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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 3 August 2024 [1].

Letterpress (video game)

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Nominator(s): TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 01:18, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, Letterpress. A shining gem among a sea of cheap, soulless, free-to-play mobile games. A game that touches players with its simplicity, designed entirely from the ingenuity of Loren Brichter. What better way to spend time than battling it out with words you had no idea existed until you pulled up the dictionary to cheat?

When I first met this article, it was but a mere three sentences. Over the course of (nearly) a year, I began to expand the article to its fullest potential. I put it up for peer review (twice), and it passed GA status in an instant. At that moment, I knew what had to be done. I brought it to FAC, learned from that review, and requested for a copyedit at WP:GOCE/R. I even learned Inkscape! (Great tool, by the way.) Now I'm here. To say that I am satisfied that this article is no longer a stub is an understatement. I hope to make history and achieve my very first featured article. Thank you, TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 01:18, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy ping to the following users who have reviewed this article before: @Aoba47, @David Fuchs, @Mike Christie, and @Teratix. TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 14:49, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the ping. Unfortunately, I am currently taking a break from reviewing, but best of luck with the FAC! Aoba47 (talk) 17:15, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@FAC coordinators: I would like to request for this nomination to be closed early per Teratix's comments; the article needs more work. TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 03:19, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Will do. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:26, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from UC

