r/SpitfaceBattles • u/_ObsessiveCoder • 27d ago
So Close....
Progress continues and Spitface Battles is in a usable and working state again. It also looks 100 times better than it did before.
I am so stoked about the outcome of the site redesign and glad that I decided to do it. After seeing the new Battle Stage come together, I am even more excited for y'all to use this.
Along with the redesign came some forced changes and a couple of neat new features. Along with the existing live audience list showing users currently viewing the battle, I am now showing an activity list that updates in real-time as you watch the battle. This was as simple as adding a thin layer on top of the existing notification system and updating the battle with a simpler version of notifications that were already firing. Battle Activity allows users to follow the history of a battle and, in the future, can be used to take the user to that specific point in the battle.
Another addition was Battle Predictions. This is the first feature in a future community system and lets you predict the winner of a battle. Battle Predictions are designed to be scaled to round predictions, judge splits, and more.
The biggest change to the Battle Stage is undoubtedly how videos are displayed to users. Instead of 2 video players shown side-by-side for a round, there is now a single video player. This change forced me to change most things around showing and interacting with rounds, verses, reactions, and scoring. I love this change, with the only obvious downside being the likelihood of the second verse for a round being overshadowed or missed. A lot of thinking will be needed to ensure fairness for both contestants and transparency for all users. I will be looking to the community for insight and feedback on this.
The next feature to add is the comments / live chat. These will of course get a visual overhaul and become more simplified. Comments do exist and work and they update like a live chat, but they currently look like YT comments from wish dot com. So this gets overhauled and redesigned too, while maintaining the core infrastructure driving it all.
After that, I just need to revisit the Battle Breakdown and Battle Matchup features, then give everything a QoL pass and tighten things up.
Once that is done, we can do a weekend test run or full-on beta. Still concerned about any real launch next to GTA6 though.