New site design for neogeoforlife.com, need some opinions

I'm currently in the process of doing a total redesign of www.neogeoforlife.com to make it a lot fresher and easier to navigate than it is currently, and at the moment things are going quite well. I thought I'd post a few preview images of the site for people to look at:

Main Page

Review Index

News post comments:


At the moment things are still changing as I'm still not 100% happy with the design, but although I want it to look nice, fuctionality and load times are the most important things, so I'll be sticking with a simple but effective layout. Anyway, the main reason I am posting this here is because I as well as the redesign, there will also be a lot of new content going up, so it would be great to hear some suggestions on what people want to see. So far, the new stuff includes things like a fan art section and obviously more review content etc, but I'm interested to know what people think. Let me know and I'll do what I can... also if there are people out there that want to come on board and help with working on any kind of new content then I am all for it!

Thanks,
Kaz

I don't know if this would be possible, but I'd like to see more game screens, backgrounds, character select screens. A video section would be cool, maybe you don't have the space, I don't know. I like the 'random Neo Geo screen' though. Keep up the good work, I already was really impressed by your site, can't wait to see how things turn out, keep up the good work!

looks nice!

I go to your site all the time for the game reviews.

The only suggestion I would have is; more in depth reviews (like your Metal Slugs and KOF reviews) of older Neo games. Perhaps some of the members here could help.

Yeah man, i grew up to the way you had it so it was great for me. I guess a fresh look means a rebirth so to speak so thats a good thing too. Get some of your followers behind doing a graphic-intense FAQ for the games (something worthy of printing and binding). I still yearn for the day the "Neo-Bible" is released....

keep up the good work Kaz.

Kazuya_UK said:

I'm currently in the process of doing a total redesign of www.neogeoforlife.com to make it a lot fresher and easier to navigate than it is currently, and at the moment things are going quite well. I thought I'd post a few preview images of the site for people to look at:

Click to expand...

Lookin good! Out of curiosity are you using CSS for style sheets and layout?

It takes longer for development and browser testing, but it makes redesigns (even big redesigns) a piece of cake since all content will update from the style sheets. Food for thought...

Pretty sweet layout man...keep it like it is!

SnairDogg said:

I don't know if this would be possible, but I'd like to see more game screens, backgrounds, character select screens. A video section would be cool, maybe you don't have the space, I don't know. I like the 'random Neo Geo screen' though. Keep up the good work, I already was really impressed by your site, can't wait to see how things turn out, keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

There should be screens of pretty much ever character select for all the Neo games already, but as far as more screenshots go I'll probably be taking more once everything is up and running. There are usually "additional screenshot" links on each review, but I'll get those sorted for the reviews that don't have them. As for videos, although I've got the space, bandwidth might be a concern so I'd have to see about that. If it's possible at some point I'm all for it

NeoCverA said:

et some of your followers behind doing a graphic-intense FAQ for the games (something worthy of printing and binding).

Click to expand...

I do like the idea of that, which is why we tried doing something like that for Matrimelee. Having said that, although the Matrimelee isn't a massive one because it really only lists about 3 or 4 combos for each character at the most, it still was a lot of work to put together. Doing it for a KOF game or similar could take ages, especially with my occasional lack of time. It's something I'll think about though, but we'd definitely need to have a few people on board to help with it

The only other prob with that is that if a LOT of people were visiting it, with all those pics it could drain bandwidth too.

thefub said:

I go to your site all the time for the game reviews.

The only suggestion I would have is; more in depth reviews (like your Metal Slugs and KOF reviews) of older Neo games. Perhaps some of the members here could help.

Click to expand...

For sure... the Metal Slug and some of the KOF reviews were re-done ones as the original reviews I wrote were quite short and probably very rushed, like some of the other older reviews. I always like going back and doing reviews of the older games, so I'll try to get some more done once the site is up and running

praedicator said:

Lookin good! Out of curiosity are you using CSS for style sheets and layout?

It takes longer for development and browser testing, but it makes redesigns (even big redesigns) a piece of cake since all content will update from the style sheets. Food for thought...

Click to expand...

You know... I'm a bit of a lamer really when it comes to web design, so I'm not really using CSS unfortunately. I know I probably should in case I ever want to change it again, but a) I'm not too great with this stuff, and b) hopefully once a layout is completely settled on I'll stick with that design. I suppose I really should improve on my web design skills, I'm so dumb at times with this stuff

Thanks for the feedback all


Kaz

edit: one last thing - there's also a script on the main page that displays a random quote at the top of the screen. I have a fair few quotes in there already (both from Neo Geo games, and a few other random ones), but if anyone can think of some other really good classic ones to put in, post em here and I'll probably add them . Don't want to put in too many, but a few more would be good!

edit 2: actually another "last" thing that might apply to some of you. I am also trying to ensure that the site works ok in all browsers, as the old one has some probs in netscape, possibly some in opera, and i'm sure there's some annoying bugs in firefox that happen intermittently. However I have tested all the pages on the current design with IE, Firefox and Opera, and everything looks great.

One thing I really like about your old design is the list of all the Neo games right there on the front page as a reference guide.. Very handy

I like it so far, Neo screen of the day is a nice idea.

Also, how about printer-friendly move lists for fighting games. Been looking a something like that so I don't have to flick through my delicate AES manuals to learn moves.

