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	<title>Mark Goetz &#187; nutsybolts</title>
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		<title>Project: Nutsy Bolts</title>
		<link>http://markandrewgoetz.com/blog/index.php/2009/06/project-nutsy-bolts/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:52:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>mark</dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[nutsybolts]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[I thought I&#8217;d take some time to discuss one of my personal projects that&#8217;s been coming up a lot lately.  This is called Nutsy Bolts, and is a multiplayer online browser-based word association game along the lines of Apples to Apples.  I&#8217;ve been working on it for quite a while now (in fact, I mentioned [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I thought I&#8217;d take some time to discuss one of my personal projects that&#8217;s been coming up a lot lately.  This is called Nutsy Bolts, and is a multiplayer online browser-based word association game along the lines of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apples_to_apples" target="_blank">Apples to Apples</a>.  I&#8217;ve been working on it for quite a while now (in fact, I mentioned it in my personal statement when I was applying to graduate school, so it&#8217;s been more than two and a half years), but it&#8217;s getting to the point where it&#8217;s about ready to go live!</p>
<div id="attachment_86" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://markandrewgoetz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Picture-4.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-86" title="Nutsy Bolts homepage" src="http://markandrewgoetz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Picture-4-300x165.png" alt="Home page for Nutsy Bolts" width="300" height="165" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Home page for Nutsy Bolts</p></div>
<p>I&#8217;ve had a lot of fun and gotten so much experience creating this.  It just started as an experiment to teach myself AJAX (and this was back in pre-<a href="http://jquery.com" target="_blank">jQuery</a> days, so I taught myself the nitty-gritty of it all), but it grew into so much more than that.  I started doing some graphic design stuff, experimenting with bright, contrasting colors and layout.  I built the design from scratch in Photoshop, then figured out how to squeeze it into HTML/CSS, with a tableless layout and everything.  Then I did another graphic redesign from scratch, sticking to a few general principles, imagining what the game might look like if I made a physical version, and making sure to flout every principle of so-called &#8220;Web 2.0&#8243; design.  I also learned about the complexities of architecture needed for a multi-user networked application like this one.  (I&#8217;m really glad I learned about threading in undergrad!)  I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll have a lot more to learn about maintaining a live application and a community as well, once this goes live.</p>
<p>Anyway, most of my readers already know about this, but I am basically constantly looking for people to playtest.  I seem to have ironed out most of the showstopping bugs for now, but it&#8217;s always great to get people&#8217;s feedback for the future, and on top of that I&#8217;d like to give it a stress test to make sure it won&#8217;t come screeching to a halt when more than 10 people try to play.  Always a good thing to know!</p>
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