The art looks great. I think switching "design" and "develop" would add a better flow reading the page from left to right. Those 2 could also be combined to something like "create" if you want to add a different "high concept" like "interact" or something for you forums etc.
IE from a dev perspective sure perhaps design goes before development. This definitely more so in a traditional waterfall model of development.
To make sure I even understand the basic ideas my first impression is that:
Design will lead to documents/tools to help with the game design aspects, such as organizing your ideas into a design doc.
Develop will be the technical info like JavaDocs/ tutorials/ etc.
Engage will help people get the game seen after it has been created.
That is an interesting idea on how things will interact on the landing page such as design and develop. I'll mention my idea behind those two shortly.
Engage was the most spot on in regard to the fact that I'm definitely trying to help developers engage the end user with not only a better experience, but give end users a certain confidence in tech made with Typhon like how folks view apps/games made with a commercial engine like Unreal3, etc. I also want to give the impression to developers that they'll be some assistance in publicizing their apps/games. I'm not building a 3rd party market, but plan to create a catalog of Typhon based apps that are good quality through the web site and a Typhon catalog app found in the Android market where end users can view info on Typhon enabled apps, try short demos (maybe), and have links to download them on the actual market.
The interesting thing when asking a non-developer about the landing page they had no idea what engage stood for and were a little confused by it. This individual also made the comment that GUIs can be developed and code can be designed.
Thanks for the art nod too. I don't work with outside artists as often as I should (or can afford to presently as like most of us here so to speak), but I did this time to develop these high concept graphic assets and the product logo. Both of them did a good job. I've got reasonable skills, but sometimes I OCD a little too much over it and that is better left to the code than the art.
It's nice to get an outside take on things as what I'm trying to communicate is how Typhon affects three different types of users: developers, designers (design houses, etc.), and end users. So, the picture presented isn't necessarily showing a use case flow from just a developers perspective.
Originally the idea was to actually have pictures of people, but perhaps abstractly drawn, but the artist came up with the purpose oriented icons instead. I think it's way better than cheesy photos of people abstract/silhouetted or otherwise, but only as long as the abstraction doesn't totally confuse. I narrowed things down to develop, design, engage.
The design orientation of Typhon covers the additional tools and features for designers to build/create GUIs via XML. The 2D Android GUI components of Typhon expose the blending and compositing features of the 2D API via XML allowing very attractive GUIs to be created and procedural GUIs to be defined by XML. There is a big issue with screen sizes/resolutions with Android and its very easy to composite art assets with Typhon of course by an code API for devs, but XML for designers. One offshoot product is a WYSIWYG editor for designers to visually manipulate the Typhon 2D GUI components. That being particularly affective for creating procedural GUI assets and such for a variety of screen sizes.
Developers.. Well, there's a metric ton of benefit from Typhon and that won't be hard to prove or discuss. That is Typhon's strong point. Typhon does provide a lot of ready made components for real time app/game dev. On Android a good deal of attention was also focused on solving fragmentation issues and providing a coherent framework that runs across the entire ecosystem of all devices.
Selling the idea to designers and end users is the real task especially because I'm a developer myself and am most comfortably describing Typhon to developers.
Where is all this going. I'll talk more about that in a further reply as it's actually kind of late here.. But recently I went out to an entrepreneur meet up in SF and afterward was at the open bar reception I passed by my developer high concept phrase to the guest. The guest speaker was a reasonably well known angel investor / blogger of silicon valley, Dave McClure. He's kind of on boisterous side of things. Hrm.. Probably NSFW (video):
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/02/with-apologies-to-kathy-sierra.htmlbut gives you and idea..
So I basically said, "What's your opinion on middleware for Android?" :: blank stare :: "We'll, I'm developing Typhon and it's the missing framework for Android." :: blank stare :: Reply from McClure, "I don't know what the hell you are talking about." Bang, further discussion closed as it's a loosing battle for me to continue talking about the technical glory of Typhon; even though it is true..
That is my developer high concept phrase and it does ring true for anyone who has lots of experience on Android in the last year as it is a direct way for me to continue talking about how Typhon deals fragmentation with fragmentation and the ability to release an advanced GL app, etc. across the entire ecosystem of all devices.
So, I'm trying to refine a larger target.. Right now my high concept is, "Typhon helps anyone develop, design, and engage people through creating better apps & games for Android and beyond."
Not a whole lot of investors have any strategy for Android right now and as we kind of know historically definitely no strategy for Java when it comes to client side real time apps/games. So, it's necessary to widen the net and talk about how more than one category of folks are affected by the project. From my experience thus far investors are not interested in the technical merits per se of the technology (at least up front!), but aspects like product/market fit (which I believe I have), traction, and social proof. How does the product/project affect everyday people. In my case with Typhon being so developer centric "everyday people" are designers and end users.
The 2nd revision of the landing page will feature lightbox popups for each icon that goes into reasonably high level, but specific details on each user type and how Typhon benefits them. In addition there will be a video popup featuring a 3-4 minute video showing all sorts of cool things Typhon can do and how it helps or affects those three different user types. I believe this additional functionality will drive home what I'm trying to communicate.
So, yeah, with the above in mind maybe someone has a perspective or opinion on how to better get across the idea/image that Typhon affects developers, designers, and end users each benefiting in a certain way. Am I headed in the wrong direction?