Not bad. Its a bit too monochromatic and dark for me. Like too much of that blueish green color. Layout itself looks nice though.

Ill6 said:

One thing I really like about your old design is the list of all the Neo games right there on the front page as a reference guide.. Very handy

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Yeah, I'm thinking of including that down the left side of the page, but I think it might look to messy. The site will be a lot easier to navigate now though, and if you wanted you can always bookmark the Neo review page. I'll have a play with the design and see how that list looks, but to be honest I'll probably not include it because it might make the page a bit too long and stuff.

Ill6 said:

I like it so far, Neo screen of the day is a nice idea.

Also, how about printer-friendly move lists for fighting games. Been looking a something like that so I don't have to flick through my delicate AES manuals to learn moves.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that is an idea, definitely something that is worth doing in time. Having said that, have you seen the Neo Encyclopedia site?

http://sindoni.altervista.org/

That's a very good site and has many move lists that are in a nice printable graphical format. Not a lot of people tend to know about that site, but it is more than worth checking out!

edit: just went to that site, not been there in a while, but it seems that they now have downloadable move lists in .pdf format, so you should easily be able to grab them and print them out. VERY nice

Neo Mike said:

Not bad. Its a bit too monochromatic and dark for me. Like too much of that blueish green color. Layout itself looks nice though.

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I may have a play with the colours... the layout and colour scheme was a template someone made which I edited and changed a bit for my own purposes, so I haven't tried playing with the colours yet. Personally I really like these colours though . What would be awesome though is if I could find a way to set it up so you could choose your own colour scheme for the layout, and have it stay that way whenever you login. I'm not a great coder though as I mentioned earlier, so I have no idea how to do that right now, so it may just be best to settle on a design and stick with it... at the moment I just want to get it online and start adding more content

Thanks,
Kaz

I like it, it is sober. It s difficult to read when on laptop unplugged from AC adapter though but it s no big deal

I hate flash ... so soooooo soooooooooooooo much so big thanks for not using that

When you say difficult to read, in what way?

Yeah I'm not a big fan of flash. Using some is ok, but using vast amounts like some sites isn't, and I'd never want to go that route with my site.

I started doing some simple stuff with css so now the whole site is consistent and the links/fonts etc are all as they should be (plus I can hopefully change them all very quickly with css now if need be). I'm actually considering doing what I mentioned below and having selectable colour schemes; I'm not sure if I will, but it would be a nice touch if I can sort it out

Kaz

I feel about the same about the new design as I did the old design. There both great! =D This is a nice design that doesn't make you feel sour after the change of the look.

Sky_R said:

I feel about the same about the new design as I did the old design. There both great! =D This is a nice design that doesn't make you feel sour after the change of the look.

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Thanks, hopefully it will be a lot nicer and easier to use though

Here's another pic... last one I'll post. This is how the review pages look:

Review Page

Any suggestions please let me know

Cheers,
Kaz

Kazuya_UK said:

When you say difficult to read, in what way?

Yeah I'm not a big fan of flash. Using some is ok, but using vast amounts like some sites isn't, and I'd never want to go that route with my site.

I started doing some simple stuff with css so now the whole site is consistent and the links/fonts etc are all as they should be (plus I can hopefully change them all very quickly with css now if need be). I'm actually considering doing what I mentioned below and having selectable colour schemes; I'm not sure if I will, but it would be a nice touch if I can sort it out

Kaz

Click to expand...

difficult to read in the way the contrast becomes crappy :I

anyway user selectable scheme would be perfect, the layout is neat

I really like the new look and i love your site keep it up

Nice new layout, very polished and pro-looking to me. To big thumbs up to you dude!

I like it!

Cheers,
Ben

PinkPeach said:

difficult to read in the way the contrast becomes crappy :I

anyway user selectable scheme would be perfect, the layout is neat

Click to expand...

I had a look at it and I know how to do selectable schemes. The only problem I have is that the way the design was originally coded means that I'd have to change a lot of things to ger a user selectable scheme to work. It's possible in the future though and definitely something I will look at . The only thing I could do right now is to make it so you can choose the font/size or something, but I don't think that's worth it

Thanks again guys!

Kaz

Hey Kazuya, I was reading some reviews on your site and was wondering, was one of the arcades you played the games in Showboat in Loughborough?

It wasn't no, although I don't actually live a million miles from Loughborough. A lot of the ones that I played games at are in Leicester, although there aren't any decent arcades or ANYWHERE with an mvs cab left around here at all anymore

Just out of interest, what do people think of the font size on the site? I think it's ok and a lot of people keep telling me it's fine, but a few have said perhaps it's a bit too small. Hopefully with the use of css (depending on if I used it correctly, hehe :P) I can change it quickly. I might wait till the site is online and then have a poll or something.

Kaz

I like the design, and color scheme, although I do agree that it is a bit monochromic. Maybe if the colors were varied slightly, it would be more appealing (at least to my eyes). Keep up the good work. I can't wait to see the final product!

Kazuya_UK said:

It wasn't no, although I don't actually live a million miles from Loughborough. A lot of the ones that I played games at are in Leicester, although there aren't any decent arcades or ANYWHERE with an mvs cab left around here at all anymore

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I was up Narborough Road a couple of months back and I seem to remember one of the kebab houses had an MVS cab. Is it still there?