Topic: Do you Blog? Share it!

@theblackdragon; sorry! I should have looked better :S

Hey guys,

For people who don’t know me, I’m the developer of games such as Flipper and Flipper 2: Flush the goldfish for Nintendo DSiWare. I also did some retail products for Nintendo DS and I have some unannounced projects for Dsi-Ware and 3DSWare coming up!

I don't know if people here follow my blog, but if you do, you probably noticed I didn't really do much with it.

I want to restart my blog and mix in a few new topics such as

■Talk about some games from the past (mainly focusing on their game design)
■Development of my current games (retail,DSiWare, 3DSWare)
■Game development in general
It’s a bit hard to talk about game development or design, because it’s hard to figure out what exactly would be interesting for the readers.

So please help me, and tell me if you want to know something about game design/development!

It can be anything; from programming and art to marketing!

Thanks in advance!

the old blog can be found here : http://goodbyegalaxygames.blogspot.com

Hey Hugo! People tend to like articles about stuff they can really understand in regards to anything complex, such as game development. While there will be an audience of people interested in the programming aspect, there will be more interested in the creative elements such as art. Stuff about character design, such as how you went about creating Flush, will probably be the most popular, and something I'd personally love to read. Sometimes history on how some of your projects came into being, and things you drew inspiration from, will be interesting. As an indie developer, I think you can cover a lot of ground in regards to game development, since you will have experience with everything. While a programmer can only really talk about programming, and an artist can only go in depth about their specific job, you have a much broader range of topics at your fingertips.

One of the important things would be to make it easy to understand for everyone. So, if you go into detail of what it's like to program a game, you'll want to simplify it, maybe shy away from jargon the regular reader would fail to understand. I think pretty much anything you write about will be pretty interesting, as pieces about game development in general is interesting to your average gamer. It's a "behind-the-scenes" for the stuff they know and love. I look forward to seeing what you write about.

I updated my blog, gave it a complete make-over.. should be better now!

http://goodbyegalaxygames.blogspot.com/

Wrote a post on Super Mario 3D Land: http://3upmoon.blogspot.com/2011/11/this-land-is-my-land.html
Such a wonderful game.

@Hugo Smits
I've been wanting to start reading some dev blogs, so now I know where to start! I'll try and post some feedback later

It's nice, the blog has it's own unique feel to it. Love the background. Can't wait to see all the stuff you'll write about.

Bump.

Finally got around to finishing up and posting my review of Super Mario 3D Land. I actually wrote the draft a few days after the game released, but I'm putting it up now that I've 100% completed the game. Link in signature.

My blog is linked into my signature. It's not really complete as I have little time to update it and make convenient changes, but eh, it will do for now.

@SnoozerBear
Your blog is very neat! Nice review on Super Mario 3D Land.

@Viewtiful_Joe

Thank you!

I looked over your blog, and it's pretty good. The simple approach for the layout works quite nicely right now. I don't think there's any huge need for a fancy redesign or anything. It's easy to read, which is what is important.

I had time to read your NSMB review and noticed that your names for the items were a little off (according to the North American version of the game, anyways). Officially, the Big Mushroom is the Mega Mushroom, the Tiny Mushroom is the Mini Mushroom, and the Blue Koopa Shell is simply the Blue Shell. It's not that big of a deal, but it threw me off a bit. Also, while it isn't a tremendous problem, there are some small grammatical issues here and there.

"Never before seen power ups arrive such as the Big Mushroom which allows you to grow to a massive size and demolish everything in your way. Blue Koopa Shell (it reminds me of the Spiny Shell from the Mario Kart series), that forms into a spinning Koopa Shell when you run. Controlling this is still controllable to a certain extent. Lastly there's the tiny mushroom which, believe it or not, makes you tiny. I found this to be the most used item in the game other than the obvious ones. It allows you to squeeze into hard to reach areas, run on water and jump drastically higher."

That passage could use some rewording. I'm a little tired, but off the top of my head, something like this might work better:

"New Super Mario Bros. has plenty of power-ups, and three new ones make their debut: the Mega Mushroom, Mini Mushroom and Blue Shell. The first turns you into an indestructible behemoth, while the second (and most common of the new power-ups) does the opposite and turns you tiny, allowing you to run on water, fit in small gaps and jump extremely high. Lastly, there's the Blue Shell. Running after picking up a Blue Shell turns Mario into a Koopa shell! Sadly I found the Blue Shell to be somewhat difficult to control."

