So the 20,000th Yahtzee score was submitted today. What's interesting is that the I've been keeping statistics for the last four years, but 10% of those are from this week. That means it took over four years to get to 18,000, and one week to get another 2,000!
So what made the difference? I'm glad you asked. About a week ago Google launched the Chrome Web Store where, just for fun, I added a Yahtzee "app" for Google Chrome. Here's a graph of the number of games played per day for the last month:
I have no idea if the current level of traffic will continue, or if it will go back down to normal, but it's been interesting to see the short-term effect at least.
New Features
Just before the Web Store launch, I added a few new features. Most significantly, there's the new mobile version (really only tested on Android).
There's also an "undo" button so if you click on the wrong spot by mistake, you're not stuck with it. You can't undo once you roll though, so be careful.
A small change that had been bugging me is the animated dice when you roll. The biggest reason for that (other than because it looks cool) is to prevent accidental double-rolls. Another reason is that once in awhile when you roll, it looks like nothing changes because you rolled the same dice. Now it's obvious that you really did click (or tap) roll.
There were also lots of changes "under the hood" to support the mobile interface and undo, as well as just generally making it more "elegant". The code is looking less and less like I threw it together in a couple nights.
What's Next?
I've been planning on adding personalized statistics, so you can log in and keep track of your personal best scores, averages, etc. I don't have a timetable for when that will be ready, because I'm experimenting with some different technologies.
I may add a multiplayer option, but I haven't decided how that would work yet. Multiplayer Yahtzee is still (mostly) a solitaire game where the players take turns rolling, but it could still be fun to set up a game and see who gets the highest score.
