Method for making picks
Currently the method for making picks is designed like a standard bracket. You can see all the cars at once and the end result is an easy view of all your picks. I think it works well and look good...
...but I'm considering changing it.
The alternative to seeing a full bracket is making picks one by one until all the picks are made. So you'd see two cars side-by-side and click the one you think will win. Upon clicking, the cars will refresh and you'll see the next two cars. If any of you remember the mobile version of the game, it would be similar to that.
As to why I'm thinking about changing it...one reason is mobile so y'all can play on the go The other reason is to support more than 16-car tournaments. Right now the game can't support more than 16 cars because there's just not enough space on the screen to show the entire bracket at once and it's not engineered otherwise to do a split screen type thing. With a one-by-one picking style we could do 32, 64, 128...there wouldn't be any technical cap on cars per tournament. Another benefit would be bigger pictures and more stats when making picks, which if we move towards having car variants then those stats and pictures become even more important.
Again, this is all just a thought in my head and I was wondering if anyone had strong feelings one way or the other. I don't have any pictures but I hope to have some sort of proof of concept soon.
Discussion
I would actually rather no mobile version at all of the site. Most smartphones these days are able to view all websites, regardless of whether it has a mobile version. You just have to zoom in a bit to read things. I'd much rather have the ability to view the site as if im on a computer then to have a restricted and often times simplified view of the site which generally wont allow me to do everything i'd like it to do.
I really like the ability to see the whole bracket and see all of the match ups right away (especially the car you entered) when you look at it and also have the ability to maybe make changes after you have made your initial selection. Making changes is not uncommon for me.
What about for the larger brackets that could be available, just break it up. Lets assume a 32 car bracket. Here is bracket A, now give the user the chance to move to the next bracket instead of submitting your final picks. After that, you can then give the player the ability to see maybe the final 4, final 8, or even the final 16 cars as they submit their championship pick. Or maybe just have it all on one screen. Here are 16, here are the next 16 under it. As you make your final 4 picks, it populates a third one below that.
I have no idea how any of those would impact the mobile version.