RIGHT. Redirection. Site Design. Ultima.

In reverse, order let us begin.

Mega dons glasses and examines his notes.

Right. I played Ultima IV for the first time a few days ago. Nice little game, even with the dated graphics (Proving that you don't require fancy art to enjoy a game). I actually prefer the PC version over the NES version, even though the latter has music and Final Fantasy styled sprites.

Before you ask, yes, I have played other games in the Ultima series (Notably Ultima V, Ultima VI, and Ultima Underworld I).

But as I mentioned before, elsewhere, most of my time right now has been taken up by my first web design contract. I must thank Josea for that link to w3fools. I'm indebted to you, because without the Opera Web Standards Curriculum and the MDN, I wouldn't have managed to get this site's front end into serviceable order.

Turns out that I'm great at the PHP side of things, and JavaScript is a piece of cake, but tell me to make an HTML page look pretty and I'll implode.

I spent most of the week fighting with IE <insert version here>. Discovered that all I had to do in order to get it to cooperate was add a correct DOCTYPE. Which I summarily did, and I am now happy.

Anyways, here's a pic of the prototype of the site:

Feel free to rail me about the visual design; I don't mind. I need all the help I can get with that. Being a mildly successful artist doesn't make one an idea candidate for Web Design, and then there's the whole case of Accessibility and IA. Bah, more stuff to study…

Oh, that boat in the center photograph? That's my grandfather's. Yes, that's a shot of the river in my town. I needed test data (The restaurant is just about behind where I was standing; the owner doesn't want to upload shots of the restaurant, he wants to take shots of the wildlife, the sunrise, sunset, etc). That picture (And the text on the page) can all be modified via the management panel I created (Designed to be newb friendly, but secure).

Well, there we go. Work. I can't believe how much time I spent on this; I'm still new at web development, considering that I pushed it down into the pile of things I thought to be not-so-challenging. Wish I hadn't done that…

Redirection

Far from being anything to do with the type of redirection that involves one's internet browser, often via an HTML header string or JavaScript, I'm focusing on the new direction I'm taking with the competition.

Yeah, I'm rebooting my design again. I suck, don't I? :3

Don't count on it. I'll have something great by the end of this, once I figure out what it'll be.

I'll come clean and admit it openly: The art for Arbiter is frightening me. It's currently standing as proof that I'll never be able to stand the pressure of being an artist in a deadline situation. I need to scale down, and focus on gameplay.

But for that, I decided not to go the platformer route, but instead go back to a type of game I love to play, but have never really dabbled enough with before: The classic console RPG.

C++ is still the language, and I have my existing framework to work with (Meaning that all the technical stuff has been taken care of already).

So basically, I'm planning on using my existing 'world' and story. I'm also planning on using Final Fantasy IV style midgets, because I can :3

The battle system is the only major decision I have to make: Do I use a Final Fantasy style system? Dragon Warrior? Ultima?

I'm not considering LoZ, because action sequences mean more sprites, meaning more time. And I'm running out of time.

I do like the Ultima system, which… ah. I just got an idea!

Heheh…. *Evil Laugh goes here*

*cough*

A simple idea, but a good one, that will lead to a nice complex gameplay system, hidden behind a veil of apparent simplicity! :D Blog Brainstorming FTW!

Anyway, I'm still in this, I'll be sure to make something, just so long as I focus on creating a game and less on creating the systems surrounding the game. Well, off I walk into Mordor. See ya later.

LEFT.

Minor Update

I took two screenshots of my Menu system (That is, the food-related menu) in action. One is purely satirical and was designed to check overflow handling.

The other is closer to what the site owner is going to be using it for: Specials.

Before any of you even dare to accuse me of it, I am not using frames. I wouldn't even think of it; I knew they were evil since back in 2004, when I first dabbled with HTML.

Instead, I'm using div's to organize the four 'pages' of content. Also, jQuery. Switching between the tabs neatly fades the current panel out and blends in the one you clicked on.

Oh yeah, before you guys start bitching, please keep in mind that this site is intentionally simple. It's going to be accessed by mobile devices, primarily, and a large percentage of those do not fall into the Tablet range. Opera Mini can use (And display) the site correctly, as can the default browser on a Nokia E5. All the PC browsers I could find displayed it perfectly to the pixel.

Ah well… back to work.