64Digits

New Community Project

Posted by Kaz on Oct. 18, 2009, 10:56 p.m.

So as some of you know, a group of us have talked about re-doing 64D so it can accommodate our many skills that we have developed over the years and that have moved us away from Game Maker. Since I'm going to college for web design and am one of the few that have the time/ambition to start such a large project, I guess I'm leading the project haha.

I've talked to a few people and have gotten some input on what the new site should have and I tried my best to show these concepts in design-only form. FYI I stayed at my friends house and we played COD4 all night so I'm pretty tired and it's not my best, but it's decent. Also there's no color scheme because I suck with them and it takes more time than I had to do it. I'll see what I can do during the week.

Obviously, please tell me your thoughts and improvements. I am only 1 person. Log in will be on top-right FYI.

Design 1
Problems:

Unnecessary blog link in the nav

Empty bottom space

Design 2
Problems:

Blogs on left maybe?

Questions:

-Will the site be a different name?

-Will we still focus on games?

-Will there be feeds for friends? (probably if the site expands far beyond this site)

-What the hell else do you want?

-Badges?

For those willing to contribute ideas:

Remember, we will have many different things (music, games, graphics, etc), so we need an easy way to navigate between them all along with their sub categories. The navbar I created will allow sub categories and easy expansion if we ever have to. If you can think of something else, please share.

For those willing to contribute skills:

If any of you want to help create the site, please tell me. This is a large project and it will take a long time to create it on my own. I already know a few are willing to help me. I will need people who are good with PHP, MySQL databases, and javascript(preferably jQuery).

I have my own server and will create access to it for those who are helping when we get to that point.

Next design ideas:

ETA middle of week

-Split languages into Games, Web, Applications and have a separate Examples page

-Keep forums

-Keep favorites

-Top downloads/Highest rating of each

Comments

Toast 15 years, 3 months ago

Makes games/web/applications separate pages and also a "Examples/Tutorials" page that could span everything.

Basically I want what 64d would be by now if anyone actually cared.

SteveKB 15 years, 3 months ago

make an option to go and see older example or games or whatever and also add a filter incase I want to not look at all the noob examples

Rusky 15 years, 3 months ago

Use categories like FB said.

And make sure the backend doesn't suck like now.

Kaz 15 years, 3 months ago

Quote:

Makes games/web/applications separate pages and also a "Examples/Tutorials" page that could span everything.

So have Games/Web/Apps separate pages for completed projects, and an examples page for all types of examples? I think that will work out the best.

Quote:

make an option to go and see older example or games or whatever and also add a filter incase I want to not look at all the noob examples

Of course.

Quote:

And make sure the backend doesn't suck like now.

Will do.

Does everyone want badges still? I kind of like them.

mesenberg 15 years, 3 months ago

badges are a must! also if you make a friends feed I think the more popular users will form there own bubble and the new users will never be seen.

Alert Games 15 years, 3 months ago

I think badges are good, though I think it should be more about an achievement, rather than "keeping" you scores high. Or maybe have it so that its after so much time that your score is high to get an award. just ideas.

Quote:

make an option to go and see older example or games or whatever and also add a filter incase I want to not look at all the noob examples

Yes. definately optimize the search. search for stuff and order by score. Actually, maybe even put the search on the MAIN page, and have dropdown(or some other form of option) to select what to search in. (then you can narrow it down more on the search page.)

sounds pretty good so far

Kaz 15 years, 3 months ago

Quote:

badges are a must! also if you make a friends feed I think the more popular users will form there own bubble and the new users will never be seen.

True. Maybe there could be a "Friends Activity" feeds and a "Global Activity" feed, where everyone's thoughts/actions get posted. This way new people will be noticed by everyone, but it won't be obnoxious because it will only be a side thing and not the main part. Kind of like the "Newest Users" section on the home page here.

Oh yes, the search will be much much better.

The next designs I will create will have a more detailed home page and hopefully I'll create some side pages(search, user's page, games page).

Toast 15 years, 3 months ago

Badges yes, regular competitions to earn unique badges yes.

Maybe also some kind of rank/class system, that users will work towards by being active or submitting good content. Also maybe groups/teams, like Steam and what have you, and a decent forum.

I'm trying to think of things that will attract new users, things that they'll like that they can't anywhere else (eg Yoyogames, although we really don't want most of that crowd in here).

Rez 15 years, 3 months ago

Keep badges, its one of the few things 64D has that is remotely original.

HeroofTime55 15 years, 3 months ago

KEEP CURRENT LAYOUT, JUST MOVING THINGS AROUND THE SCREEN WILL ONLY CONFUSE THE FEW MEMBERS LEFT.

I vote closing membership to the public, switching it to maybe invite only or allow joining on merit to be approved by the community as a whole.

Then we storm YYG with all our most awesome shit and bring arrogant elitism to 64Digits. We become gods in the eyes of nubs, and gain new members who actually know how to make decent projects. We get all the good games distributed here instead of via YYG, and then things snowball.

The game submission system needs to be revamped, not every game shall get time on the front page (once things start going fast.) There will be a "Today's submissions" page with all the day's additions, but only the cream of the crop gets put on the front page. This means a lot more game mods to decide and vote on games.

Or something like that.

What I'm trying to say is graphical changes won't do squat.