AGS Website Redesign

[tampie85]

Lovely, thank you!

Overall, we try to make a better version of what's currently there, so there's a lot of small improvements. A lot of them can be seen here, even though we have made small adjustments as we're learning: https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/

As far as I'm aware, these are a few of the larger improvements that we have added which might not be as clear in the design:
- Switch between dark mode and light mode.
- A dedicated search page with 12 different filter categories (with loads of options in each category) and 10+ ways of sorting
- Search page includes a filter category linked to your profile in which you can see your games, the games you've worked on, the games you commented on, etc.
- A page to celebrate top contributors and creators
- Improved AGS Awards
- Personalised menu based on your forum permissions (so admins of any kind have more options - no need to remember URLs anymore).
- Improved add game form with i.e.
  - Support for multiple languages
  - Support for voice & text languages
  - Support for multiple operating systems
  - Better guidance & validation
  - Support for Vimeo videos
  - Limit for maximum 3 images has been removed and a more modern 'drag & drop' system for uploading images.
  - Ability to add more options to the current dropdowns (resolution already has been updated to reflect the latest version of AGS).

And these ones are on the "For future consideration" list (not in any order):
- Snarky: I think the barrier to registering an account should be lower
- Snarky: For people browsing on mobile (or any computer where they can't play the games), it would be nice if there were a way to bookmark/wish list/save a game for later, under their account.
- Snarky: With eri0o's online AGS port, would it at all be possible to make games playable directly on the site?
- Hobbes: On the topic of Modules/Plugins, I was wondering... if we're building a Games Database, should we also build a Modules/Plugins/Template database where people can upload, categorise etc
- Unknown: And if we kept track of games that the user had downloaded (in a cookie), and showed a request for a rating/review the next time they visited, maybe we could get enough ratings that sorting/filtering by rating would make sense and not leave out major titles.
- Me: See whether it's possible to login without being redirected to the forums.
- Crimson Wizard: Add tagging

[AGA]

It's been a long time coming, but the new version of the AGS site is now feature complete, and ready for the community to test!  tampie85 has posted a list including many of the new features, but there are actually even more we need your help to test.

It would be great if we could get a good variety of users, ideally to test as wide a range of pages as they have access to.  That is, normal users, panel members, moderators, game owners, etc etc.

Please put your name here if you're able to help with at least some testing, and I'll add you to a specific subforum with instructions!

The site is up at https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/, if anyone else would like a quick look to play around.


On another topic, you may notice the above link has AI-generated art in a few places.  These were included as placeholders, as we would far prefer to have proper, human-created replacements if possible.  There's a list the AI-generated art below; if anyone is able to replace any of the images, we'd love it!  Please note that the art please must have exactly the same resolution in order to fit into the site's design.

Current Image	Resolution	In Context
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/create/features.png	726px × 790px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/create/game-submitted.webp	512px × 512px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/game-submit/add-game/ (only visible if game add or edit submitted)
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/create/requirements.png	1,043px × 663px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/400-bad-request.webp	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/bad-request/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/403-not-authorised.webp	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/not-authorised/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/404-not-found.webp	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/whoops/
<New image for 500 internal server error page>	500px × 500px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/internal-server-error/
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/image-not-found-100x60.webp	100px × 60px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/search/&q=account-no-filter:checked;title-or-author:An+Egypt+Adventure;newest-releases:checked
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/error-pages/image-not-found-325x200.webp	325px × 200px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/search/&q=account-no-filter:checked;title-or-author:An+Egypt+Adventure;newest-releases:checked
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/homepage/splash-background-original.webp	1,792px × 1,024px	<Original basis for dark and light mode versions>
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/homepage/splash-background-dark.webp	1,792px × 1,024px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ (dark mode)
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/assets/img/site/homepage/splash-background-light.webp	1,792px × 1,024px	https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ (light mode)

"<New image for 500 internal server error page>" means a whole-new image please needs to be created to fit into the internal-server-error page.

