Mutility 1.2.0

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Mutility 1.2.0 makes its move into multiplayer MTG games by adding support for 1, 2, 3, and 4 players. Best of all, selecting the number of players is a free feature. To accommodate this, there are settings and history table updates, as well a new pair of buttons on the main screen. All in all I think it came out pretty good. Touch targets are still big enough even with 4 players on the iPhone 4/4S. On to the full list of changes:

  • Added support for 1-4 players (a big undertaking)
    • Each number of players has 4 orientations to select from
  • Dice roll moved to main screen and does not restart the game
  • Removed lifelink/extort feature (two-finger tap) since it was too unreliable to keep
  • Various UI tweaks
  • Known issue: Upgrading from previous versions blows out the database, resetting everything to defaults. Due to my incompetence, I couldn't figure out what was going on. In my defense, typing in your names again shouldn't be too hard.

1-4 Players: A big undertaking.

Although it seems like adding support for 1-4 players wouldn't be a big deal, it was a massive undertaking. The database underwent significant changes, the history table cells had to be completely redesigned, dynamic icons were designed to show the various orientations of the player life panels, and much, much more. Here are some of the highlights that I'm particularly happy with:

  • In the settings screen a Symbolicon (pencil / paintbrush / marker) is now shown in the customization cells for 1 or 2 player setups. For 3 or 4 players, these icons are replaced by an icon of where on the screen the particular player panel resides. This is helpful for figuring out which player you're customizing. They also animate changes in orientation, which is freaking awesome.
  • The above update now makes the settings screen have a consistent set of icons straight down the left edge - very classy.
  • When you request a dice roll, the dice are scaled in size relative to the player panel size and are tossed from wherever the 'bottom' of the panel is oriented. It's like it's being thrown from each player wherever they happen to be.
  • The history table now shows the life change for a particular player, as well as that player's location on the screen. Removing the lifelink feature made this cell much cleaner, since life transactions only happen to one player at a time.
  • While the app loads, a white screen can appear briefly between the splash screen disappearing and the main screen appearing. This is mostly fixed for iPhone 5S, but older phones may still show this nonsense since they're slower.