[Project Complete] FunMan Games - New website template - $300

[ManuelFLara]

(Admin code added by Palmer - KH079362V)

Hello everyone,

I'll use lang's template to provide you the basic information about the project.

Company name: FunMan Games
Company profile: We're a new and small company that develops shareware games for all ages.
Domain name: www.funmangames.com
What is the scope of this project?: New site
Who is the intended audience?: The whole family! Both kids that play games and ask their parents to buy them, and adults that buy them to have some fun at work or during their free time.
Mood or tone?: I want it to be accesible, easy to navigate and colorful (I love first 'competitor site').
Color psychology?: I don't have any idea.
Any dynamic elements?: There would be contact forms and so on, but you don't need to do them.
Who are your main competitors?: (ordered by decreasing liking) puppygames.net, retro64.com, hipsoft.com, etc.
What resources can you provide?: Logo, fonts, some renders from our mascot and 'aproximate' website content. Download HERE (http://www.funmangames.com/content.zip) .
Websites you like: see "Who are your main competitors?"
Deadline: January 5th.

The pages that need to be done for this template are the games(home) section described in the zip's PDF and another page with details from a single game ("more info" page), showing screenshots, detailed info, user opinions (not typical public posting, just the ones we choose from emails and so on).

The pages shall be delivered in HTML format. Althought it's not strictly needed I'd prefer you to use CSS for everything you can, because HTML code is cleaner and it's easy to change colors and layout in the future.

NOTE: For game screenshots thumbnails use any dummy image you want.

The deadline for this competition is 01/05/2005

If you have any doubt please ask.

Thank you,
- Manuel F. Lara

[Anne]

Hi.

Here's is an entry from me.

Looking forward to your feedback
Anne

[ManuelFLara]

@Anne: Thanks for your entry, here's the feedback.

Generally I like it, but there are some things I'd like you to change:

1.- Remove the "The Cursed Wheel" area and move that info to the "Featured Game" zone. Juse the info that there is now at the Featured Game zone, not the TCW details (name, brief description and price; not entire details).

2.- Change the font used in 'Featured Game', 'Best Sellers', etc. It's too simple.

3.- I'd like a rounder look at the header, the buttons and (optionally) the footer.

4.- The logo should be bigger, you can distribute the hero and the text in a different way than how it's in the .PSD. So for example you can cut the hero from where's the hand (as it's in the vertical version of the logo. I like it more, but I understand it's harder to integrate it into a horizontal menu).

Keep up the good work :)

[Anne]

Thank you for the feedback.

I'll work on the requested changes tomorrow.
Anne

[Anne]

Here's the revision

Anne

[Anne]

colored menu

[ManuelFLara]

I like it more now and I prefer the colored menu, but here are some things I'd like to see changed:

1.- The hero from the header: I'd like to appear exactly how it's in the vertical version of the logo (logo_wallpaper_X.jpg), so it will be bigger but cut (him and the sun as well) more. Of course the text will remain as it is now.

2.- Specify the price in US Dollars (as it is now), as well as Euros (19.95) and UK pounds (14.95).

3.- I like more the 'featured game' and 'best sellers' font now, but I think it's a little bit unreadable, don't you think? Try with a different one with a similar mood but more readable, please. I'd also like to see it with some kind of orange shadow or something in order to give a little bit of depth to these texts compared to others (game title and description, etc).

4.- Flip horizontally the hero under the 'newsletter' stuff. The 'F' is reversed.

As a possible change, can you try to add something to the header background so it doesn't look that plain? It just looks soo blue.

That's all, it's getting really nice :)

[Anne]

Here are some changes.

I've made different "headers" for Newsletter, Featured Game and Best Sellers so you can compare different styles/colors.

I've used screenshots from two games in the header but I can replace this with other images for example screenshots from The Cursed Wheel (but I don't know where to get those)

Anne


(The font used in Best Sellers is the same used in the logo)

[ManuelFLara]

Now it's looking really good! But as we are still some days from the deadline I'll ask you to do some little changes:

1.- Add an 'unsubscribe' button next to the 'subscribe' one and center them under the e-mail textfield.

2.- Hum. I don't know if I like more the Newsletter or Featured Game header styles, they're both great. what do you think?

3.- Center the Buy Now and Download demo under the prices.

4.- Add Buy Now and Dowload Demo buttons to the 'best seller' section. Maybe you should organise them vetically. I mean, having one per row.

5.- The games will be multiplatform (Win32 and Mac OS X), so it has to be obvious what are you buying/downloading (win or mac version).

6.- About the header background: there are no final graphics for TCW yet, and it won't be the only game we publish so it'd be good if you came up with another thing (maybe with something 'abstract': lines, shapes, etc) to fill the background.

That's all.

Thanks

[Luc]

Althought it's not strictly needed I'd prefer you to use CSS for everything you can, because HTML code is cleaner and it's easy to change colors and layout in the future.

I'm just confusee...do you mean it has to tableless?

[ManuelFLara]

@Luc: No, I meant things like colors, fonts, sizes, etc. are better left in a separated css file. But as I said it's not a requirement at all!

[Luc]

Ok, I'm working on it.

[Luc]

Here's my entry. Feedback would be great :)

--image removed for update--

[ManuelFLara]

@Luc: here's the feedback:

- The header and footer look too cold and "futuristic". As I said the look and feel of the site should be friendly, cartoonish and simple.

- The image of the hero in the header must be the one from the logo (although the sun behind him is not mandatory).

- I think I explained wrong the multiplatform thing. There will be different versions of the game for each platform (only Win/Mac, not Linux). So there must be different links/buttons to download demo and buy the full game. So the games aren't done in Java.

