User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon May 16, 2016 9:29 am

Several new site features were made public over the weekend.

First, and most importantly, the Games Library is now live. The Library is searchable by title or sortable alphabetically. At this time there are two dozen games in the library, with about 5 being added per week. Also, the Games Library home page shows the 3 most recently added titles, and the 3 (current) games getting the most attention.

Games pages include:
-) Game overview (usually a mini-review),
-) Screenshots post-processed to 4:3 when applicable (not right out of an emulator verbatim, which does not account for monitor stretching) or taken by a camera off a CRT monitor
-) Game ratings (1 through 5 hearts)
-) Game credits, amiga focused
-) Box cover scans
-) Comments - for the AmigaLove community to comment on any game they wish to wax nostalgia about your favorite games.
-) Comment "Liking" by clicking a little heart under any comment you agree with

ALSO
Now on any post across the entire site, there are AmigaLove "Like" icons to show your appreciation for a post. At the bottom of a post to the far left you'll see this new feature (it is in the same location on Comments for games, too).
like2.png
Like Posts and Comments if you, well, like them!

<3

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Mon May 16, 2016 9:30 pm

I'm very much looking forward to contributing to the ever building games database anyway you see fit! Whenever I'm reviewing an Amiga game I'm now always making sure I collect plenty of screenshots from the actual hardware when possible and always from that glorious CRT. Looking forward to contributing many more detailed written reviews with hopefully excellent screenshots. I'll be sure to offer them up to you, even if the game is already up there. I tend to think when the games will work my screen capture program there is an image quality these emulators can't match. So you can pick and choose anything you see fit. I'm still jacked my screenshots are up for World Circuit... I was kind of sad that picture of the manual didn't make the cut... I know mine was in bad shape but I would love to see shots of the game manuals if available. This may be small for now, but I have the feeling you're in it for the long haul and you care about the history as much as I do. The only games database online that has taken ANY thought into the origins of these games... What country they were made in, published in, where the original port was from, how to properly see this games as the artists who put their heart into these games wanted you to see them. Thank you for that, you deserve a thanks, because you're the only one that cares. Not Moby, not Hall of Light, not the regular blog type reviewer or YouTube reviewer... Nobody seems to care. Here, a couple people do care. Thanks for caring, and thanks for making me a part of the journey.

And thanks for using one of my posts as an example for liking a post! haha! I completely misread that at first and couldn't understand how my words had gotten in the body of your post... haha... But very nice and thoughtful idea with the heart, very appropriate of course for this site. Looking forward to giving my hopefully short two cents in on the games in the database. This is something special here, especially with the user input like this. Moby and HOL don't have that... LemonAmiga does but it's just an awful design through and through. Everybodys comments (and screenshots of the games) are so small nobody is going to bother with those.

Nice small selection of games for now, let's everyone take a peek in. If this site launched with everyone Amiga game ever I'd just stare blankly not knowing where to start, and never starting because of it. Would there be a way to implement an "All Games" list rather than how we currently need to click on the individual letter? Sorting by letters is great when searching for certain titles but can be a pain when you want to look at everything and pick from there. Just a thought, don't know how difficult that would be for you so it's not a big deal.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon May 16, 2016 10:23 pm

Very interesting idea about an "All Games" list feature. Do you envision that being #-Z, paginated? Maybe...12 per page? (ha! 2 pages right now)

After I get a few more of these under my belt (maybe to 50 or so?) I would love to open the door up to others who want to take a crack at these. I have to be a little careful with image sizes: if I attach 21 screenshots to a game, I make sure the largest they get when clicked is 640x480 or I worry - in the future - what my server costs might be if we start to see more traffic here by the end of the year, or site optimizations I might need to consider. Right now none of the games are being indexed by Google, so they are essentially hidden from the outside world. But that will soon change. Not that big of a deal, but something I'll keep an eye on.

The largest image on a Game page right now is the cover art, and nearly every one I've posted is one of mine from my own collection (a few I've photoshopped together using various multiple sources as original Amiga boxes are damned hard to find for some made in the mid-80s).

Excited where this is going. It's been a lot of fun and I do plan on keeping it going for the long haul.

