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…