Awhile ago I talked about the website idea which I decided to can- saying it was to much, and also to simple to work as a functional website. While in theory the idea was interesting and if it was in its prime straight away would give users a great site to read and check out.
But overall it was lacking the detailed content which other sites would have all the time, and that got me thinking.
This post is broken into “Journal Pieces”, as I work on restoring the project and wont be posted until then.
13th March 2010
Today I was in the mood to design- more specifically to bring back possibly Another Code Labs, the Cing fansite I ran a few years ago. The only thing about that was it already had its prime- and that wasn’t that good overall. While deep down I wanted to restore the website, I knew it would be pointless.
My attention turned onto The Chip Behind The Idea- an idea which I coined earlier this year which covered interviews- and more specifically interviews the site itself conducts.
The only problem there originally was how the content would be collected and how much would be on the site.
So it got me thinking into other ways to keep the site active, I decided to bring into some editorials as well- plus web roundups which consist of links to the latest video game news around the internet.
While the afternoon started with me wanting to restore Another Code Labs, and even as far as putting up a wordpress install where the site would be- heck I even skinned the previous design which was for Another Code Labs with a side navigation- I in the end went with this idea.
I gave it a nice coat of red paint- and as you can see from above, while it still retains some bits of information from Another Code Labs’ design, (which I haven’t replaced with stuff yet)- its a crisp and simple design.
29th March 2010
While today isn’t the day I worked on the site (in fact instead its the day I decided its usless to keep working on it) today is the day I write the blog post for the work which I’ve done up until now- and talk about my ending decision to not continue the project.
I think the only major thing which I had made was redesign the site. Once I had the design in-mind I worked on various stages using a “frame” system to design it. Meaning I made various div’s act as frames so I can easily move them around the layout and keep a conistant size- its pretty stupid in the long run how I did this so my brain can work out what I was doing- but in the end it came out with a pretty interesting design. I wouldn’t say its my best work- heck I’d say in the past while I’ve been getting worse, but its an improvement of what I’ve done of late.
I kept thinking in the back of my head what I was going to do with the site, and decided content wise the following would be posted every so often, (quoted from the “About” page which I had finished):
Your doing it wrong! – is an editorial which looks at what has been developed and published over the years in a certain series, it will often talk and highlight various declines in the series or high points which are either replicated to much or to little. It might also include a few pieces of “advice”.
Innovation Time! – is an editorial piece which tries to put innovation into a series or new IP by discussing where a developer or publisher should take the game next. It often talks about what I would do with the series.
Web Roundup – is a weekly article which covers a roundup of articles posted around the web as well as news pieces which might be of interest to our viewers, as well as covering general video game news.
Interview – our interviews might be rare or quite often depending on the time and what we are discussing. Usually interviews will set out to be full “wiki’s” of what the developer has done- and trying to align more with the original concept of The Chip Behind The Idea. Other times it might be specific issues which we want an opinions on from the various developers, publishers or web site owners. If you wish to be interviewed drop me anemail.
Fact Scanning – an editorial which looks for the facts about certain requested series which fans what developers to revisit, looking at if it was a good series both design wise and commercially as well as personally.
Design Collide – an editorial which looks over series and discusses if they merged would they be a good game as well as been good design.
Other – sometimes we just write editorials which fit into our scheme of things but not our specific series. They range from general observations to something more.
A pretty interesting line up of content I dare say, and I was going to do it each week or something like that- meaning only update once a week.
Also I remember the last thing I had done on the testing site, was I was looking for a WordPress plugin which I could enter RSS feeds and make it post a post say each week using whats new on the RSS feeds, in the end I didn’t find a plugin which worked as well as I hopped (as well as there been fuck all which did that). So I left the project for a bit.
The today I was thinking “do I really want to work on it?” and in the end I decided what posts I would inadvertently in the end make- would be overshadowed by this site, as well me replacing over a certain period of time and no longer giving it that much attention.
Though it was an interesting project/idea while it lasted, I might revisit it at a later date- or just do what I was thinking of originally and write what I would of wrote here, but more personal so it fits in with my “personal blog” idea. Or something like that….*rambles a bit more*
Trent Petronaitis
I’m not going to go crazy talking about the design of Another Code Labs- I’ve done that before and you can find the article if you look hard enough in the archives. In fact I’ve talked about the design for lots of my sites heaps of times over the years.