You mentioned Lemon, which is a hugely helpful resource for many. From a collecting standpoint, I value his community's game rating the most I think, then the comments. The screenshots are usually pretty crappy. But that site is actually what inspired AmigaLove. I couldn't STAND going to Lemon it on my mobile phone, and the site Frames are a design tactic from so long ago it drives me crazy sometimes. I very much find the comments interesting, but navigating them completely sucks. Anyway, in all reality AmigaLove will be lucky to get to 20% the size of Lemon, but that's OK. At least I like using this site. Glad you do, too!

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Mon May 16, 2016 11:24 pm

I'll try to remember to put them in 640x480 if handing them over to you. I feel that's still a little small for todays modern HD displays, but it's certainly better than every other historical site either feating the original 320x200 image or a botched X2 zoom. When those games were originally designed to be displayed fully on a 12-18 inch monitor, I feel they should fill a good chunk of a modern screen. Of course I don't have bandwidth to worry about. I know part of my screaming at Moby involved them wanting the original sizes, which I honestly could have easily fooled them into putting 4:3 images in there. I could have just stretched the 320x200 stuff into 320x256, close enough to 4:3, and they wouldn't have batted an eye because 320x256 is most of the emulated junk they have! I could have easily lied my way into getting 4:3 screenshots of Amiga games on that site... But I don't want to have to lie to a historically based site on how best to display history! Something they should care about enough to figure this stuff out! Unfortunately they do care, they think they're in the right... But the reason I didn't lie my way into getting 4:3 NTSC games on there is because 320x256 is still too damn small for today. I also find HOL utterly broken on my browser, Opera. Not exactly one everyone uses but it is based on Chrome these days and you'd figure these sites would work better with Chrome based browsers. They're terrible.

I remember Lemon Amiga from ALOOONNNG time ago... Back when we were still all on CRTs at 1024x768. The site was good then, screenshots looked fine (other than being distorted into widescreen) and there weren't nearly as many comments. In terms of historical based gaming sites, I dislike them the least. It's way outdated though. Not just for modern things like phones but it looks terrible even on a laptop let alone a desktop with a huge screen. It's a terribly hard site to get into these days, long overdue for an update.... But that's got to be quite the process... They can't just zoom in anymore on those tiny emulation shots they have, where they used low quality JPEGs to save them... Moby and HOL and Lemon need all new screenshots! Even if you put aside how they distort everything, if they want to continue distorting games they still need new screenshots! I'm so afraid of some of these games being researched online in the future only for someone to come across some terrible low quality and low resolution JPEG with the faces distorted and they simply say "To hell with that crap!" If it's history they care about, they all need a lesson in what this small place teaches.

I suppose it's good that we're using HTML to put images in posts, then? I remember your original plan was to upload pics straight to the site, but I know that would kill you on some my stuff. haha. Don't worry, as long I don't view the preferred resolution as far too low, I can adopt a preferred method for display here. I suppose 640x480 would suffice, given space concerns.

And yes, I would be thinking of an "All Games" list to be alphabetical, just stopping at a certain point to go to the next page. I think I could handle more than 12 per page myself, but anything would be cool. Of course too many on one page would not be good. I leave it up to you to decide the best number. Further down the road (no need for this now I don't think) you might categorize them by genre, as another way to look at the all games list besides alphabetically. But yeah, even right now an all games list of a simple two pages I feel would be a great addition.

It's very interesting you were "inspired" by Lemon, in much the same way I was "inspired" by LGR and many Amiga YouTubers not showing Amiga games correctly or speaking from a not heavily researched point of view and discussing it as fact. Not people I hate by any means, they have very good material... But I'm not the only one that thinks they have great material, and a lot of others would simply accept their words as gospel, which I couldn't sit by and not try to say something myself. I was "inspired" by people that could have done better not caring, just as you were inspired by Lemon's outdated design. How did you find my channel by the way? Was it the hard drive installs or transferring from Amiga to PC videos? Or something else all together? Thanks for finding me. And I thank myself for whoring out that NTSC/PAL video so much that I begged people to put it anywhere they belong on the web and post it in my comments. I guess you may have never said anything about this place otherwise... Though you are pretty good at advertising yourself, so perhaps one day.





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