I Suck At Design - 2020!

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Socoder -> Concept/Design -> I Suck At Design - 2020!
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 05:51
Jayenkai	I Suck At Design Linkage Can anyone take a look at that, and suggest ways to make it look a bit better!?! Anything goes. If you have any ideas, throw them my way. My head's doing that thing where, after having been looking at it for the past month or two, I'm getting "Used" to is, but I KNOW there must be a better way.. .. Mostly because I'm shit at doing this kind of thing! Fling thoughts, and possibly scribbled layout doodles and such.. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 06:06
TKS	Possibly have a carousel kind of thing for the photos? That would help tidy things up.
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 09:08
Dan	Sidebars ? Sidebars !
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 11:11
Pakz	Find references My site is very sucky though : cromdesi.home.xs4all.nl/
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 12:28
cyangames	I could attempt to make a template or something if that'd be of interest for ya? -=-=- Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 12:35
Jayenkai	Don't do anything too complicated. A quick sketch to nudge me in the right direction is usually enough for me!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 12:57
AndyH	White space. Margin: 10px (or so) for content containers and between columns will make an instant world of difference. Spacing in button areas would need playing with to find what is right. Personally, I like to use things like Bootstrap or equivalents for responsive grid layouts (you don't have to go with everything else that comes with it) and this will give you some nice spacing for free. https://getbootstrap.com/ -=-=- Andy H 8-bit games at www.hewco.uk Cartoons at awful.ovine.net Ovine at ovine.net
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 14:36
Jayenkai	Margins have been marginned a bit. (Using the easy to tweak globals at the top of the script.) Moved the "System Buttons" to the sidebar. Seems better, except that now it has a weird feel, like those buttons should do the downloads.. Fuxake.. It's much better like that, though. Sidebar already exists, unless you're in portrait view, then it disappears. I haven't yet moved the Search functionality into the main page yet, though, so is completely inaccessible when in portrait view. Booo!!! No Sidebars = Teh Suxorz!! As for having a carousel.. Personally I hate the bloody things. They keep swooping about, and are either too slow and never show all the stuff whilst in view, and are therefore useless, or are too fast, and flick away what you're looking at as you're halfway through deciding if you should bother clicking it, resulting in your clicking the wrong thing, and are therefore uselss. Kill them... Kill them with a big sharp pointy thing.. (Do I have any of those?!!) -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 14:41
cyangames	I concur with regards to carousels. Had a little play with some re-styling, hopefully it keeps close to the a game a week theme with regards to colour scheme, etc. Far from a finished idea, some colours are a bit off, e.g. platdudes spech bubble, more social icons, missing icons in submenus, etc but you get the gist of it. -=-=- Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 15:06
Jayenkai	Nice colourscheme, seems ok, but is missing the "last few new games" up top. Since I added those, page views have grown quite a lot.. people click to see old games, and are enticed by the fresh ones up top!!! It's certainly much less cluttered, though. I'll have a play and see what turns up. Thanks for the prod -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 15:08
cyangames	No worries hope it helps
Mon, 08 Jun 2020, 16:41
Jayenkai	A quick start. Already a fairly big difference, just from playing with the colours/borders.. Thankyou distant ascii hugs Plenty of nips and tucks and moves and shuffling to be done, but as a quick start, that's looking much better. Gonna have to redraw all my icons again, though. .. ugh.. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 09 Jun 2020, 07:10
Jayenkai	Slowly but surely.. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 09 Jun 2020, 07:29
cyangames	Ohhh, I'm biased but yeah, mee likey
Fri, 12 Jun 2020, 06:42
Jayenkai	New site layout is now live, thanks eternally to Rychan for all the help. Feel free to leave thoughts/comments/grumbles/complaints/etc, and I'll gather up comments for a blog post, later tonight. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Wed, 17 Jun 2020, 17:20
Jayenkai	I've now started work on a new Asset Generator. Basic gist, a simple javascript page that takes a bunch of assets for a game (Screenshots, Icon, Logo) and uses them to make further assets. For the past couple of days, I've been working on one single bloomin thing. A new DVD Case asset. Screenshots in the background, logo on the top, clearer screenshots for the back page, a small caption, and the icon. Basic DVD Case template over the top of everything. Job done.. I need to neaten up the back a bit, and probably not have those garish coloured sections.. But, as a first test, it's coming out ok.. I think!! I'm hoping to get the script to generate 3DS/2DS Cases as well as those old Paper Arcade Cabinets that I used to make, and maybe some extra stuff, too. .. If I can find the artistic talent to make anything! Things I'm going to have to do. 1. Rewrite longer blurbs for my games, instead of always doing one-liner's! 2. Create logos & icons for my older games. Everything from about 2010 and earlier doesn't have a logo on the site. 3. Extra screenshots. 4. PDF conversion so people can easily print them off. Seems viable, though, so.. Yeah, just a fuckton of work to get it all up and running. Simples!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 02 Jul 2020, 07:46
Jayenkai	Gawd, has it really been that long since I started this!?! FFS, I've hardly done a thing, although I have at least attempted a couple of "Proper Game Cover" boxart things.. Still not done building the generator, yet, never mind all the damn redoing of the Archive, just new ones!! I thought I had it making nice PDF's a couple of days ago, but today's cassette addition proved that to be completely incorrect. Fuckity.. Print these at 300dpi, if you can find a good art tool to let you do that, and they should fit snuggly. The Asset Generator can now create.. 1. DVD Case 2. Switch Case 3. Cassette J-Card Things to Note 1. I REALLY need to populate the text areas of my site. Short + Sweet doesn't cut it when trying to fill up the blurb on the back of a box! 2. I could definitely do with adding new Controls to all my games once I start the redo, then fitting those somewhere.. 3. Probably add "Available On" systems to the thing, but that'll require loading up a few additional assets for everything. 4. .. And then go through ALL the games, and add logos and icons and "Cover art" to them all, one by one. I should probably add more types, too. DS/3DS are a definite, and I'd really like to get my old Paper Arcade cabinets back up and running. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sat, 04 Jul 2020, 07:47
Jayenkai	Scaling an image to print at the right size has been a right pain in the arse. Last night, I lay awake trying to figure out the maths. .. I was TRYING to sleep, but my head kept going "Inches.. .. Millimeters.. Inches.. Pixels. Maths!!" Eventually I got to this stage. *Size_In_mm=Size_In_Pixels(25.4/Dots_Per_Inch)** Do it for both Width and Height, and you'll have the exact size that your image oughta be printed out at. .. Assuming, of course, you had the image at the right size, with the correct DPI, to begin with! End result : Those PDF are working much better, now. .pdf version -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 17 Jul 2020, 04:55
Jayenkai	Still working on this in the background. Last night I added little Gift Envelopes to the mix, because.. why not!! Quite challenging wrapping my head around the images so that they meet up where the two back-flaps join. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 21 Jul 2020, 18:30
Jayenkai	Lots of background work, today. It's coming together nicely. https://agameaweek.com/AssetMaker/index.html?Create=SwitchCase&Game=678 -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''