Glimmer Games Site Redesign

There may still be a few missing items and broken links, and there are definitely a few more changes and additions I want to make, but the essential redesign has been completed.

http://www.glimmergames.com

Please let me know if there are any problems. Contact me privately by all means, if there's anything that needs more detail. There was a problem with the forum, namely that it didn't display correctly in IE, but I think I've fixed it to display correctly now. Well it shows fine in IE, FireFox and Opera at 1024x768 here.

i think it looks real nice... inviting, and to the point...

--Mike

Cute. What's that thing in the upper right corner?

Nice orange scrollbar :-D

I think the main page looks better, but I don't groove to the orange. Call me a hippy but it's not known as a positive "buy" colour. Also it's called "Glimmer" but I don't see any glimmering or shimmering or glinting whatever on the logo or header...

heh, I like the orange scroll bar too. The page is a bit lengthy heightwise. And the graphics a bit bubblegum, not that thats bad, just what came to my head. Reminded me of that sweet powder kids could buy in that crackled like crazy when you put it in your mouth :)

Nice change of pace.

I think it looks alot better now :D

Very nice lookin.

Yeah - what is that thing in the upper right corner?

Nice and professional-looking page.

Nice, okay how do I get my games listed in the casual games enhancer?

I wondered that.

that thing in the top right corner looks like one of those anime robot guys arms, sort of, you can see the fingers

Thanks guys. The actual theme can be modified, so I could change the orange if it turns out to be generally unpopular.

No idea what the thing in the top right is, as it's a licensed theme, not my own creation. But to my eye, like n8r2k said, I think it's an Anime robot thingy.

It is a bit twee, certainly, but that's intentional.

Also agree that the page is a bit long, but that's a problem I've always had with my page designs. Hopefully the right panel shortcuts do something to alleviate that.

At the moment, you get your games listed in the casual game enhancer by getting them on Real Arcade, as their distribution system really makes things rock solid from the App's point of view. It is 100% unofficial though, as Real Arcade apparently think developers will hate it. I kinda suspected developers would see it as free advertising, but only time will tell if I'm right or they are.

If/when I make a version which supports non-RA games, you probably won't have to do anything. A license key to the game(s) in question wouldn't hurt though. Otherwise I have to get everything I possibly can in an hour. But so far, that hasn't proved to be too difficult.

I think I'm missing the point, how could the RA distribution system make it any easier for you to make modifications to games?

That would be giving away some of the things that make Casual Game Enhancer better than the competition ( that I've seen. )

It's hard, probably impossible, to calculate how much less solid it will be for non-RA games, but it's likely to be significant which is why I've held off doing it.

I still don't get what it *really* does.

Yeah but that's just it, they are not RA games, they have just been wrapped. Perhaps it's the install directory structure that you require for compatibility.

[edit]Game enhancer download don't work :(

Yep. Game Enhancer isn't finished. Well technically, it is finished, but I have to spread things out or they're going to get on top of me.


It's a bit like Xploder or Action Replay, except that it's for PC, it's for casual games only, and considerably more automated and user friendly than any version of AR or Xploder I've ever used.

Game Enhancer is a sweet idea, I really do urge you to open it up to allow all and any games to be tweaked. If you do that I'm sure you'll have people sending you tweaks to include in your on-line database of goodies.

I for one would spend the time with the software to get tweaks for my cloverleaf games and then pester you for a resale deal so I could squeeze a few more bucks out of the punters :)

Well the program doesn't allow you to find your own tweaks. The original version I wrote did that, but I felt it would be too technical and would put off the casual audience it was aimed at. So I just made it like a database of existing tweaks, all of which I have to find and add myself.

On the downside, more work for me, but on the upside, it's a very simple to use program. When I do release it, I'll give serious consideration to expanding it to cover games from other portals and developers themselves. It will depend to some extent on how popular the program is though, of course, as it does mean a lot of time investment adding new games.

