In addition to the requirements of the Level One, products need to be
compelling enough to compete successfully in the marketplace.

32. All titles must have an important and distinguishing value over
  doing the product on magnetic media, or by book, or by cassette.
  Products should have greater detail, more choices, more ``sizzle'', be
  easier to use, or be faster to perform a function.  Ports from another
  platform--including the Amiga--must be enhanced (music, speech,
  additional video, more choices, etc.).  An example of an excellent port
  is SimCity which added digital audio and rewrote the user interface to
  take advantage of the numeric keypad on the IR controller.

33. Timely response is important.

    On a multitasking operating system, the time that elapses from when
    a selection is made till the activity begins  should be no more
    than three seconds.  This is part perception (i.e., start showing a
    graphic change while still loading), part disk organization (to
    speed access times), and part programming (sometimes things can be
    cached or optimized).  (Asterix appears to have achieved this goal,
    so it is therefore possible.)  To reiterate, first audio/visual
    feedback, then some type of transition interlude which lasts no
    longer than three seconds, then the desired result.

    For very long searches that cannot be done in a short period of
    time, inform the user of the progress of the search.  Options
    include putting up a screen and start listing ``hits'' or showing a
    ``gas gauge'' depicting the progress of a search.

34. Multimedia elements should be comparable to video or cartoons
  viewed on TV.  These elements (animations, speech, music, sounds,
  video) should be streamed from disk so that they can be more in-depth
  and longer in duration.  The animations should normally be 3
  dimensional and change focus (i.e., background, perspective), not
  limited to a static background screen.

35. Educational titles and adventure type recreational products need to
  have a depth of interactivity options.  For instance, if a character is
  walking down a street, the user should be able to go down alleyways,
  into buildings, etc. Each screen or in each section should have
  more than one (and more than two!) things that can be done. These
  options should include non-linear choices, i.e., being able to jump
  around. Linear choices are really no choices at all because you must
  follow a prescribed path.

36. Educational titles should have some type of testing function to
  allow you to examine your progress in a section.  The Bookmark feature
  should be used if appropriate (e.g., game scores, place in a book,
  tests, etc.).

37. Reference titles should allow numbers and spaces to be input for
  searches. All reference titles should support searches on keywords in
  body or title, and not be just an alphabetized index of options
  (similar to the index of a book). They should also have the Bookmark
  feature using Non-Volatile RAM (NVR) to save search criteria and
  possibly the resultant elements.

38. Recreational titles should use continuous streamed animations and
  CD audio for background.  They should be able to save game states and
  high scores using NVR.

39. Possible suggestions:

Online help

    Templates to fit on top of the IR controller to simplify the
    buttons for complex products (i.e., flight simulator).

    Optionally viewable demo commercials of other products.

    Hardware add-ons (a la Nintendo).

    Supply a formatted disk (or at least a disk label) if the product
    can use a floppy.

[Back to Amiga Developer Docs]