The splash-background images are used on the main index page, and differ on dark and light modes.  The current versions are versions of the "-original" version, which we modified ourselves, but we appreciate that if someone were to draw new ones they prefer to choose specific colours for the dark and light versions!

Please feel free to send me a PM about this, or to post any redrawn versions here for the community's approval.

[cat]

Great news! I can help testing.

[Dungeonation]

Here's my redraw of features.png!



I can give the full quality image file if approved!

[Babar]

I too would be happy to lend a hand with testing

[Rik_Vargard]

Wow that's looking great !! 
I'd be happy to help testing    

[Gal Shemesh]

Cool! The new website looks very good! I like the new download section. Only wish to note that I just checked the download links and that currently all of them direct to a "404: Whoops! Page Not Found" page.

[AGA]

Thanks to everyone who volunteered so far.  I'll get you added to the testing forum, and @tag you so you get an alert.

Here's my redraw of features.png!



I can give the full quality image file if approved!

Thanks a lot!  I'll just wait for tampie85 to review this too.

Cool! The new website looks very good! I like the new download section. Only wish to note that I just checked the download links and that currently all of them direct to a "404: Whoops! Page Not Found" page.

We never bothered to add the download links, since they aren't really a feature of the site itself.  I've added them for you now though!

[Crimson Wizard]

AGS download links are organized in a table, which is a very good change.

[Gal Shemesh]

We never bothered to add the download links, since they aren't really a feature of the site itself.  I've added them for you now though!

Thanks. I thought it's part of the testing that is worth mentioning, since it didn't work.

[heltenjon]

I can help, if needed.

[edmundito]

Here's my redraw of features.png!



I can give the full quality image file if approved!

Looks great! My only feedback is to put {} instead of </> in the laptop because the </> feels more towards website and AGS script use lots of braces.

[edmundito]

I'm excited to see this come through!

Here's my feedback so far:

- I find the progress bar on the carousel gallery a bit distracting. I'd either go without it or make it more subtle (like a little circle in a corner with a more muted color)
- The login panel could be wider
- Not keen on that "Create / Play / Join" section in the main page. I would get rid of it and make the section "Create your Own Games" should be first
- The navigation should have more focus on using the editor (manual, etc.) - I really like the format for Docusaurus (https://docusaurus.io) or vite (https://vitejs.dev)
- Join on the navigation should be "Community", that's the most common thing I see in other sites
- Discord is missing from the Join page
- The History section could use some updating

Bugs:
- Is the "latest from our forums" correct? The posts are from 9 months ago
- The cookie notice looks very small from a mobile device (too much left and right margin)
- The links in "top creators and contributors" has an extra space inside the hyperlink tag
- When switching to dark mode the logo shifts (maybe because the font outline goes away?)

[RootBound]

Here's my take on requirements.png

[RootBound]

Some positive feedback:

-The site looks amazing on mobile, whereas the previous site was unreadable on mobile. Great work! I really appreciate everything people have done to bring the site into the mobile era. It's really an amazing achievement.

A bug:

-The "Search all games" page returns a 404 on Mobile.

Other comments:

-I too find the progress bar on the game screenshots distracting. Agree with @edmundito about having something less obtrusive.

-On desktop, I feel like the individual games pages are a little bloated. The "Other players rated" and "Share your thoughts" panels add what feels like unnecessary scrolling. I think it would be good if people didn't have to scroll so far down to get to the comments, or to have to scroll some much in general to get to absorb all the available information.

The one benefit of the previous site was that is was easy to very quickly see the the screenshots, description, and comments all together, and to use that to very easily make a decision about whether you're interested in the game.

I wonder if all the awards, ratings, and other panels could be smaller (making the mug illustration in the awards panels display smaller would help with that), and maybe the "other players rated" and "share your thoughts" panels could be combined into one? Maybe the empty vertical space inside each panel above the title of each panel could be removed as well? The more we can minimize scrolling, the more people will pay attention to what's on the screen now instead of wondering what's next.

