Messages

Honestly, I would have thought you are. To my untrained eye at least, this doesn't look any less professional than what commercial engines use for their websites.

That's a massive compliment, thank you 

The splash page indeed looks odd on some devices. I'll see what I can do.

In general; keep reporting things that look odd. I'll do my best to please as many people as possible and try to make it look good on the most popular browsers/devices/resolutions.
I'm not a professional designer/developer and therefore my skills are limited.

For edge cases I have to see whether I'm able to do it without sacrificing anything for the majority of users and the effort it takes.
For example, approximately 0.02% of AGS visitors uses a mobile phone in landscape mode.

Regarding the missing screenshots: this might be an issue with my phone, as other people don't have problems here. Does the widget do any caching/preloading/fancy js?

Yes, due to the advanced requests  (video support, miniatures, zoom, expand to full screen, etc.) from the community we now use an advanced library.

For me it does this even in portrait (Safari, iPhone SE1, so old small screen). In landscape it goes right down to the first ‘learn more’ button.

Is this what you see on your phone? Just double checking I'm looking at the right device:
https://imgur.com/a/btDPD2n

* The screenshot widget with changing picks does not work on my phone with duckduckgo browser - there is just a white space instead

What page is that? And what OS? I just tried it on homepage and the play landingspage with duckduckgo browser on Android and I don't see what you mean?

I think the correct is to use just AGS or Adventure Game Studio

You are right, sorry. It'll be called AGS in the next release of the design.

I think it's essential to display what we call a "friendly version name", that is - 3 digit version and a tag (e.g. patch) like 3.5.0 P10 or 3.5.0 Patch 10, with the date of the latest update.

That makes total sense, thank you. In the next release of the design I'll call it "3.5.0 Patch 10".

Hi,

As you might have seen I'm working on a new design for the website and some feedback I got is to display the version (and the release date) more prominent.

What I currently designed is to only have the main release number (3.5.0) everywhere; menu, breadcrumbs, landing page, etc.
E.g. : https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ags-engine.php

When you actually go to the downloads section, I have included the exact patch number (3.5.0 - Patch 10).
https://new-site.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ags-engine.php#downloads (click on windows)

I did this because it looks aesthetically nicer.

Is this acceptable, or is it a must have to show the patch number everywhere throughout the site for clarity?

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

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?

Thanks for all the compliments on the design so far, really means a lot!

I would like to suggest of having an agile approach and working with a small group of enthusiasts to get the new design in.

Snarky, I think it'd be amazing if you could dive into the personas, user journeys and collate all the great feedback that's already been given here. That should give an idea about flows/navigation and content.

Based on that we should have a few lists.
- What to keep and optimise.
For example the comments made on the rating system, if we can simplify, let's go for it. If it's adding a relatively large functionality let's do it after initial release. And by all means let's make sure that content is relevant and in order of importance (like on the games page voting might be more important than about, as suggested)

- What to move (e.g. to the Wiki). Let's move/copy this while the new website is being developed.

- What to remove. Just make sure that it doesn't appear anymore on the new design.

- What to add. For example, I really like Snarky's idea of favourites, and I can imagine a list of "already played " and "want to play" or something like that can help too. Those ideas can go on a list of improvements after initial release of the new site?

As a project group, I'd suggest:
- Everyone can give feedback, the more the better.
- Snarky, as mentioned I'd love you to use your experience and tools for the analysis.
- I'll do the web design and AGA will do the programming.
- It'd be great if someone could help with writing content (e.g. for the ags engine page) and someone to make relevant images. But we can work around that if noone wants to.
- It'd be great if we have some testers, AGA and I have testing experience, but I'd rather have some fresh eyes.
- If someone wants to work on something independent that can just be embedded, just propose it.

Does that make sense? I just would like to avoid that we aim for perfect and that it takes years before a first release.

[Edit:]

Just to warn you all, someone is working on a mock up of a redesign, so please nobody else start on one!