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  • I must admit that I find the explanation of how the game actually works pretty confusing. I think we need to start with the idea that both players are given the same grid of letters -- if I've got it right, you then have to draw from those letters to make words, and doing so gives you that many points and "locks" any tiles where you've got (two of? all of?) the tiles touching it?
    • Correct. FYI, a tile can be locked if all the tiles directly adjacent to it are selected (sorry if that's worded weirdly, I just woke up).
  • Some quite basic statements seem overcited: do we really need four different sources to say that there are two players and 25 tiles? One is the Manchester Evening News, which is pretty low-grade source, put mildly.
    • I was unsure how to use the sources Teratix provided me, so I figured, "Why not overcite everything? That's using sources, right?"
    • Update: I have now limited the amount of sources in the gameplay section.
      • Also, most of the sources I found repeated the same information.
  • The copyright claim on the three images is potentially dubious to me -- I know they are your own work, but they are also pretty clearly derivative works of the original game. Now, that game itself is only made up of basic shapes, letters and colours, but there's a lot of distinctive combination of those that, at least to my non-expert mind, would seem to pass the threshold of originality. Now, there's a very possible fair-use rationale for including a visual demonstration of how a game's fundamental gameplay loop works, but we'd need to upload the images locally to Wikipedia and write one of those.
    • Sorry, do you want me to reupload the image locally to Wikipedia as "non-free"?
    TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 22:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You might want to get a more expert opinion on the image's copyright status, but my view is that it is non-free. If that's the case, the only way to include it in an article is to upload it to Wikipedia (not Commons) and write an explanation as to why we should be allowed to use it, despite its copyrighted status. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:19, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • On a similar note, we can't claim the icon as the "own work" of the uploader. We could probably claim that it is ineligible for copyright because it only consists of simple geometric shapes: that would need {{PD-textlogo}}.
    • Added.
  • I find the lead leaves a few loose ends, or unanswered questions: take, for example, The gameplay gradually evolved during beta testing; in the prototype, players would avoid using unclaimed tiles, leading to excessively long games.. The obvious question raised here is "so what did they do about it?", and that's not answered until the body.
    • Added information about solution.
  • it was criticized for not having a single-player mode: later in the body, we talk about it having one, so presumably this was added later? Similarly to the above, I know that we can't include every detail in the lead, but we should avoid giving a misleading impression to readers who only read the lead.
    • Yes. The bot mode was added at some point after the game's initial release. I'm not sure if removing it is gonna satisfy this point, but I'll do it anyway.
  • two players compete to claim the most colored tiles on a grid of 25 letters: most colored is ambiguous: the most (coloured tiles) or the (most coloured) tiles?
    • First option. Removed "colored".
  • Loren Brichter, the founder of Atebits 2.0: the footnote says a bit about why there was an Atebits 2.0, but I think we probably need to give a bit more context about what Atebits 1.0 was.
  • Brichter saw Letterpress as a way to experiment with new software: what new software?
    • According to this source, Brichter states, "With the Letterpress idea, a whole bunch of things happened to align that made that an obvious thing to pursue: games had taken over the App Store, I wanted to try a free app, and I wanted to test a whole bunch of other technologies." He doesn't really elaborate what he wanted to experiment with, unless I'm missing something here.
    • Furthermore, he states, "One of my complaints about design of iOS is it’s doing things that aren’t true to the hardware."
  • players could indiscriminately create long words: indiscriminately is not the right word here (that means "without thinking about it"): try "freely"?
    • That's the word I was looking for! Changed.
  • The link on pressing letters to letterpress printing is a bit of an easter egg: I think we need to spell out that it's a pun with a double meaning.
    • I'm doubting it's named after that: Explained allusion. "[Federico Vitici]: Why the name Letterpress? That evokes some print memories to me. Which is kind of anachronistic. -> [Loren Brichter]: Totally. The name just kind of grew on me. And the whole game is you pressing your letters with your finger. Letterpress. Not sure. Just liked it."
  • Brichter marketed Letterpress as freemium... why is this paragraph in the past tense?
    • Changed surrounding text. It turns the "freemium plan" was before the Solebon acquisition. As of right now, players can change themes, play unlimited games, and see their previously played words for free, so I'm gonna change it back to past tense.
  • Letterpress has a "generally favorable" Metacritic rating based on eight critics: advise putting an as of on this statement (and checking it fairly regularly!)
    • I don't think that's necessary. Most video game articles I've seen don't add that + there hasn't been a new review for about a decade.
  • Reviewers found the strategic elements of Letterpress engaging, comparing it to Scrabble, Reversi, Connect Four, Go, SpellTower, Words With Friends, and chess.: that's a lot of different comparisons. Can we say anything about how they compared it with each of these games?
    • I'll try to examine the sources once more.
  • Game Center, Apple's multiplayer network service: I would explain what this is on first mention, rather than second. Does it still use Game Center when it's on Google Play, for example?
    • Changed.
  • Despite Wiskus acknowledging the negative impact on user experience, he mitigated it with iMessage. He also highlighted the friction in initiating rematches, which led to simultaneous matches between players: I don't really understand what either of these sentences mean.
    • Simplified.
  • Letterpress was among a list of minimalist apps provided to inspire Jony Ive, a designer for Apple's iOS 7: provided by whom?
    • Doesn't say (unless I'm overlooking something here): "Along with music app Rdio, word game Letterpress, and competing task app Clear, Any.do was among the apps that Apple looked to for inspiration as it redesigned iOS, according to people familiar with the matter. When Jony Ive took over as the company’s head of design, he was given a list of forward-looking apps that suggested how iOS could evolve..."
  • Looking at the last FAC, I'm not sure the sources provided by User:Teratix have been fully incorporated -- in such a short article, we have the luxury of space to talk about how the game has been studied, for example.
    • Shoot! I was hoping that would get solved.

I suspect I'm at a bit of a disadvantage knowing very little about the topic, but in other ways that makes me the target audience -- I don't really get the feeling, at the moment, that I fully know what's going on, whereas there are plenty of current FAs that manage to hold your hand, even as a complete newcomer, so that you at last feel comfortable that you are getting the information with the context you need to understand it. It's a short article at the moment, and perhaps a bit more could go into padding out the explanations and context? UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:12, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if I may be a little late with your comments. I picked a bad time to nominate this article because of how busy my life is getting now. TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 05:33, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from BP!

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Hello there! I'll try what I can to bring up all of the article's possible issues after partial reviewing the article (Also, can you review my Ada Wong's FAC if you're able to? =) ).

  • There are a lot of ref bombs in the article currently. Pls, bundle the citations that have been cited from more than 3 sources.
    • Will examine the sources I have been provided with (if time pertains).
    • Update: Limited the number of references in the gameplay section.
  • Remove ScreenRant source as low-quality source
    • That's the only source I could find that covers the single-player bot mode, plus WP:VG/S states that Screen Rant is "deemed reliable enough" for any non-controversial statements.
  • At ref 15, pls italicize the publication
    • Done.
  • "Matthew Panzarino of The Next Web and Federico Viticci" Who is Federico Viticci? Add the publication/website
    • Whoops. Added.
  • Unsure about the Macstories reliability.
    • MacStories follows their guidelines listed here ("What Guides Us"). Additionally, they have an experienced editor team, and they don't do paid reviews.
  • What makes 9to5Mac reliable?
    • Zac Hall has written for the Clarion-Ledger newspaper (USA Today), and they even state that they have been cited by NYT, Washington Post, WSJ, the Financial Times, and others. Also, they don't do sponsored reviews.

