Topic: AGS Website Redesign

[Ali]

Well done tampie85! The new design looks great!

The registration: At least some bar to entry, please, keep out the riff-raff, haha. When I registered in 2016 I was surprised there was a test but thought it was funny. There were a few minutes of ranting from my partner when he registered, however. Maybe an 'introduce yourself/why AGS' requirement, and as has already been suggested, a brief probationary period with limited posting capabilities.

Obviously, we don't want spam on the forums. But I've never seen the value in making a niche genre any more exclusive than it already is. I think the days of people downloading AGS because they're trying to make Tomb Raider are long gone.

[tampie85]

Thanks everyone for the (positively) overwhelming feedback and compliments!

You can find the ongoing frontend development (with dummy data) here:

https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/

I won't post an update here every time something changes, but I added a temporary link to the community drop down called "TEMP: Redesign release notes", so you can see what has been changed since you last visited the page. Please keep commenting your feedback here, I might not respond, but I read all your feedback and try to incorporate it.


One thing I'd like to address now is the simplified voting system: https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games-detail.php .

You now see the player rating has a new section called "Your Rating".

The example shows that the player has already voted on this game. When he/she wants to update the vote for whatever reason, just click on the cup and the rating/date will be updated.
The alternative is that the player hasn't voted. All cups will be inactive and the subtitle says "You haven't voted on this game yet".

What do you think?

[eri0o]

This is the quickest design to implementation I have ever seen and I am finding it amazing! 

Precisely when loading it's possible that 3 arrows are too much arrows.

Spoiler: ShowHide

[tampie85]

I see what you mean!

Is it better like this? Removed the arrows on mobile, kept them on tablet/desktop (not visible on the demo site yet)

https://imgur.com/a/5KrRD7D

[eri0o]

It is better! thanks! 

[RickJ]

The landing page should highlight the three most amazing AGS features, what ever they may be.  For example:

• Play - Hundres of free games available
• Make - Create your first game in minutes
• Join - Great community support

Have two minute videos illustrating each of the three aspects.  People would rather watch than read, especially on mobile.

I found AGS while searching for something else.  It sounded interesting, so I downloaded it (DOS version ) and had a demo game going in about 10 minutes.  The ease and simplicity is what hooked me and I think that's what will hook others  of all stripes.

[Cassiebsg]

I like the front page/splash. I agree with eri0o that those arrows on the orange buttons are redundant, also on desktop not just on mobile.

But I must say that I dislike how the games page is setup/displayed. The text is too big,  once I get to the Feedback area my brain tells me "it's spam, skip" or "page has ended, now comes the spam..."... I miss the gold and blue cups. The soft blue cups don't pop-up and can almost be overlooked. Nice idea with the easy "you have voted/not voted yet" option. 

Is there anyway, that we can keep a "preferred theme" for registered users? So we can choose the old layout or the new? (Just on the games pages, I really like how compact and all the info was right there, even though it could benefit visually with some alignment on the sections.

Right now, from the forum, clicking om AGS Games takes me to a page where everything I need to know is. Newest games, links to sorting new games, newest reviews, etc. And there's virtually no scrolling. I realize that this is probably not a good design for mobile though (I wouldn't know, sine I don't own a smart phone), but works perfectly for me. The new page seems fresh and new, but like many have stated there's too much scrolling huge font and too much empty wasted space. I  guess I belong to the dinosaur class... 

I basically just use the forum (please don't change it, it's one of the few that still works good) and the AGS Games->Game page. For the rest I agree that they need a fresh design, easiness to navigate and find resources, and of course remove all those dead links. So keep up the awesome work on those. 

[AGA]

The old theme will not remain selectable.  There will need to be a lot of redesign and restructuring in the backend, and I'm not willing to double the time and effort to apply all those changes to the old version of the site, as well as maintaining it going forward.

[Cassiebsg]

Ok, fair enough.

So my suggestion for the game page, for desktop view anyway, to split the screen into 4 "panes", the top left is just fine as is right now, with the image, I would move the video (if available) there as well. One could eventually click on it and it would replace the image space to play the video, while the screenshost become a small icon where the video was(?). The top right size is also fine as is, with the game info, just slightly smaller text. Below the image/video, on the lower left place the about, and eventually the game rating, and on the lower right the comments. And though... if there are many comments then the "pane" should either be scroll-able, or move it to under... and there there would be 5 sections, instead of 4.... it that case the lower panes could be: About, Rating and bellow the Comments?

[Danvzare]

Is there anyway, that we can keep a "preferred theme" for registered users? So we can choose the old layout or the new? (Just on the games pages, I really like how compact and all the info was right there, even though it could benefit visually with some alignment on the sections.

I still prefer the previous layout. The one before this current one that we've had for years. 
That being said, there's probably no need to worry about the layout changing for the worse. We aren't talking about the people who work at deviantArt here (first they changed to a terrible logo, then they changed to a terrible and broken website). Chances are the new AGS website will be just as good if not slightly better.

