Revolutionary Games Website's Thread

Looks very good! I'm enjoying the progress for this.

~sciocont wrote:

Could you send me a picture showing how it's off-center? That way I know how to fix it. Also, do you need the gaps fixed in this one, or were you referring to the one on the website now?

I've managed to find a way to use the Internet (although I'm typing on an iPod keyboard so this may go wrong)! As a result, I can't send you a picture, although the main problem is simply that the centre two shards aren't positioned in the exact centre of the image. This means I either have to move the entire menu but have the shards at either end jut out different amounts relative to the text, or centre the image as a whole but have the central two shards (home and Facebook) off centre. Since the logo is above this and is also centred, it emphasises the fact that the shards in the centre aren't actually central on the page. That's about as good an explanation as I can give without access to the file, so if you're still unsure I'm afraid you'll have to wait until I get back. As for the distance between the shards, I was referring to the new image, as the old one didn't have parts of a picture within the shards and so could be moved around without disrupting anything.

@Oliveriver, you can take a screenshot on iOS by hitting the home and lock buttons simultaneously. It'll be saved to your camera roll in the photos app. If you are using iOS 6, you can upload your photo using the "Choose from library..." option.

I believe he means this:

Spoiler:

The white line marks the center. The two central shards are a bit to the left. However, if he moves the whole image to the right, there is a gap at the left.

I hope that is it. Tell otherwhise if it isnt, Oliveriver.

Thanks, Daniferrito. I'll just trim some pixels here and there and this should come out fine.

Here's the centered version, with larger gaps.

Spoiler:

~sciocont wrote:

Thanks, Daniferrito. I'll just trim some pixels here and there and this should come out fine.

Here's the centered version, with larger gaps.

Spoiler:

woow

Really nice work! I like it!

~sciocont wrote:

Thanks, Daniferrito. I'll just trim some pixels here and there and this should come out fine.

Here's the centered version, with larger gaps.

Spoiler:

That should be perfect. Thanks. Sorry I couldn't reply yesterday, I didn't have time.

Oliveriver wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Thanks, Daniferrito. I'll just trim some pixels here and there and this should come out fine.

Here's the centered version, with larger gaps.

Spoiler:

That should be perfect. Thanks. Sorry I couldn't reply yesterday, I didn't have time.

No problem. Say hello to France for me.

As part of my never-ending quest towards perfection, I have made solid progress on merging the two website prototypes. Over the past two days, I added a "What is Thrive" and "FAQ" section to my prototype, adding much needed content to the website. You can view the latest version at WJacobC.com/Thrive. I'm still hard at work and in discussion with Oliveriver with how to round off the corners and finish the merging of the designs into a finished product.

Let me know what y'all think of the new changes and the design in general, we need your input!
WJacobC.com/Thrive

I got an error 404 when trying to join the site.

Tried it in any possible way (http://, www...) but I can't get it.

I'd like to say congrats to everyone working on the site. It looks amazing and was needed!

Same here rod, same error.

here's the link

~sciocont wrote:

here's the link

It looks pretty good.

Sincerest apologies, the proper link is WJacobC.com/thrive in lowercase. Thanks for your input WilliamsTheJohn and thanks for clearing that up, ~sciocont.

RodGame wrote:

I got an error 404 when trying to join the site.

Tried it in any possible way (http://, www...) but I can't get it.

I'd like to say congrats to everyone working on the site. It looks amazing and was needed!

Or were you referring to my prototype? In which case, it's here:
www.revolutionarygamesstudio.com

Oh, and hello again everyone. I'm back from France, and now I feel guilty for not doing any work on the site for a couple of days.

No Oliveriver, it was my prototype with the broken link. Which, by the way, I just updated. Also, don't feel guilty, there wasn't a whole lot of work to be done.

I was looking for WJacobC one.

For comparaison/criticism sake, I find that Oliveriver's design is really nice and fit the thrive arts I have in mind.

However, I usually, and it is my personnal opinion that you can agree/disagree with, prefer simple, straightforward website with plain menu at top/border. I don't like how the menu take half the page when you click on a link, you always need to scroll down. Also, text is too big IMO. If I don't zoom out, it feel really disagreeable to read.