No today I’m going to talk about the site in general- its ups and downs, and all that other crap.
Another Code Labs was created late into 2004 when the game was first announced- accuarly I’m pretty sure now it was announced at E3, so possibly not- but basically near the end of the year after running the various DS sites I would assume Another Code was one of the games which stood out to me- as an awesome game, and in my earlier articles I’ve even deemed it “Myst Like”.
It’s a shame that the developer Cing is now in financial trouble- which you can read about a few articles down, but so is the life and death of the industry.
Another Code Labs was pretty much really the dawn of my web design hobby- because really before then yes I tooled around with websites, but all I knew was how to bold something and make a table, and once I got started with ACL, I started to learn more things about tables (made various table layouts) and div’s etc. I only really used free layouts for the first little while I had the site- essentially the first month as I was getting things organized.
Another Code Labs was started around late into 2004 after the Nintendo DS was launched, it featured content around Cing’s Another Code: 2 Memories game. It started using free layouts, in which I edited and developed upon until I was comfortable enough to develop my own designs. The website also had various hosting problems (it switched back and forth from Yahoo Geocities to NinHost). Throughout the years, while also covering Another Code: 2 Memories, it grew to cover Konami’s Survival Kids series, Cing’s new DS game Hotel Dusk and then other franchise such as Animal Crossing and Darwinia. All extra games where removed as the site developed to only cover both Cing and Konami titles mentioned, until Survival Kids flipped into a new blog and Another Code Labs still continued to cover the Cing titles (until Another Code Wii was released in which it dropped Hotel Dusk). In 2009 it had a rocky end of rebirths, shutdowns and other hiatuses until the site was finally stopped late 2009. – From the “Project” page.
The site really was about one thing and one thing only, Another Code: 2 Memories. I collected various resources and videos etc. about the game to catalog and keep the site interesting before the release of the game.
Forum wise, I’ll say it right now- well like all my projects there was heaps of them at one stage or another. Let’s just leave it as that.
Site and content wise, its had many forms. More recently from 2008 – 2009 before it was closed for the last time it has had the most changes. Especially considering I had no longer its content- so it had changed from a big site to a mini site and hosted a few bits of media from time to time etc. It was basically just a big bad micro site which had no where to go but down at that point.
But bef0re then I would say Another Code Labs was one of the biggest sites I had ever had, and one of the most successful- it did have a small little following and while it wasn’t a blockbuster site it did the job it set out to do and contained heaps of information about the games the site covered.
Game wise it went from just Another Code: 2 Memories to also having Hotel Dusk: Room 215. I then near the middle of its life had the site running through iGaming CMS so just before then Konami’s Survival Kids series was added, and afterwoods Darwina and Animal Crossing DS was added. I’m pretty sure there was something else on that list as well.
As soon as I stopped using iGaming CMS I pretty much ditched everything else and went back to just Another Code and Hotel Dusk. The sequel to Another Code wasn’t announced when I had the site up and running nicely, so when it was I did give the site another chance- but with the quality of content I had left for both games the best I could do was host a few FAQs for the original game and then try and clean up the current site.
Because the content was originally designed for a micro site after I lost everything because of my own clumsiness, the site had to be designed from scratch. I can’t remember if I worked on ACL in 2010 or 2009 to bring it up to this current standard but above is an image of what I was working on- for the most part I was trying to get the original games section back up and running well.
It is always on the back of my mind to restore the site to its former glory, and thats kind of been my goal for the past few years. But now with the possible downfall of the developer- I’m thinking if I do restore it, it will be more of a “Shrine” type site- and cover all their works they are credited for. Least most of them- I’m not to sure.
But on the same token if I was to restore the site, its always been a project I’ve decided now I can’t do by myself. When I was younger (around when I started the site for the first time), it was much easier to collect information, especially considering thats when the game was been released- so there was always something to post news etc. But now theres not.
Maybe I should restore the site- I’m not to sure why I would bother, but maybe I should…
Trent Petronaitis
Ah DS Network- the first true website I’ve ran, and to think that that year it had gotten more additions and design changes and forums then my current sites get new layouts.
DS Network was the first time I decided “hey Publisher layouts are shit”, and when I started working on the website for it- it contained free layouts using cutenews and other php applications to essentially power itself.
It also had an Invasion Free forum- its hard to remember which came first the forum or the site- its kind of like what came first the chicken or the egg- and its essentially as redundant as that as well.