[Anne]

Changes made.

Anne

[ManuelFLara]

@Anne: It's just getting unimproveable! Although here are some minor things:

- I prefer the older style of 'Newsletter' and 'Featured Game' (use it also for "best sellers" and "platforms").
- Remove the cards from the header.
- Under the "Our games run on" text just put both Mac OS X and Win XP logos, instead of the names.
- Center Buy Now and Download Demo buttons in "Best Sellers" section.
- For the buy/download for win or mac, could you use the OS' logos instead of "for win" / "for mac" ?

Thanks

[Luc]

Here's another try. Let me know what you think.

--image removed--

[ManuelFLara]

What an improvement! I like it a lot. I thought Anne wouldn't have competition :)

Right now I can only think about these changes:

- Instead of "Click here for more info", try to add a "More Info" button similar to the Buy Now one or something that is more visible than the current link.

- I think it has too many colors. I mean each section (newsletter, featured game, platforms and best seller) has very different colors than the others. Try to use only blues and oranges/yellows/reds.

- Although I like the image of the hero in the page footer, I think it's just 'too much hero' in the same page. I mean it's everywhere, and as it'sa big one (that makes the web site heavier bandwidth-wise) I think you should remove it. Use it next to the 'newsletter' title, since it's the same than the 'platforms' one.

- Make the orange space after "contact guarantee privacy" in the header smaller. I mean, move the text to the right.

- Reduce the height of the "Home", "Games", etc. buttons. Could you also change the color of the button of the section we are in (in this case, Home)?

- Can you use a gradient for newsletter,best seller and platforms sections as you have done with featured game?

Thanks

[Luc]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you like it :) Here's the revision.

--image removed--

[ManuelFLara]

Better now!

There are only some things I don't like:
- that big circle at the footer. Can you remove it and maybe try a different style for the whole footer?
- center the 'buy now, more info and download demo' buttons as well as the prices, under the text.
- change the 'platform' title to 'platforms'.
- can you change the color of the selected button at the header (i.e. home)?
- set a white (or almost) background to the 'platorms' section.

Thanks

[Anne]

Here are the changes

[ManuelFLara]

@Anne: I 'm just getting without ideas to tell you :)

- Make the border around the grey gradients more obvious (darker, wider or something).
- Can you make the 'buy now' and 'download demo' buttons' corners rounder? see www.puppygames.net (http://www.puppygames.net)

That's all I can think right now. Feel free to change other things in order to test new ideas :)

Thanks

[Anne]

How is this?

[ManuelFLara]

@Anne: Better, but can you change the 'buy now' / 'download demo' font color or add a shadow or something? It's a bit unreadable a white text over the orange button.

Could you also change the color of the 'featured game' and 'best seller' sections' border and gradient background to a tone of blue instead of grey? Change it to orange/yellow for the newsletter/platforms sections as well.

Since green isn't used at all in the template I think it doesn't fill well in the Subscribe buttons, try a different one, please.

That's all, thanks.

[Luc]

Revisions coming up shortly :)

[Luc]

Here goes..

[ManuelFLara]

@Luc: can you use the colors used in the Newsletter section for the Platforms one?

I can't think of any more changes. You guys are making the choice a thought one!

By the way, Luc, I see a lot of images here. How much heavy is the template? (in kilobytes)

Thanks

[Luc]

The whole mockup image itself is 185.6 kb although this is not the final size of it because I will chop the images, use patterns instead of just slicing each image so that it loads fast.

[Luc]

@Luc: can you use the colors used in the Newsletter section for the Platforms one?

Do you mean switch the colors?

[Anne]

Here's the revision

[Luc]

Ok here's a color idea.

[ManuelFLara]

Ok, it's Jan 5th so the deadline is over. Before anything else I'd like to thank you both for your great work and effort, you really made my decision a hard one.

Although I do like both designs, I've chosen Anne's because it's more like I was looking for. Colorful but simple and very usable.

One last time, thank you for your time.
Best regards,
- Manuel

[Anne]

Thank you for choosing my design :D

Do you need me to make any revisions or should I start working on the design for the second page?

Anne

[Michael]

Moved to revisions.

[Luc]

Wow easy Anne!!! Not planning on any vacation? lol jk Congrats!

[Anne]

New kitchen maybe :)

[ManuelFLara]

The only thing I want you to change is the color of the Newsletter and Platforms titles, use a color that fits well with the rest of these sections (orange) and that reads well over the white background.
After that you can begin with the second page.

Thanks

[Anne]

Like this?

[ManuelFLara]

Perfect :)

[Anne]

:)

How is this for the second page?

[ManuelFLara]

I like it a lot. Just a couple of things:

- Add a small & centered "Click screenshot to enlarge it" text under the screenshots.
- Remove the hero from the bottom and add a new orange section between the Newsletter and Platforms called "Reviews", where there will be a review from a gaming site (a quote from the review, the site URL and the score given).
- (I think I forgot to mention this one in the main thread) Can you put a "Money Back Guarantee" button next to the Download Demo ones? It'd be as high as the two 'download' buttons together.

That's all

Best regards

[Anne]

...

[ManuelFLara]

OK, That's perfect :)
You can send the files.

Thanks for your work,
Manuel

[Anne]

Great :)

I'll start on the HTML coding this weekend

Anne

[Anne]

Files sent

Manuel, I've sent you a PM with a link to the files

Anne

[ManuelFLara]

I already have all the files, so admins you can close this thread and pay Anne what she deserves, good work!

Regards,
Manuel

[Michael]

Thanks Manuel.