That's me I didn't want to put my name down, until I was sure that I could deliver something decent. So I've made a few mock up pages in a fresh and completely responsive design:

• Homepage: [INVALID_LINK]
• Games page: [INVALID_LINK]
• AGS Engine: [INVALID_LINK]
• Community Page:[INVALID_LINK]

A few remarks:

• The mock-ups have only been tested in Chrome and Firefox on a desktop and a phone. If we go ahead with this I make sure it also looks good on other devices/browsers, including tablets.
• All images and URLs are placeholders
• The mock ups only show what an anonymous user sees, admin/logged in user functionalities are not included
• For the games page, I used Heroine's Quest as inspiration. It is by no means a one-to-one copy of that page
• I appreciate not all information on the current website is up to date, so my mock-ups might include outdated info, but that's easy to update later
• I added the logged in user menu to the engine page

This is strictly about the basic design and lay-out, not about the content. I did my best to stay as close to the current design as possible.

One massive added value is that AGA and I can work closely together on connecting the frontend to the backend and it's very unlikely I go AWOL for a long time 

Spoiler

For the ones who don't know ... I'm his wife

[close]

[/s]

Please let me know what you think. Is this a style we should go ahead with?

Edit:

You can find the latest version of the new design here:

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

Release notes for the redesign can be found in the menu under community > TEMP: Redesign Release Notes.

Please keep posting your feedback and comments here, I might not respond, but I read everything and try to incorporate it in the design.

Thanks!

AGA and I are safely back home. We had a great time! Thank you Disco, Esseb, snarky, yamipanda, Privateer Puddin' and 2ma2 for the great company.

Here are some of my pictures:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1476698862392533.1073741863.100001572990822ype=1&l=e3b17b39b2

Quiz results and prizes

Thanks! It's such a pity that you won't be there this year!

Did I miss out on something last year?
Can't remember anything out of the ordinary, except for the item M0ds found in the shower.

No worries, AGA's crafted a special tiny diaper he likes to use.

The pigeon gets one too.

But... but... what about the fun of trying to visit attractions that might not even exist anymore!

Oh of course! How could I forget about that?
Being up to date and digital is soooo 2013.
I'll bring my Nokia 3310!

[Dixit]

I thought I might bring some board/card games; Small World, Resistance and that weird plasticine game have been hits at past Mittenses. But since they can be kind of bulky I can only take one or two, so I thought I'd ask attendees if they have a preference between:

Dixit (picture card game, creativity and psychology involved, very good)
Dominion (fantasy strategy card game, also very good)
Ticket to Ride (railroad building game, also also very good)
Monopoly (you know... Monopoly)
Dune (complicated strategy war game, supposed to be good, but never actually played)
Resistance (card bluffing game, played last Mittens)
Evolution (creature-building card game, only played a couple of times, felt a bit unbalanced)

It'd be fun to have a chance to try out Dune; I've never been able to find people willing to spend a day on it.

I really liked resistance last year. Monopoly isn't really my favourite too, since it takes ages.
Therefore I think I won't like Dune too, but you never know. Dixit seems interesting.
Besides that I don't really have a preference.

Plus she lent me a totally up to date 2007/8 Lisbon city guide.

I have TripAdvisor City guides on my phone (same one I used for AdvX London sight seeing), which has an offline city guide of Lisbon.
It contains restaurants, hotels, attractions, suggested itineraries, nightlife, shopping and tours/tickets.
Might be a nice addition

Arj0n, AGA and me are indeed renting a car.
Basic ahopping seems to be a good idea.
The fish place is looking good, but since Arjon is allergic to eat sea food, we might have to split up and to to a restaurant where they also serve things other than fish.

What are hipers?

I think you are right Snarky.
I never have been to Lisbon before, but I made above list for a planned company trip which got cancelled.

Based on your comments my preference would be to combine 1 and 4, visit 2 too amd skip 3, since it seems out of direction of the other 2 places and less interesting.