Content wise it featured what I had lying around from Swamp Island which related to the Nintendo DS- and was slightly updated to have the latest game announcements and media. (This same content was used essentially un edited on all my other sites relating to the Nintendo DS that year, aka Aussie-DS, DS Like etc.) The only thing missing from each website was the news which was powered by cutenews, which means each website had started fresh in that regard.
Article wise, it never really kicked off and I think there was a few previews which where made, but they are lost in time- while my blog (trinest.com) does contain a few articles from back then, its limited to what I have left and not was accuarly written back then.
DS Network was pretty dam successful if compared to Swamp Island, heck I’m pretty sure I kept most of the affiliates and only added more gaming related ones.
Because of this, a few people from the community wanted to help out- that was pretty cool, which is how Aussie-DS was made, we decided a new name was in order, especially one which embodied what we where about.
Though I think in the end we where all the wrong people to do the site, Aussie-DS did start to work for abit, heck we had a design made by a fellow affiliate who was happy to help out, and it was hosted on Ninhost then as well. (the site part) heck we also got a new forum as well.
Though little content was really made from everyone else, and even I didn’t put much in, so we decided to say hey lets have other people to come in and help out. Until we picked the worst people who basically screwed us over by taking the forum from under us. Because of this and the lack of activity leading up to the site I moved onto DS Like, and then shortly after Another Code labs.
DS Like really wasn’t meant to be for viewers- what it was in the end while it did contain affiliate links on the side (and used free layouts once again) it didn’t really offer anything new- and it was more of an archive of what was collected over the year then a fully functional website. I worked on it occasionally and added various other goodies, and downloads as well to the site to make it more interesting then what it was. But really it was closed in favor of Another Code Labs.
After I had worked on Another Code Labs for awhile, I was confronted by one of the people who worked on Aussie DS with me, saying we should start it up again- but by then I really wasn’t interested so everyone went their separate paths.
There really wasn’t much to say about these DS sites, they where typical DS sites for the time (media pictures from e3, collections of games etc.) at the time there where DS sites which did it better, though they disappeared shortly after as well. Most closing down others just merged with bigger sites etc.
Trent Petronaitis
Swamp Island was a website which in my mind started when I started dicking around with websites. Which the best estimate of a time frame was around March 2004 and possibly even January of February. Especially considering I remember posting the DS press release (the original one before it got a name) and I’m pretty sure that was released early in the year. Also by then my site had already picked up- and used Publisher based layouts.
The first ever page I could say which I’ve utalised on the internet was a simple white page with a tag board inserted, I do believe the page featured no align tags of any sort- and the whole design was essentially left aligned. The white page also contained under the tag board lots and lots of links and buttons to various websites which “blog rolled” your website for you if you ad their button. Above the tagboard there was a simple thing saying “Hi I’m Trent, I like harvest moon”- not exactly those words but something to that effect.
For those stuck in the web 2.0 world, a tag board or a shout box had many names and was essentially a 150 by 300 or so small iframe box which contained a forum on the bottom of the tag board which you could write your name, email, website and comment. Above this would be all the comments from people who had came to the site.
You could customize these only down to the design and width and height, the website which I got the code for it would also have options for having it in various positions and styles as well.
I think the site was like this for quite some time- and possibly I even made another Geocities site for what was going to be swamp island after that- I’m not to sure.
The site contained a few articles and postings, as well as a few bits of content for Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (Game Cube) once it got going- I think I used a few free designs for awhile before I started to make them using Mircosoft Publisher- why I was making websites using publisher I have no idea. But they where essentially cut and past designs which featured a banner and some horrible border design. Basically if I had bothered to learn HTML would of looked much better etc.
I think for the most part I’ve forgotten most of the things about this site- but on the same token their isn’t much to say.
It did feature the DS as soon as it was announced so I’m pretty sure the site had been running longer then that- or least it was openned with the DS in mind- its quite confusing time line wise, all I remember is adding the DS after posting the press release and then slowly removing my AWL content or forgetting about it before I then moved onto the Nintendo DS completly and while my affiliates for the most part where Zelda and Harvest Moon sites I did in the end use the back bone of what I’ve collected for the next project and it kind of just stuck like that over the year.
Anyway check out the next article I’ll post about DS Network – which will include the other DS sites that year such as Aussie-DS, DS Like etc. As really they are all the one site. Then another article about Another Code Labs!