[cat]

A bit more feedback:

Start page:

• With the new design, I think the logo should be updated as well. The styles currently don't match.
• Please remove the arrows from the buttons. Alternatively if you decide to keep them, make them point down, because they will make you scroll down.
• Instead of the watermark style screenshot in the background, you could use the studio screenshot for the "Create" section and another pic (maybe a collage of different games or a random game) for "Play"
• I think we should get rid of the "Best rated games" section. Either replace them with a random sample of games with say, at least 5 awards, or even better, with the Pick of the Month
• The hover effect in the AGS features section suggests that there is a meaningful interaction, but there is none. Remove the hover effect.
• Recent forum messages: Using bold orange for all three lines makes it hard to distinguish. Make the "In:" and "By:" (less important information) black or gray, use a smaller font or similar.

Games overview page:

• I don't like the AGS Award Winners section, it statically lists always the same commercial games. What about selecting a random list of award winners?
• Same for Most Popular Games - they are all old and not necessarily the best.
• Maybe make a list with random commercial and another with random freeware games instead?

Download page:

• AGS Resources, Insta-Game, SCI Fonts (even stating that you commit copyright violations!), AGS Font Editor should go on a wiki page. This is all too outdated for a front page.
• The "Download" section should be right below the "AGS 3.5.0 Patch 10" box, before the features.

Game detail page:

• Especially on mobile, it takes ages to scroll to the description and the comments. The description text should be right below the infobox with the screenshot. The video could be added to the slideshow of screenshots like with Steam (but make it last, not first). The rating and awards could be added to the info box next to the screenshots with a link to details.
• I like that you got rid of the symbols elswhere, please also remove the pics in "Feedback" section, they add no value and cause more scrolling on mobile.
• Panel rating and pick of the month are two separate things.

• Play - Hundres of free games available
• Make - Create your first game in minutes
• Join - Great community support

I think adding "Join" is a great idea!



I love how this is shaping up!

[Ponch]

I think the days of people downloading AGS because they're trying to make Tomb Raider are long gone.

Still waiting for the "Make My Game" button to work properly. 

Nice work on this redesign so far. 

[Hobbes]

I really like the new redesign, just took a peek at the live "ongoing" development area. I think it'll be a massive step forward once it goes live and can really help to draw more people in.

I do think a "News" section (editable through the wiki perhaps, as AGS mentioned, by some select individuals) would be very valuable. It'll help with SEO as well and can be a nice area to write short articles when new AGS version are launched or there's big community news to announce.

I like the new Games page, I was wondering if it's possible to increase the size of screenshots when you go fullscreen on the viewer? Right now the viewer takes up the whole browser window but the screenshots remain quite small.

Again, perhaps a similar database under "Create" for AGS plugins/modules using the same backend as the Games database. It'll help people upload their modules/plugins, update them and for user ranking to help with sorting them.

Looking forward to what updates happen next!

And ETA on the responsive layout for the forums? I decided to go small with my iPhone 12 Mini last year and really love the fact this phone fits in my pocket without any struggle.

Thank you to both AGA and tampie85 to do all this work on the site - things are looking great!!

[AGA]

Don't hold your breath for a responsive theme.  There are a lot of custom fuctions in our forum that would need to be applied, in addition to any styling work.  I have installed a theme called "Ant's Mutant Curve", which is available to select now, if you really want something responsive.  But as I say, a lot of custom functionality will be gone!

[javixblack]

Dark mode, it's all I want.

[milkanannan]

Dark mode, it's all I want.

I would appreciate this, too. I think the mods could easily activate a dark theme option in the back end and then us users could get to it via Settings > Profile > Look and layout.

[AGA]

It's not as easy as you seem to think to create a dark theme. I could install an off the shelf version, sure, but again it wouldn't have any of the custom functionality people are used to. Creating a new theme takes quite a lot of time and effort!

[Hobbes]

...Trying out the Ants-thingy theme... I completely get your point and absolutely no rush on this! It's working really well and saving my eyesight on my phone, but yes, it is definitely missing lots of custom stuff. Thanks for getting it started though, as I said, my eyes thank you!

[AGA]

Dark mode, it's all I want.

I would appreciate this, too. I think the mods could easily activate a dark theme option in the back end and then us users could get to it via Settings > Profile > Look and layout.

I've installed a dark theme called UX.  But again, this will strip out all of the custom functionality you get with the normal forum theme.

[arj0n]

Nice stuff. One small nice-to-have:

Overview page:
As many titles are cut-off cause they are often too long for a tile, it would be nice to have a tooltip showing the full forum thread title when hovering over a tile in the 'THE LATEST FROM OUR FORUMS' section. Or have wider tiles and move the 'OTHER COMMUNITY CHANNELS' and the 'DONATE TO THE AGS COMMUNITY' sections below the 'THE LATEST FROM OUR FORUMS' tiles