Anyways, good job all in all. I was wondering though, I noticed you use a ten point scale that includes decimal points. Isn't it hard to score things precisely? (For example, how did you decide on the additional .25 on your latest review?)

@BleachFan

I know this may sound odd, but I noticed how nicely you've handled captions for your images. Is that something that Blogspot can do, or something you did yourself using HTML and CSS? I recently managed to create near identical captions to yours using HTML that I may use later down the road, but it'll be a pain since it involves placing every image into its own table. If you did that yourself, you did a good job. Looks great. If it's something Blogspot can do, then I must say that is pretty handy.

I'm using Typepad, and have had to do a good amount on my own with CSS (and some HTML).
Some things I've had to do include:

Adding background color and images to navigation bar (normally bland text links)
Making Categories List buttonesque, with hover effect (normally same as navigation bar)
Fixing the dang banner (normally ugly padding at side even if banner is perfect size)
Making Featured article and Author comments have a unique look.

It's been a pain. What's your impressions of Blogspot?

Also, I liked your most recent post on Origins. Might pick it up later down the road.

@Snoozer

No thank you! That's the sort of feedback I need. To be honest I had a little trouble wording my opinion for that review. I really need to go back and fix up some reviews. But to be honest I find certain games difficult to word like Mario, GTA, and certain RPGs. Which, in the end, sound like mumbling and just simply proves I'm an amateur, lol.

Yes I use a 10 point scale but I sort of copied it off of Gameinformer. The scale goes up by .25 like this:

7/10
7.25/10
7.5/10
7.75/10
8/10
8.25/10

I find it superior to the 1s scales like NL uses. Just don't like them. lol

I'm also a big blogging fan, check my blog out at http://www.nintendofansonline.co.uk/.
It's updated with the latest Nintendo news everyday!

@Viewtiful_Joe
Ah, always gladl to give out feedback. I guess a 10 point scale with .25 increments can be more precise. I now use a 5 point scale with no increments, but I used to use a ten point scale with increments of .5. Problem with that, was that due to my nature, I'd end up fussing over the score and not knowing what to give stuff. xD

@squashiejoshie
I like your blog. It's clean, simple and effective. Your articles are pretty short, and get to the point quickly, preventing readers from getting overburdened and leaving. However, sometimes your reviews (especially the new 3D Land one) tend to be too short. While you don't want to overburden your reader with too many tiny details (something I tend to do, especially in my drafts) you still want to cover the game a little in-depth. I'd recommend expanding, and adding more detail. You could've added something about the Tanooki Suit (since it'll be a major draw for some players), what you thought of the level design, a little more about the controls (it's very different compared to a standard 3D Mario game. No Triple Jump, and there's a run button!) or something else. Add a little more detail, and you're reviews will be straight-to-the-point and simple, good for those looking for a quick opinion on a title.

I also noticed you use a sixty point scale, something I don't really see. I wouldn't recommend a scale that large, as it can be hard to gauge games precisely. I've always found it better to place games in tiers no larger than 10, or 20 points at the very most. How do you come up with your score anyways? I'm guessing you have some sort of system (if so, it might be good to explain it someplace so readers can understand) but if not, it must be hard to determine scores. I can't possibly imagine how hard it must be to score that precisely off the top of your head. o_o

I have a new banner (I'm just waiting for someone to tell me how it looks like a toddler made it, but it's better than the weird neon one I had before), and I am playing around with the colour scheme of my site. I'd appreciate if someone told me what they thought, especially someone who's been there before. I'm also going to be scrapping my current image/caption system. Expect them to start looking similar to Top Whatever (BleachFan's blog) and Nintendo Life's. Might organize Categories by group (Article Type, System and Genre) later down the road, because the current system alphabetizes them, which seems extremely awkward to me.

I've been noticing lately that my blog's search function isn't working correctly, so I'd appreciate if someone would test it (just punch in words that SHOULD make recent articles come up) and tell me the results. For me, the newer stuff (Ghost Recon and 3D Land reviews, etc.) don't appear at all. Just leave your results here, or comment anywhere on my site. If the search continues to not work properly, I may swap over to Google Custom Search, especially now that indexing for my site occurs pretty quickly.

@SnoozeBear: I'm not seeing any banner show up. On another note though, I looked at your blog again, and I like the color scheme you have up. It's easy to look at without being tacky. As for your search function...yeah, I couldn't pull up any recent articles...So you might want to change if you think it's necessary.