It just feels like there are a lot of big bubbles, none of which contains much information, even on a game like "If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers" which won lots of awards. Here's a screenshot showing what I feel like is a lot of wasted space. I had to reduce the display size just to fit it all on the screen enough to capture it, and it still feels like 80% empty space.

[AGA]

Here's my take on requirements.png

Looks great!  I had to strip out the white background to make it work a bit better on dark mode.  Please have a look at https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/ now to see if you approve.

A bug:

-The "Search all games" page returns a 404 on Mobile.

What URL does it try to load?  It loads fine for me on mobile, so just trying to pin the issue down...

Thanks for all the other feedback, @edmundito and RootBound, we'll work our way through it!

[tampie85]

Thank you for your feedback so far, really appreciated.

I wonder if all the awards, ratings, and other panels could be smaller (making the mug illustration in the awards panels display smaller would help with that), and maybe the "other players rated" and "share your thoughts" panels could be combined into one? Maybe the empty vertical space inside each panel above the title of each panel could be removed as well? The more we can minimize scrolling, the more people will pay attention to what's on the screen now instead of wondering what's next.

I see what you're saying. The content is very dynamic; there can be anywhere between 2 and 6 sections, and the content of each section can be very short, very long or anything in between. This was the best I could do to make each game look nice.

The History section could use some updating

I based the history section on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Studio . Could you please be a bit more specific about what you think is missing?

Discord is missing from the Join page

On this page https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/join/, it's the third item in the "Other Community Pages" section?

- Is the "latest from our forums" correct? The posts are from 9 months ago

Yes, apologies, we should have mentioned that. The test database is a snapshot taken 9 months ago. You wouldn't see the newest games, nor the newest forum posts. When the site is tested and ready to replace the current one, of course all data will be migrated.

When switching to dark mode the logo shifts (maybe because the font outline goes away?)

That's correct, that's caused by the outline. Both images are exactly the same size and have the same CSS applied to them.

---

We'll look into the rest of the feedback.

[tampie85]

@RootBound and @Dungeonation

Thanks so much for the art! I'd like to credit your work. It'll be similar to the Award Mugs on this page: https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/play/game/1748/

Is it okay if I mention your forum name and link to your forum profile? Or would you rather have me use something else? (e.g. your real name, your personal website, etc.)

[Rik_Vargard]

So I'm not a good technical tester and I can see fellow AGSers doing that quiet well.

But testing the site just as a user who wants to have access on how to learn AGS, it's not that easy to find.
And I mean: Video tutorials. Because we're in 2024.

Perhaps there could be a front page with Create, Play, Join and LEARN

And on the LEARN page there could be a list of Links for the written tutorials, like there's now AND also a part for video tutorials.
Because right now there's only the Densming videos. (Don't get me wrong he's a personal hero of mine)
And these videos are still really relevant in 2024 for the very basic stuff, but become more and more "Formerly known as" in the F1 Documentation.

And also because there ARE new and fresh video tutorials on how to do things in AGS.

Just right now I can think of @jmjm and @Eon_Star, who have the same concept:
(First just quickly they also do tutorials for noobs who never used AGS.)

But their thing is, when they create a game, they release tutorials on how they did it.
If you played their games and are wondering "Hey, how did she/he do that", there's a tutorial for it.
I mean, how amazing is that, right?
I think those video tutorials deserve a place on the website.

That's why I think the website should have one more button : LEARN.
Just a page or a part of the website easely accessible from the start (when you just come to learn) and solely dedicated to the various ways (written or video) to learn AGS, with links to the contributors who create their own tutorials for AGS and for us to enjoy.

Cheers! 

[tampie85]

Thanks @Rik Vargard , that's a really good point.

We currently have this page https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/create/help-support/ , which can be found in the menu under Create > Help & Support.

AGA and I aren't actively developing games, and we don't really know what's out there. Currently it only shows all resources from the current site which still work.

We're more than happy to add/update it with more recent resources.

Can you please share where we can find these video tutorials?

Thanks!