Web Design
The Web Designer is involved with laying out the TileGamer.com web site in an aesthetically pleasing and functionally smooth fashion, enabling guests to kibitz on games in progress, play games in single-player mode, and register (enter full name, user ID, password, email address, and optional security question/answer if they have no email address). Registered users must log on (enter user ID and password) in order to play games and download/install the TIDE. Support for game scheduling (making play dates with other users) is included. Available games are organized alphabetically, by genre, and may be sorted by popularity/no. of games in progress and searched for in various ways.
After the users select a game, they enter a game lobby and join an existing table or start a new table. For games such as chess and bridge with fixed nos. of players, the game starts automatically when the table is full. Otherwise, each player must click on Start before the game can start. The first player is selected randomly or in a game-dependent fashion. Players can chat with each other by clicking on the chat window and entering a message. Many games such as chess support game ratings/rankings, which are measurements of how skillful/lucky each player is rated. Various forums are included, such as technical support, bug reporting, designing games, different game genres, game-specific forums for the more popular games, etc.
Web Programming
The Web Programmer, working closely with the Web Designer, decides what language/database to use for the TileGamer.com web site, and implements all web-based functionality, including the interface between the web-based game server (written in Java) and the rest of the web site.
Testing
The Software Tester is responsible for testing all TileGamer components, including the Code Editor, Layout Editor, Static/Animated Components, Bitmap Editor, Treescript Compiler, TIL Loader/Runtime, Cross-Compilers, and Gamer Server/Client. All bugs found are to be reported to the appropriate Python programmer. Another responsibility of the Software Tester is to make sure the web site is intuitive and flows smoothly.
Writing Documentation
The Technical Writer documents the design specs of all TileGamer components (see above: Testing), writes user manuals for game designers and end-users, converts these manuals into PDF documents, as well as HTML-based online help. Working closely with the Web Designer, the Technical Writer ensures that all labels and blocks of text displayed to visitors of the TileGamer web site are free of typos and English mistakes, and are clear, meaningful, and well laid out.
Business Model
All non-XO Laptop users are given the option of becoming Patrons (paying $24/year), or remaining Casuals (playing for free). Whenever the user name of a Patron is displayed anywhere, it is accompanied by a yellow star. Whenever the user name of a Casual is displayed, it is accompanied by a green triangle. All XO Laptop users play for free, and their user names are unaccompanied by green triangles.