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[jotapeh]

Alright, first up, this is a bit of a greedy thread. I want advice because I'm working design for listing my games: http://wegetsignal.ca/games.html


BUT, because I'm not a selfish butt and I like love design references, I'd like to point out some sites that layout games really nicely as well.

http://mattmakesgames.com/ - You get a quick visual of each game and only by mouseover and then click do you get an involved, detailed view. I feel like you need a fair number of games to pull this one off, and of course Matt has a ton. Also good: the space and flow in the design lead your eyes immediately to the prize, the games! This is one of my favourites.

http://infiniteammo.ca/games/ - Gives a ton of focus to the top game, and has a lot of flexibility in the content. There are videos, screenshots, thumbnails for lightbox viewing. I like this primarily because it's aesthetically pleasing, but I feel like Aquaria is buried when it should be closer to the top (being the most popular game.) Then again, digging for Aquaria might cause people to discover the other games they hadn't tried; or perhaps people looking at games on an indie developer sites know exactly what they're looking for.

http://cactusquid.com/games.htm - All that I really want to point out about this style is that it gives you easy access to Genre and Rating. I also like that Cactus will rate his own games poorly which is pretty fun.

http://thatgamecompany.com/games/ - Again mostly an aesthetic choice, the entire site is pretty much oozing style anyway.

A lot of indies don't list their games. They have a blog and they talk mostly about the most recent game they're making. I feel like that's a bit of a mistake. What do you think?

A lot of companies also use their games page solely for their one big hit. This is probably not a terrible idea.

Some companies use their games page to give you a company history - http://thebehemoth.com/games.html - this is interesting to me, and sort of reinforces what I mused up above. Those people interested enough to browse to your site probably know a bit about you and are interested in more meat and potatoes of who you are and why you do what you do.

Thoughts, comments, design inspirations/references, you name it.. let's do it.

[eigenbom]

Personally I would make your listing more compact. And maybe feature the most important one more prominently. and fwiw that orange makes me think of haxe.org.

Of your refs, I think Cactus' is the best. Simple, compact, consistent, informative, and stylish. That guy cracks me up.

Also, any talk of design should include increpare's marvellous listing: http://www.increpare.com/

[increpare]

make the images clickable

[jotapeh]

Thanks, good points.

Also: wow. increpare, that is one interesting format. I hadn't seen that before somehow. Awesome.

[Morroque]

For some reason I think the We Get Signal listing just isn't big enough. On my display, a good chunk of the page is just empty. It is either going to need a lot more games to list, or maybe it could add some things in, like more screenshots or more description text.

If you want to keep it as-is, try making the CSS more elastic and fill up as much of the page width as possible. Or, and perhaps this is the simplest solution, try to center the main content instead of being floated to the left. (I only recommend this for the web. The ol' print design rule of "being just off center" just isn't feasable with variable page size.)

Finding good constructive criticism for web design is usually one of the harder things I can ask for these days, and even more difficult to actually get it. I'm always teetering on feeling like giving my website an entire redesign one moment, and thinking it's perfectly fine the next.

In my studio space, I use the same layout for games as I do all my other creative endeavors. I very much like the way I've spaced out the pure content itself, but the entire design that encapsulates it might need a bit more work. I should probably be using more CSS than I am.

I very rarely find another design that "wows" me these days. So much of appearance on the web is now about the content and less about the design that surrounds it. I suppose on some level that's what matters in the end, but I'm still left wishing for that basic touch of personality to top it all off. (In combination with good taste in design, of course.)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i care more about usability than how pretty the design looks. e.g. nicalis's website looks awesome, but is it usable?

http://nicalis.com/

[s0]

i care more about usability than how pretty the design looks. e.g. nicalis's website looks awesome, but is it usable?

http://nicalis.com/

Seems pretty usable to me. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

but it seems like you have to click randomly to figure out what anything is. like 'what is this building? oh, it's the "about" page' -- it'd be better if the things you could click on had something to do with what page they brought you to

[jotapeh]

To be fair, they offer a bottom bar with all the options as well. And if you mouseover and wait, you'll get a label that appears telling you where it will take you.

I think this sort of design is acceptable for game companies but perhaps not ideal if you're trying to entice new players to try your games. It's highly likely to break on a lot of browsers.

[increpare]

To be fair, they offer a bottom bar with all the options as well.

Not all the options.

[Attila0413]

I would add a longer description for each game, a bit like in Cactus' page.

Also, I would separate "big" games from little experiments. I've done this in my blog :http://attiliocarotenuto.com/

Oh, I tried to go to the About page from the homepage but the button does not seem to work

[jotapeh]

@MW: The issue is I'm sort of an old fashioned web designer and I try to cater to a minimum 1024x768 resolution. Often this means my designs are not flexible. It's a great point you've brought up and I'm adjusting it to self-center.

I've looked at your studio page you linked - Your games page is clean, but puts a lot of focus on the studio logo to the point where that's all I can see when I first load the page. I don't mind a giant logo (I'm guilty of this) but I try to make at least a good chunk of content within the bounds of a 1024x768 browser window (so more like 1000x600).

For the games page, where the user will have already 'drilled down' a level, I shrink the entire top nav back. I think it's unfair to your visitors to slam them with a giant logo every page, imo.


@increpare: Another good point. Hm.


@Attila: That's not a bad idea, although there's a lot of other things about your design I find distracting and maybe a little confusing. Maybe it's just me? Specifically on your "minor games" page it's hard to tell at a glance where one game ends and the next begins. The dark-grey on light-blue is a little tough on my eyes too.


Anyhow I'm playing with some more ideas. Right now I've got them condensed to thumbnails that expand on click. I'm thinking this javascript approach will probably piss a lot of people off, so I'm gonna keep throwing designs at the wall.

[Attila0413]

@Attila: That's not a bad idea, although there's a lot of other things about your design I find distracting and maybe a little confusing. Maybe it's just me? Specifically on your "minor games" page it's hard to tell at a glance where one game ends and the next begins. The dark-grey on light-blue is a little tough on my eyes too.

Actually I agree with you, I still need to structure my minor games page in a proper way.

[Moczan]

@jotapeh:
I'm not sure if it's across all browsers, but in Opera (1280x1024 resolution) the transitions are a bit ugly. The biggest problem is that everytime I click on 'hidden' game, the whole row goes back and the last entry is constantly being shift between first and second row

[jotapeh]

Thanks Moczan. Yeah that layout had a lot of issues.

I've put a new one up. In this one the idea is to point the attention away from thumbnails and over to the main description on the right. I don't love this yet but I feel like it's heading in the right direction.

I'm not gonna spend much more time on this, since you know, I'd rather be making games...

[wademcgillis]

@jotapeh:

Websites should not scroll on their own, and I think the design would be better if it didn't.

[eigenbom]

Not a fan of website animation and stuff. As you said, you wanna make games, so don't worry too much about making a flashy website - your games should speak for themselves.

Something like this would be more than enough, sorted by date completed...