Revolutionary Games Website's Thread

Oliveriver wrote:

Some lot of stuff...

that looks really neat!

It is indeed possible to use the "Welcome to Thrive" section in text while retaining the font and glow on all devices. It's called CSS3 @font-face property. I'm currently working on implementing this and it's not too difficult.

And yes, we are making a decision soon on what to do with the two-website conundrum in order to minimize duplicated work. Be sure to tell us what you all think!

EDIT: Just noticed Oliveriver added my name to the website. Proud. Thanks Oliveriver.

There is one thing i don't understaund. How can you two make the site more awesome everytime i look at it?

However, i dont really like how it says thrive two times at the top. Maybe removing the thrive at the left and making bigger the revolutionary games title? I personally like more the thrive title at the left, but that is probably because it fits better the overall theme. The thrive title at the right is too plain in comparison to all the other page.

Here are a few tips about how to improve the google rating so the page apears at the top when searching for it at google:

The google bot searches for words. Because of that, text is almost always better for positioning.
However, not all text is counted. Invisible text (size 0, exact same colour as background, in a 0 size table cel...) is ignored by google, and most of the times resoults into worst positioning (they penalize you for trying to cheat the system)
If you put an image, the only thing that it can see is its name. Having names such as 1.jpg, 2.jpg doesent help and it is easily avoided.
Page title is hugely important for positioning.
A javascript or similar aplication that shows your page might be fancy, but it is invisible for google. It is almost never advised.
How fast a page loads is also important. Google penalizes pages that are too heavy and take time to load. Another point for text.
Entering links are good for positioning. Placing links to other related pages also help. Probably placing a link at the forum, like the one to ModDB in the read before posting would help. Another one at the ModDB page helps. From the website to all other pages is alredy covered.
If a page has two domains (i.e. http://www.thr... and http://thr...) they are treated separatedly. It is advised to make one of them throw a http response 301 (permanently moved) when accesing one of the domains so everything is using the other domain. That way all positioning from both pages is merged into one.

And that is everything i can think as of now about positioning. Style is a factor that must be taken into acount too, of course.

A quick recap of positioning of thrive as of 10/04/2013 for historic reasons:
A search of "thrive" brings resoults that are not related with the game at all.
A search of "thrive game" resoults in:
Our ModDB page as first resoult, and a similar one at IndieDB as third.
Our wiki at fourth place.
This forum in 6 and 7 positions.
3rd party posts about this projects as positions 2, 8, 9, 10, mostly asking for suport.
A unrelated link as position five.
So far it is good for this specific search, but the website is still not there (it would be strange if it was, it has been out for little time)

Lots of wise words spoken by Daniferrito in the post above mine. That should be taken in account to give the website as much exposure as "easily" possible.

Good work on the website Oliver, it seems already much better than it was. I'm not sure either about the Thive title + logo as Daniferrito pointed. It seems a bit too much and make the page look overloaded. However, I like the logo, and the Title + Revolutionnary games looks good. I'll let you guys decide on the best solution.

Also, I see you are designing with Iexplorer. I'd suggest testing the website with at least chrome(as it is used by 40% of visitors ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers )) when you put it online. Maybe you already do it, but that's just something I wanted to point out.

Wow, a lot of posts here, and the website is looking fantastic! You two are doing an excellent job on this, and I can't praise you enough.

@rodgame- The font looks great, but could be a bit smaller in some places. I will eventually send you a second image for roll-over images. It might be a while though. The solution you have now is great. About spacing of the shards, would it be possible for you to make the bounding box for each image smaller than the image's actual size? That would probably help the rollover bugs, though it would mean that each shard has less total clickable space. There's always a trade-off, but I think the main menu would look even better if the original. Also, could you change the menu borders to black (or transparent) instead of white? I want to see how that would look, and if the shards don't have such distinct borders, people won't notice rollover glitches as much.

The second image, with the thrive logo to the side, looks great as well, though I agree that it looks a bit crowded. Experiment with the layout a little, try some of the suggestions dani (I think) made for it. The planet links are cool, but I don't know if they really fit the site yet.

@Daniferrito-Thanks for that info, that should really help us out.

I could design a less obtrusive menu for the individual pages, that might kill two birds with one stone.

RodGame wrote:

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.

QFT

WilliamstheJohn wrote:

RodGame wrote:

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.

QFT

Don't worry, we're not using two websites anymore. Instead, we've labelled the current ones as prototypes and are beginning work on a more polished version using Expression Engine Core. We've already written about it on the 'Miscellaneous Bugs and Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Thread.'

