data, WHOMP WHOMP.

This has relegated us to only using built-in note apps with our phones, which suffer from problems that if we switch phone brands we may not be able to recover them. Sure there's apps like Inkpad that sync to a cloud, but it's well tailored to what we need. So why not do better?

This is the reason for this project. This has started as a project for me personally to have easy access to my notes in tournaments without dealing with apps like Inkpad (I have a Sony Xperia that doesn't have a built-in note app), and to tailor it to fighting games.

Current features include:

• You can add notes for literally any fighting game you play. (Okay, literally not every one is displayed in the screenshots below, but the goal is to be 100% or as close to 100% as possible.)
• You can create notes specific to each matchup, much like you could on Matchup Notes, with markers to see what type of information it is. (Punishes, option selects, anti-airs, air-to-air situations, etc.)
• You can filter notes within a particular matchup to the information you need at any moment, so if you just need punishes, you can filter it to only see that, or anything else.
• You can store player notes, so that if an opponent has an exploitable tendency or pattern, you can mark that down
• Game specific filters: There's certain nuances to various games that you need to remember that aren't even relevant to other games. Things like Ultra Combo selects in USF4, Stage Bans/Counterpicks in Smash, and Groove Specific information in CVS2 are included as notes you can take and filter for.

Right now, this is done in only HTML, SASS, and Javascript, and my data is stored statically. I did this part as my final project for my course but as well as for myself. But ultimately the goal is to give back to the FGC so they can have a solid note app to use. So obviously a lot more work will need to be done, but features that I already intend to add are as follows:

• Android and iOS full compatibility.
• Desktop compatibility: You will have the ability to use your desktop or laptop to update your notes, as it is typically easier to type on a computer than a mobile device.
• Cloud storage of your notes: No more need to back up database files on your phone whenever you switch devices. Just log in to the app on your phone or tablet and your notes will be there. I'm looking to avoid Google APIs to do this, so say you're in a restricted internet country like China and need access to your notes online, you'll be able to do this without VPN access.
• Local storage of your notes...just in case: I intend to make it so that you will have a local version of your notes on your device. This way if you don't have access to data or Wifi at a venue (I had spotty internet access in the event hall at Evo this year, and didn't get data roaming from Telus before I left Canada), you can still see your notes.
• Offline edit of your notes: If you're in the above situation and need to adapt your notes on the fly, you can do so, and your notes will resync when you gain an internet connection again.
• Localisation: Matchup Notes AFAIK was only useful for English speakers. Let's change that. Language localisation is planned, with Chinese probably the first to get finished since that's my second language, but Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and French are all planned soon after, and more languages would be added as needed.
• Game Filter: Obviously not every person is going to want something like Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Six Stars on their list, so the ability to only show games that you have notes for will definitely happen, so as to not make you spend forever thumbing through the game list to find your game. I would also like to make a sorting option for games you either most frequently access or have the most notes for.
• Better Graphics: As you'll tell by the screenshots, I used a lot of proprietary logos and graphics for my prototype, full deployment won't see that fly lest I risk getting a laundry list of Cease and Desists. The full deployment will see these graphics change to original artwork that still attempts to retain some of the distinct style of the games that you know and love to play.

I waited until this weekend to post this, because I wanted to first give a presentation of this work to my class for feedback from my peers and instructors, and was met with a lot of positive feedback on it. Obviously now, the next logical step is to show it to the FGC, who will give me the biggest, consumer-centric feedback that will help me through the development, as you will all be able to give me ideas and critique that I haven't seen or thought of myself yet. I also intend to post up a functioning model of what is currently completed for you guys to look around at to see the behaviour in the near future. It won't be working in that you can post your own notes, but just to give you a feel for what I'm doing so if there's any functionality that you guys don't like, I can change it before I get too far along in development.

Screenshots:

Any and all feedback welcome! I'll also use this thread, as well as my Twitter (JTMMissingPersn) to provide updates on this project's progress.