WJacobC feel easier/more pleasant to browse to me for the reason pointed above.

I think a good solution that would give good result, would be to have a website design in WJacobC's direction, with some kind of Index/Splash Screen with the main menu of Oliveriver. All of Oliveriver's website button would be available in the top bar of WJacobC website. When you first join the site, you have the nice design of Oliveriver's website to choose the page you want.

It would be nice to settle on a design to avoid you guys doing too much duplicated work. You should work together as it will give a better result.

Also, don't feel guilty Oliverriver, we all have our life and it is a free project. You can give what you can give when you can give it. Just keep working on it and we'll all be happy!

Thanks, RodGame! Yes, we are working together and are collaborating literally as I post this. We're currently deciding how to merge the two designs and we might have a few tricks up our sleeves. I'm currently working on recreating the shards in HTML5 canvas, and I should have a result by the end of the week. Rest assured the final website will look great when we are done, and thanks for your input!

And by the way, you can just call me Jacob

I've updated the website slightly with some of the suggestions on this thread:
www.revolutionarygamesstudio.com

Please be warned that the music bundle link on the home page does not yet work as the music bundle isn't accessible at the moment, so don't worry about it.

I've tried to update the colour scheme a little, with a new background and light green (the green used for much of the text on the forum, actually) being used instead of blue for links. I had to edit the shape of the Facebook shard in the header slightly to save space, although now the Facebook icon isn't central, so I'll need ~sciocont to move it around a little if everyone's okay with the shape of it. Also, ~scio, your suggestion of having the icons of the pages appear when the links are moused over is feasible, the only problem being that I'm not sure what icons or screenshots you want. For the moment, the links are simply green-tinted when moused over.

Calibri wasn't a web-safe font and could only be downloaded from font servers for a price, so I decided upon Lucida Sans for the font instead, which I think looks just as good and is certainly better than the previous font, which I believe was Georgia.

That little update's cleared up a couple of suggestion's I've received, but WJacobC and I are currently working to combine both our websites together in some way. At the moment, the main problem is that there are two websites displaying the same information, so our current thinking is that maybe we should use them for different purposes or audiences. For instance, one could be dedicated to fans who want to find out information about how the game will work, when it will be released, etc. The other could be a news service, showing updates on all things that would interest developers and fans alike. Feel free to give any suggestions as to what the different functions of our websites could be.

Oliveriver wrote:

I've updated the website slightly with some of the suggestions on this thread:
www.revolutionarygamesstudio.com

Please be warned that the music bundle link on the home page does not yet work as the music bundle isn't accessible at the moment, so don't worry about it.

I've tried to update the colour scheme a little, with a new background and light green (the green used for much of the text on the forum, actually) being used instead of blue for links. I had to edit the shape of the Facebook shard in the header slightly to save space, although now the Facebook icon isn't central, so I'll need ~sciocont to move it around a little if everyone's okay with the shape of it. Also, ~scio, your suggestion of having the icons of the pages appear when the links are moused over is feasible, the only problem being that I'm not sure what icons or screenshots you want. For the moment, the links are simply green-tinted when moused over.

Calibri wasn't a web-safe font and could only be downloaded from font servers for a price, so I decided upon Lucida Sans for the font instead, which I think looks just as good and is certainly better than the previous font, which I believe was Georgia.

That little update's cleared up a couple of suggestion's I've received, but WJacobC and I are currently working to combine both our websites together in some way. At the moment, the main problem is that there are two websites displaying the same information, so our current thinking is that maybe we should use them for different purposes or audiences. For instance, one could be dedicated to fans who want to find out information about how the game will work, when it will be released, etc. The other could be a news service, showing updates on all things that would interest developers and fans alike. Feel free to give any suggestions as to what the different functions of our websites could be.

Love it!

anyway u need other parts for translation?

Fantastic work! This looks awesome, and yes we are discussing how to either combine the websites or have them display different information, so any opinions on that would be great.

@Doggit, anything you can translate would be awesome!