🍕Boneless Pizza!🍕 (🔔) 11:01, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Vacant0

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Will leave some comments. --Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 12:07, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Situational sources like Screen Rant and The Next Web can stay in the article because they're not used in controversial statements. I do not see any other issues with referencing.
    • Noted. (nice)
  • I think that you could specify which colours in the Gameplay section.
    • There are multiple themes in the game, so the game can be in various colors other than red and blue.
      • If there's a source for that, you could add it to the article.
  • Are all three images really needed in the article? I think that one image demonstrating the gameplay is enough in the article. You should also probably re-upload it to Wikipedia as a non-free image, even though it is a recreation and not an actual screenshot of a game... Or you could instead upload an actual screenshot of the game. It's up to you.
    • I did the second thing, but in the previous FAC review, Teratix (I believe) told me to recreate the game in Inkscape. I will upload the game locally if I have the time.
  • Do we know which side projects? Software or video games?
    • Does not say. This source states that he left Twitter to work on "personal projects", while in this source, he states: "What happened was after I left Twitter I had this massive backlog of ideas going back five, six years. Stuff I was thinking about in college and I just didn't have time to work on it. When I left, I just plowed through my old to-do list. I ended up making a dozen or so things, most of which will never see the light of day, but Letterpress was one of those things."
  • I assume new software for iPhone? I think that this should be clarified a bit.
    • Clarified; added "Apple".
  • Do we know how was the game advertised, considering that it was downloaded over 60,000 times on the release day.
    • Nope. I do remember a fragment of an interview saying that he did use plain and simple gameplay screenshots for the App Store, but that's pretty much about as far as marketing goes.
      • That's amazing.

Oppose from Teratix

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(responding to ping) I've had a look at the changes compared to the last time this was at FAC and my view hasn't changed: there's a lot of good material going underused. There's a lot of cases (e.g. Game Developer and Wired, which I already pointed out at the last FAC) where a source gets cited a few times but the article doesn't actually incorporate any of its information. The answer isn't to cut back on the number of sources – the answer is to make the article longer and use more details from the sources, especially when you have a reviewer without background coming in and finding things difficult to understand without more explanation and context.

To be honest, this is an issue too fundamental for an FAC to sort out at the moment. The article needed a substantial rewrite to properly integrate the new sources at the previous FAC, and that hasn't been done. So I'm opposing on these grounds, but I also want to give some comment on the media issue.

As anyone who has tried to explain a familiar game to new players knows, it can be supremely difficult to convey a sense of how things work when you rely only on your words. So, particularly for featured status (criterion 3), it greatly benefits this article to have some decent illustration of how the game mechanics function. However, as UndercoverClassicist has mentioned, aiming to replicate the game's interface in an illustration – colours, shapes, font, spatial arrangement and all – is likely not compatible with our copyright obligations. Rather than replicating or even mimicking what the player sees, we should be trying to illustrate the concepts the player will come across during gameplay – selecting tiles, compiling words, locking tiles, scoring. (Apologies, my comments at the last FAC didn't make this distinction at all clear).

My tentative, non-expert understanding is that gameplay concepts in themselves are not copyrightable elements, only the specific way in which they are expressed, so there should be some way to illustrate how these concepts work without actually copying the look of how they're implemented in Letterpress. It is a bit of a thorny question to work through, but getting the illustrations right is going to help this article a lot. I would perhaps ask about these issues at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions to get some better-informed opinions.

Throwing up our hands and saying "just stick to a non-free screenshot" would be convenient, but I don't think it would be for the best. A single screenshot doesn't properly illustrate the gameplay loop. – Teratix ₵ 04:13, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Darn! You've brought up some neat points I didn't see coming. Really thought I had the whole comprehensive article thing solved... oh well. Thanks for responding! TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 04:50, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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