...Oh, and as for my captions...Yeah, blogspot has an option where you can click "Add Caption" and it'll open a space up for you to type. Very handy! In terms of my impressions, I'd have to say that it does everything I'd want it to do. Pictures are easy to upload, and text is easy to link. Redesigning my page is simple, as they have a lot of different templates, and the "drag and drop" system seems to work well. My only complaint is that sometimes the input freaks out when I try to format text. Other than that, I haven't encountered many problems.

Also, thanks for reading my Origins post! Hopefully you can pick it up in the near future!

@SnoozerBear Thankyou very much for your feedback. My blog is currently stronger than ever with over 500 visitors a day. But I will take your advice into consideration.

Interesting. Banner displays for me on both Firefox and Safari. On Opera it seems the logo part won't appear. I noticed I uploaded my banner as a PNG, so I'm uploading a JPEG version very, very soon. I would greatly appreciate if you could tell me what browser you are using, and possibly, what operating system. Also, in a few minutes when the new banner is up, I'd love if you'd see if it appears correctly. Thanks for pointing out to me that the banner wasn't displaying for you, as that is important for me to know.

EDIT: Banner was never displaying in IE, and probably not in Chrome. Still looks bad in Opera, but always works in Chrome and (usually) displays in IE.

Don't expect a great work of art. The banner was drawn on an iPhone. With my thumb. So, yeah.

The fact that Blogspot can do that is pretty useful. I'm swapping over to similar captions to yours, but I have to do mine manually. I put my graphic and caption into a two cell HTML table, and assign them classes, which I then modify using CSS. It's a pain to do every time, but I think the result is better. Previously, all captions were just centered text, and thus I could only caption centered images. No captions for screenshots etcetera if I wanted them to float and have text wrap around.

I fixed the banner, and kind of redesigned while at it. The problem was my syntax in my CSS for the hover links in my Categories module. The way I designated which links should get the hover effect and which should not was lazy, and not supported in Opera and IE for some reason. It caused a scope problem that applied the effects to all links. This caused all links leading to previously visited pages to get a gray block background (if text) and or to get blotted out completely, obscuring them from view (if images, like my hyperlinked banner). Anyone going to the site would see the banner as a gray block because it was technically "visited" since the banner links to the home page. I fixed the hover links, but am not going to re-add them. Kind of wary about adding them back and screwing everything up.

So, I fixed the banner and lost the mouse-over effects of the categories list's links. I also changed some other stuff to make the blog simpler looking. Thank you for bringing the banner issue to my attention BleachFan. I don't generally use Opera or Internet Explorer, one of which I assume you were using at the time, so I wouldn't have caught that. I will now frequently test site with all browsers when I change stuff. xD

@SnoozeBear: I normally use FireFox, but the computer I was on only had IE at the time. Lucky the error was found then!

As for the banner itself, yeah, it looks a bit sketchy. But I think it adds charm to your blog, considering the humorous title.

Good. I thought it might add to the atmosphere, and besides, it's only temporary. Yeah, it was pretty lucky that that linking problem was found. Good thing too. At first I thought it was just the banner, but then I realized as I clicked around I had screwed up all my links.

Newest post is now out. It's about how a found Skyward Sword being sold for only $38 in Canada. At a major retailer. Bet any Canadian without a copy will now be tempted to read the post. xD I have a few pics of the stuff in the box (including the CD) and am starting to use my new captioning system. As you'll probably notice, it is very similar to yours.

Your latest article was entertaining. As a big fan of RPGs, I was very familiar with the sheer frustration that can be caused by some of your list items. It always seems like the random encounters get worse when you really want to get moving. I'll need some EXP and start to walk along. I don't get an encounter for five minutes. I finally build up my EXP, and wounded as I am, want to flee from the current dungeon to heal and save, only to find that every time I move my feet even an inch, I have to fight.

Bump, and, I Have Fury has a new writer.

@SnoozerBear: Thanks for readin'!
It's great that you're able to cover a bunch of topical news like that. I've no doubt that that can bring in some readers. And oh, a new writer you say? Is it a friend?

I read because you have good content.

Also, the new writer is family.

With two writers we should be able to get out a good amount of content. He's currently putting out 5~ posts a day, which is far more than me. I will continue to post, though. Also trying to be less formal, and inject some humour into things. Is it working? You'll probably find that David is more humourous, as it's more natural with him.