The latest update for the site is here:
http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

I've changed the links on the home page, preventing anyone from clicking any of them except the link to the music bundle. There have also been some other minor changes, although as for cosmetic changes this will probably be the last until we get EE set up, which won't be for a few weeks yet.

I think we're now good to go for posting the website to ModDB!

The website is completely glitched out on my computer

Can you bi a bit more specific about the exact problem? Maybe even with a screenshot of the actual problem.

It is working fine here.

I was a little surprised to read "to be released shortly" in big bold letters on the website. I only saw the disclaimer at a second glance. People tend to overread stuff like this, so I would rather see something like "Preview bundle to be released shortly", just to make it clearer that it's not the actual game.

untrustedlife wrote:

The website is completely glitched out on my computer

It did glitch out for me one time I looked at it, but the next time I looked at it, it was fine. Are all the images in the wrong place and stretched strangely? That's what happened to me before it sorted itself out.

Nimbal wrote:

I was a little surprised to read "to be released shortly" in big bold letters on the website. I only saw the disclaimer at a second glance. People tend to overread stuff like this, so I would rather see something like "Preview bundle to be released shortly", just to make it clearer that it's not the actual game.

Actually that's a good point. Maybe I should change it to prevent any confusion.

I have revised header images for you. One is just the header with bigger spaces, the other is the rollover images. The site looks fantastic.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

~sciocont wrote:

I have revised header images for you. One is just the header with bigger spaces, the other is the rollover images. The site looks fantastic.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

The second spoiler looks fantastic. Very sexy to the eye

~sciocont wrote:

I have revised header images for you. One is just the header with bigger spaces, the other is the rollover images. The site looks fantastic.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Perfect, although I probably won't use them on the website until the next prototypes/release is published - I'd prefer to do as many changes as possible at once to save me having to re-upload all the files each time.

Oliveriver wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

I have revised header images for you. One is just the header with bigger spaces, the other is the rollover images. The site looks fantastic.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Perfect, although I probably won't use them on the website until the next prototypes/release is published - I'd prefer to do as many changes as possible at once to save me having to re-upload all the files each time.

That's fine by me.

~sciocont wrote:

I have revised header images for you. One is just the header with bigger spaces, the other is the rollover images. The site looks fantastic.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Looks great!
Im now a learner, to. YEAH!

~sciocont wrote:

I have revised header images for you. One is just the header with bigger spaces, the other is the rollover images. The site looks fantastic.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

I don't know. The first one has a beautiful transition and consistency between all the buttons, and the second one has some nice, contrasting colours.

NickTheNick wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

I have revised header images for you. One is just the header with bigger spaces, the other is the rollover images. The site looks fantastic.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

I don't know. The first one has a beautiful transition and consistency between all the buttons, and the second one has some nice, contrasting colours.

The second is the rollover images. So when you roll over "forums" the button will show that picture of our forum header.

Oh, that's awesome! Very neat too.

As there's just been another release on ModDB, I've further updated the site to include it, along with some other small changes:

www.revolutionarygamesstudio.com

As we intend to upload the Expression Engine files to the same domain, it might be worth putting a link to it on ModDB, Facebook and Twitter, as it will still link to a Revolutionary Games website once we have EE set up.

Oliveriver wrote:

As there's just been another release on ModDB, I've further updated the site to include it, along with some other small changes:

www.revolutionarygamesstudio.com

As we intend to upload the Expression Engine files to the same domain, it might be worth putting a link to it on ModDB, Facebook and Twitter, as it will still link to a Revolutionary Games website once we have EE set up.

Looks great. my suggestions for the next update: change white borders to black, remove the green button overlay.

This really suits Thrive, I like it very much! Good design.

Great desing Oliver!
Anyways, funnygames, i just wanted to say godbye again! I hope you will be well.

Quick Update:
There's not much to show on the redone website yet. The shards have proven to be extremely difficult. I'm using HTML5 Canvas, and in doing so that means I need to draw each point on the coordinate plane. If anyone wants to help provide points, just Google how to draw polygons in HTML5 Canvas.

That said, it's that time of the year again, the time when EOCTs (End of Course Tests), AP Exams and Finals clog up my time. I'll still try to work and participate, but I hope y'all understand that school takes a massive priority. I'll be back full force towards the end of the month.

PS: Oliver, you may want to put Google Analytics on the website so we can track traffic. Here's the link.