So it doesn't let you freeze and resume like action reply? It's more like a thing to enter cheat codes? Or to unlock all levels etc? Do you just hunt the net for unlockers and include them in the app then? I'm still confused cos Action Replay could do a lot...

No. Just "cheat effects" as you put it. Lives, levels, bonuses, power-ups, things like that. PC's don't really let you pause and resume the way you can on consoles and could on 8 and 16 bit computers. And there's no real need with this program.


No that'd be immoral, and probably illegal. Every effect for every game is something I've learned how to enable myself.

wow that's cool. I found an Xmas Bonus unlocker on the net a while back. It doesn't unlock the wrapper with an illegal key, it's just a highscore file that makes all the levels available. If you have the cloverleaf version it still won't let you start one past level 8 unless you have the full version, and of course if you have a portal version you still have a 60 min time limit on the wrapper, so that sort of unlocker isn't illegal or immoral, it's just cheating :-)

Right, but I was referring specifically to using unlockers I found on the net. As long as I create all the "effects" myself, it's no problem. I've tended to avoid unlocking levels for a few reasons :

1) It's very hard to do without modifying any files.
2) CaGE doesn't modify any files at all, ever, for any reason. This is very important as it would open itself to legal action from developers if it did. While it's unlikely a developer would want to do anything, it's not a risk I'm prepared to take.
3) As you say, many people restrict access to the levels as part of their copy protection scheme, and CaGE cannot and will not aid pirates in any way.

I've kinda gone OT from the original subject, haven't I? Oh well, it's my thread and I'll OT if I want to XD

Hmm, sorry Gabe but I preferred the previous site design.

I run my screen at 1280 X 1024, which means your site uses only half a screen (all-be-it centered). So I have to scroll unnecessarily.

Also (apart from the orange graphics at the top) why does everything have to be mainly white with some grey these days? Looks sterile and doesn't seem appropriate for a games site at least.

I quite like ArcadeLabs site for instance - perhaps you could incorporate some of their design style.

http://www.arcadelab.com/

Gabriel: thanks for replying it's intesting.

Yep, I knew before the redesign that this would happen. There's really no ideal way to handle this. I either :
a) Scale the page, and hence scale the logos which become blurry.
b) Don't scale the page and leave big borders on high resolutions.
c) Scale some parts of the page and leave ugly gaps around the images which are prevented from scaling.

So I picked what I deemed to be the lesser evil, so to speak.


Well it used to just be a games site, but since we know have a couple of BlitzMax modules, a game-related application, a gamedev-related service, and more, it just wasn't suitable to put all that into a game site any more.

So it was either this or have two sites. And since the purpose of the exercise was to make the site easier to maintain, giving myself two sites to maintain would surely have been the entire opposite. Chances are I will have to open a new site soon enough as it is.

Anyway, there's nothing hardcoded. I can easily switch the entire appearance of the site out and plug in a new design now. So if the redesign doesn't have a positive impact on sales and traffic in general, it'll be a pretty simple job to plug in a new "theme".

urgh.... I think that arcade lab site looks horrid.

:X

What's with the censored pic - drags everything else down imo.

i have to agree... i was gonna say something earlier, but i thought i might've been being a lil too conservative...

--Mike

Well the censored pic has been on there for about a year, and it's still the best selling game on the site, so it doesn't seem to have done much damage. I'll bear it in mind.

Well I'm glad it's not just me that thinks that. I thought it would look like sour grapes if I said anything though.

I just think game sites (even if you're selling modules to produce games) should be colourful and fun - not grey and sterile. Those horrible rectangular black buttons for instance on your site are too harsh - add some shading, round the corners and add colour. I'm suprised you haven't done things like this because your artwork and design is usually to a high standard.

The Arcade lab site has gone a bit too far in that direction lately because they've added too many games to the main page - just tone it down a bit (not copy it).

Looks cool!