July 26, 2007
at 10:18 pm /
#18104
Hey Pirate, your site is looking better every time I visit! The new simplified layout and the fewer colors have much more impact! There is room on the internet for many styles of websites, and while some are more sophisticated and slick looking,this looks attractive, as if it means business and has a nice personal touch.
On reading your front page commentary, I think your most important (and inviting) statement is:
‘Our goal is to see you succeed in making and selling your game.’
However, since most of what you say is from the ‘I’ point of view, you could stick to that, and not use ‘our’ and ‘we’ at all – therefore:
‘My goal is to see you succeed in making and selling your game.’
I’d suggest placing this sentence directly below ‘welcome to jandscreations’ in the same color and just one font size smaller.
then in the smaller white font, you could say:
‘Don’t let being a beginner or a noob hold you back from making games. Help is right here and questions can be posted in the forums.
Here you’ll find recommendations for low cost but excellent software, and links to helpful articles and tutorials.’
and then wind up with your last line and sig which has just the right friendly tone.
People are much more likely to read 4 or 5 good strong (and not too long) sentences on a page than three paragraphs.
Placing the other comments on other pages will give them more impact there, and will very likely be read by visitors who have been drawn in to those pages by your brief and encouraging front page.
Other things I like:
your page dedication and picture of your dog (this is very friendly, and placed at the bottom of the page is good.. people will see it and appreciate it, but they will also know you are putting their needs first, concentrating on what they are really looking for)
Your tutorial links page is great.. good, clear and unconfusing (I also like the ‘scroll down’ message).
If you would like to make comments on software and on programming languages (like the ones on your front page).. you could place them on those pages… again giving a personal touch, and letting people know you are making recommendations in good faith.
However, you could make these comments in your first posts in the forums instead, including something to the effect that ‘I really like these programs and believe they will do the job for you – and I don’t get paid for saying that! (with a simple text smilie perhaps). This has the chattiness of forum posts, so fits there best, I think.
hope these further comments are helpful (I’m sure I’ve left something out, but you will figure it out – you’ve already done so much already!)