GameChanger

GameChanger 2.0 Available

Yes, we skipped 1.9

By Kiril Savino (@kirilnyc)

In my last post, I said we hope to release an app version every month, and so we have 2.0 out today, right on time.

But this isn’t just any release. This is a version worthy of calling 2.0. First, and foremost, we’ve worked very hard on core stability of the application. I’ll spare you all the technical mumbo-jumbo, but keeping track of all the rich data our application captures, in real time, and synchronizing it live for your fans, can get hairy. To all of you who had rough times with crashing and freezing in 1.8, we salute you. And we’ve heard you.

But there’s another good reason we are calling this the 2.0 release. We got to build some of the features that we’ve dreamed of for years.

• Advanced Fielding
• Pitch Types
• Home Run Location
• Messages and Notes
• The Game Menu
• The Gory Details

Advanced Fielding

Don’t just mark where the ball was caught, now you can track every throw, and we’ll soon translate that into defensive stats online, with putouts and assists. Note: this feature is new, and adds some extra work to each play, so it’s not on by default. The app will prompt you the first time you hit a “fielding” situation, and allow you to turn the feature on if you like. It won’t prompt you again after that. Go to the settings tab to enable/disable it from that point on.

You can see that the left fielder has the ball in his glove. Now you can simply end the play by hitting ‘DONE’ in the middle, or you can tap another fielder, say the shortstop, and the ball will be ‘thrown’ to him. Now, score every pickle and every 6-3 double-play you want. (Further Note: stats won’t be available online for these plays right away. We’re working on them, and once we start to have data from you scoring on the 2.0 application, we’ll get them up ASAP.)

Pitch Types

We’ve had a lot of requests for the ability to capture the type of each pitch. Now, by turning the feature on, you’ll have that ability.

For now, we have these 4 options for pitches. Let us know if you think there are other pitch types you think we should include, and we’ll keep refining this feature.

For both of these new additions, you need to navigate to the Settings tab (moved in 2.0 to the bottom, much easier to find), and enable them:

Home Run Location

Note: ground-ball home runs, which are somewhat rare, still prompt you to tap and drag a fielder, since we assume they were in-the-park.

Messages and Notes

We’ve had a lot of call for both of these features, and now you have them- though the features are still a little raw, and we’ll continue to improve the experience and usability of them. Messages are a way to communicate directly with the fans & followers watching your game online, or to record something in the GameStream that is not just a play. You can hit the Message icon from the GameStream tab:

And it will let you write in your own note that will appear in the GameStream:

As in our example above, it’s great for rainouts or delays. Notes let you add extra information / commentary to plays that you’ve scored. They’re also accessed from the GameStream, by tapping into an individual event:

Hit the Add Note button, and then type in whatever you like:

But be careful- the whole world sees both your Notes and your Messages. We think they’re going to be great tools to help you communicate to fans in nearly real-time, and add a little extra to the play-by-play.

The Game Menu

Last, and definitely not least, we’ve changed how a number of useful features are accessed, to make them easy to find and use. Specifically:

• Overriding (changing the score / count / inning manually)
• Swapping Home & Away
• Ending a Game
• Resetting a Game

All of these features were hard to find in 1.8 and below. Now there is a single “Menu” button at the top right, with these powerful features just a tap away:

Now as I said at the top, we’re actually more proud of the invisible changes to 2.0: less bugs, less crashes, less confusion. We truly hope we’ve made some big steps there, and we’re listening to all of you to let us know how we’re doing.

And for the gory details, in a very long list…

For a (nearly) complete list of the changes and fixes in 2.0:

• fixed bugs in lineup reordering
• allow advancing runners “on last play” for Ground Outs
• advanced fielding, with new play-shotcodes like “6-3”
• make alerts in scoreboard more noticeable
• make Home team (on the right) the lighter color, like a white uniform
• more polished graphics for Pitch Menu, defenders, buttons, help
• added pop-over menu from Menu button in top right
• moved Override from tapping the scoreboard into the Menu
• moved swapping home/away to the Menu
• when swapping players in lineup, order by Position, not Player
• allow swapping of players in field for players only hitting (EH)
• include Extra Hitters (EH) in options for Sub Out menu from field
• faster linescore generation on GameStream tab
• better refreshing on My Teams, and Team Schedule pages
• faster login
• fixed crashing problems when editing player uniform numbers
• improve many play-by-play descriptions
• restore feature that Pitch Menu remembers where you were
• improved Help UI
• new Help information for 2.0
• fixed app hang on sac-fly with runner out
• no longer allow existing base runner to appear in Courtesy Runner menu options
• fixed crash when deactivating a player who has a Designated Hitter (DH)
• show Override actions in the GameStream (bug introduced in 1.8)
• allow user to cancel from Choose Next Batter menu
• fix duplicate player name issue when auto-filling rosters
• make undo/redo alerts more visible
• make Roster screen refresh more reliably after changes
• easier controls on many forms, including adding missing ‘Done’ buttons
• fixed crash when editing player position of benched player from Player Edit screen
• new hints & easier-to-read home screen
• one-touch Resume Game
• game situation descriptions on Resume Game buttons
• make ball animation happen at the right time
• include “category” on game creation (league, non-league, postseason, exhibition, etc.)
• added Compose Message button to GameStream for custom messages
• new Home Run scoring interface
• less touches to score simple Ground Outs and Fly Outs
• fix crash when a new batter has not yet been chosen
• don’t show player’s number twice on Runner icon when player has no name
• make Runner icons on field update after editing a player mid-game
• show <None> in batter area when batter has not yet been selected
• fix visual errors in batter/pitcher boxes at bottom
• improve reliability of local data cacheing, and sync timeliness
• improve reliability of recovery post-crash
• when un-setting the active pitcher, make that change show up online
• better handling of multiple runners advancing on an Error
• add “On Throw” as an option for a runner advance
• add Foul Tip Out on 3rd strike from Pitch Menu
• let users tap to see schedules of teams you don’t manage
• fix incorrect prompt message on FC scoring
• allow override of full count (balls & strikes)
• slightly faster load time for in-progress games
• format double-digit innings better in Scoreboard

We’ve got more coming! Our focus for the next few weeks will be on adding features and reliability to our website, but we still have a lot of things planned for the application (and our ears are open for your suggestions). A few things in our pipeline right now: tracking “hard hit” balls, capturing “effort” metrics, adding spray charts (already available post-game online), and more.