Oliveriver wrote:

That little update's cleared up a couple of suggestion's I've received, but WJacobC and I are currently working to combine both our websites together in some way. At the moment, the main problem is that there are two websites displaying the same information, so our current thinking is that maybe we should use them for different purposes or audiences. For instance, one could be dedicated to fans who want to find out information about how the game will work, when it will be released, etc. The other could be a news service, showing updates on all things that would interest developers and fans alike. Feel free to give any suggestions as to what the different functions of our websites could be.

I would argue against having two different website. I don't think it serve any other purpose than duplicating work and confuse the fans when they'll realize there are two website. It is a good way to prototype, but it shouldn't make it at the end. Like we have two prototype done, we won't make two Thrive Game for different purposes.

I'd suggest moving the Thrive logo on one of the side and raise the menu as close as possible to top of the page. Menu design could even be flattened a bit. This way you would always have information available when you click a link without having to scroll down. I don't like how all you see is the same menu everytime you click on a link.

I still think that font are too big. It's not a pleasant read. I like how menu now as mouseHover effect(I don't think it was there before). It give a nice feeling when you search for a link and you instatly know where you are(because of the one who is permantly colored). But it lacks a bit of fluidity on my side when I use chrome. It's pretty strange, sometime the mouse Hover effect is instantaneous, sometimes it takes a lot of time. It's a good start, but it should be worked up to give a better feeling when it make it to the end.

Same for the planets at the bottom of the Home Page. It's nice and fit with Thrive but isn't really fluid when I use it.

All-in-all, good work! I'm glad to see website getting nicer and nicer! Remember that my comment is intended to be constructive criticism from my point of view. Don't get offended by anything I said or will eventually say.

---------------------------

About the translation things, before we start to make any kind of translation, you guys should implement a language mechanism that would only take text from a database depending on the language and put it on screen. It would allow to have severent different language without hardcoding the text into different pages. We have a lot of different language speaker who would like to translate text in a lot of language. We should ease the process as much as possible to get access to a broader audience.

I think it shouldn't be too hard to implement this with php/SQL. Quick search lead me to this which seems quite powerful ( http://www.joomfish.net/ )

I also dont like the thrive logo taking so much vertical space. It is the same as here, whenever you go into a thread, there is no important information at the screen, only about 3 lines of the first post (in my screen)

Other than that, i have somewhat the same problem as rodgame with the images not iluminating properly. However, in my case it is only on the download link, and only when i enter the planet from the bottom right.

All the text should be text fith format, not images of text. I'm speaking about the "Welcome to thrive create your universe" parts. That way, the google bot can process them as well. Or rename the images to what they say, that would help a bit if formated text is not enough.

The website looks amazing.

I think I'll probably move the logo to the left of the screen, allowing the header to move upwards, taking up less space. As for the links not illuminating properly, if it's the header links it's probably due to their proximity to each other. I asked ~scio to move the shards apart a little, although it seems they may have a rectangular area around them which is clickable, meaning it thinks you are still hovering over one link when in fact you are over another. As for the download link, the problem is probably the image of the rings in front of it, which prevents the planet below from being clickable where the rings cross it.

The text of the titles could be turned into text rather than a graphic, but the font they use isn't widely installed, and the glow around them would also disappear. I can rename images, though, so I'll set their names to what they say. The font size, meanwhile, is easily changeable, although the optimal size should probably be discussed before implementing it.

The thing with having two websites is that neither WJacobC or I want our previous work to go to waste. It is possible, however, to upload anything WJacobC works on to my website, so if necessary we could scrap the entire idea of two websites and concentrate on different sections of a single one, maybe someone working on text while the other does images, or even both of us working on different images and objects.

Don't be afraid to give us criticism - if we want the website to be as good as possible we need it.

EDIT: I've been messing around with the design a bit, and here's a screenshot of the (as yet inaccessible) home page without having to scroll down:

Spoiler:

I think you'll agree it's much better when the logo doesn't take up so much room and the header is at the top of the page. I've also decreased the text size slightly, although that's not evident in a screenshot.