 

[Windhunter7]

It appears to me that there aren't that many games in the list, and even if there were a lot, it still might not include every single game; e.g. What if someone wanted to create notes for a lesser known game like Gruntz or Septerra Core? I myself wouldn't use this app as is, but if you added a functionality to be able to "add a game" including optionally uploading an image to represent the logo, otherwise it'll just display as words in the list of icons, even if it doesn't have advanced stuff, and it only had a general space where you can write notes for that specific game, I would definitely use it, and so would many more people; it would definitely significantly increase your audience

I also might recommend looking at the source code for the "Gmail" app on Android, since it can do syncing and stuff

As for a name, what about "NoteZ" or "NotebookZ"?

 

[Missing Person]

It appears to me that there aren't that many games in the list, and even if there were a lot, it still might not include every single game; e.g. What if someone wanted to create notes for a lesser known game like Gruntz or Septerra Core? I myself wouldn't use this app as is, but if you added a functionality to be able to "add a game" including optionally uploading an image to represent the logo, otherwise it'll just display as words in the list of icons, even if it doesn't have advanced stuff, and it only had a general space where you can write notes for that specific game, I would definitely use it, and so would many more people; it would definitely significantly increase your audience

I also might recommend looking at the source code for the "Gmail" app on Android, since it can do syncing and stuff

As for a name, what about "NoteZ" or "NotebookZ"?

Basically the games you see here are only a taste of the games that can be put in, and were more or less placeholders so that there were a lot of options available. This is by far not the onlly games that will find their way in, and I'll explore options on how to add games, either making a request to the dev team (me) or by being able to do it yourself. I have no problems trying to keep this up to date with fighters no matter how indie, niche, poverty, homebrew they are. So no worries, this is far and away not the end of adding games.

As far as looking at Gmail app, that's possible, but at the same time, like I mentioned in the OP, I'm trying to avoid Google APIs as much as possible due to the restrictive nature of Google usage throughout the world. I haven't updated my location since, but I used to live in China, and I know there's Chinese players that would benefit from having this app but would find it a PITA if they couldn't backup their database because it's all tied to Google APIs.

If the restrictions on Google is not there with AWS, I plan on utilizing that. If there is no happy medium where I can get the whole world working, I may fork this into a China-only project alongside the global version, where the majority of the world will use Google API and the Chinese version of the app will utilize Baidu API and cloud storage in order to make it possible for everyone to utilize cloud sync of their databases.

Also thanks for the name suggestions! Definitely going to take those into consideration.

 

[Ryuphoton]

I gotta say, I really like this. It'll help me out quite a bit by organizing notes better, especially so in specific matchups.

 

[Missing Person]

Just popping back in to give an update:

There's been some major progress made. I'm working on a test database and have finished reading from the DB. Next up comes writing new notes into the database.

Also, gone is the discs and multiple pages in order to get to where you need to be. That was too much scrolling and clicking. Everything now works on the index page and through drop down lists.

I'm also working with the name that Windhunter7 suggested.

Here's a few new screenshots.

 

[Windhunter7]

Ooh, that looks cool!

 

[Missing Person]

Ooh, that looks cool!

Thanks!

I've had a super productive weekend working on this.

-Finished responsive design. This app looks great regardless of whether you're on mobile or a computer.
-As shown above, reading to the database was finished.
-Added a form to post to the database, and that is now working. Had a slight issue with new notes not automatically being posted into the page, but overcame that.

There's one more issue I have where Punishes are completely global and still static, and none of the game-specifics come up automatically in the filter. That's a matter of databasing it, but I'm still pondering how I want to tackle that. I should have something on that soon.

HOWEVER, one thing I want to ask to the Smash community (Both Melee/PM/Sm4sh) is what Smash specific notes you would want. Right now I know to include the following:

--Directional Influence
--Stage Specific
--Percentage Specific
--Stage Bans
--Stage Strikes
--Stage Counterpicks

If there's any that I'm missing that would be crucial, let me know! I'm a huge scrub in this series but at least know a few things, so I really appreciate people who know more than me helping.

 

[Missing Person]

Also, here's some screenshots of the mobile version. This also comes from the official Twitter for the app, so if you're on there, give it a follow!

https://twitter.com/notez_app/status/970018200606990336