Feedback Request - www.southwindsgames.com

[Pogacha]

Hi, I'm near to open www.southwindsgames.com where I'm going to sell my first game "Dylo's Adventure", but first I want to hear some opinions and suggestions about the site.

Note: The Windows version is available but the Mac version of the game isn't finished.

Thanks in advance.

[JiriNovotny]

I really like your site, it's very well designed.

You should change the links color or make them underlined so they can be easily distinguished.

Also maybe you should use just one guarantee logo, not two completely different.

The "If you experiment problems with any of our games," in the contact section should be "If you experience problems with any of our games,".

And I think that you maybe should keep the screenshot thumbnails colorful and use another hover effect.

[Nauris]

What font are you using for them header thingies? shows up like bunch of symbols. Perhaps its intentional? Looks kinda groovy ;)

[Roman Budzowski]

"Dylo's Adventure"

Little off topic: if it is not too late change the name of your game to get rid of '. Inverted comma really sucks when you submit your game to download sites and in other cases too (like in plimus search).

take care
Roman

[mahlzeit]

Why not put the game on the home page? I, Joe Average Customer, don't care about your newsletter or news items, so show me the goods. By putting the games on the second page you've just made it one step harder to look at them and I might not be bothered to make that click...

[TheMysteriousStranger]

I quite like the site, but you MUST change the headers font. I can see it because I have that font installed, but I know it's a non standard font which is why some are saying they are seeing funny symbols. And even on my machine, with the font installed, it looks poor (that font is designed for high resolution/large letters). If you must use a custom font, make them all images otherwise roughly 99% of your viewers won't see it properly.

The four safe fonts are Helvetica, Verdana, Arial and Times New Roman. You are pretty much guaranteed that 99.9% of all users (even macs!) will be able to view those fonts.

[oNyx]

What font are you using for them header thingies? shows up like bunch of symbols. Perhaps its intentional? Looks kinda groovy ;)

font-family: "Fantasy";

Thats a font familiy such as sans-serif etc... however, if anything it will show up as some really weird font with characters which arent necessarily readable. Change that.

Mh ok... my first impression is positive. Painfree to read, there are some colors etc. Alright... on with the nitpicking...

#1 The rounded corners look all kind dirty especially those on the tabs.

#2 Gray thumbnails are meh.

#3 Hover of those thumbnails... mh the space next to it shows up (decoration:none helps) and there is a delay (solution (http://wellstyled.com/css-nopreload-rollovers.html)). Well, I think I wouldnt use any hover at all or at least not one which changes the whole image. But you could use some hover stuff on those buttons.

#4 Middleclick (open in new tab) on the screenshots doesn work (solution (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3486)).

#5 The "South Winds Games" text at the top also looks sorta unclean.

#6 Its sorta weird to have those horizontal lines (top+bottom) and keeping the whole thing open at the same time.

#7 That "full details" link... I think its a really bad way to do that. Put all information on one page and sort it by relevance and use meaningful headlines. For example more people want to see screenshots than say... look at the system requirements. It also lacks essential information - there is no price tag and now download size anywhere.

[Pogacha]

Thanks for the feedback!

I have a lot of work to do so ...

@oNyx: You show me the problems and the solutions at the same time :eek: , thanks a lot! I'm studying each case now.

@Roman Budzowski: Very good advice ... but it's too late :( , last week I had the crash in plimus search. I'm looking for alternative solutions.

The other problems were fixed.

Thanks again.

[Rebrehc's Industries]

There are a lot of grammar errors on the Info page.

The machine speed is usually a considerable factor, but a computer is composited by many cards inside, each one do a different task, as you have noticed, games usually point to use big graphics resources, so the key is the video card. You don't need to waste to much money to get a complete gaming experience, a 30 u$s card is enough to get best graphics on most games.

should read:

Machine speed is usually the primary factor, but a computer's performance is determined by many of the cards inside; each one performs a different task, as you probably know, games usually tend to use significant graphics resources, so the key is the video card. You don't need to spend too much money to get a great gaming experience, a $30 (U.S.) card is enough to get quality graphics on most games.

For windows, the key is DirectX, a part of the system that is distributed with the windows operative system. It's recommended that you get always the latest updates, it's free and you can found it here. You also will need the latest drivers for your video card, if you doesn't have installed those drivers you may experiment that some games will run very slows and some other even not run. Your hardware provider must give you support on this, but you must know that you can get those free from the site of the manufacturer. Anyway you always can ask for help in the Tech Support submission sheet.

should read:

For Windows, the key is DirectX, a part of the system that is distributed with the Windows operating system. It's recommended that you get always the latest updates. It's free and you can find it here. You will also need the latest drivers for your video card. If you don't have those drivers installed you may notice that some games will run very slowly and some other may not even not run at all. The hardware manufacturer is the only one that can provide you with support on this, but you can get them free from the manufacturer's website. You can also ask for help on the Tech Support submission sheet.

South Winds Games will always try to let you play its games without having a big machine, our systems requirements are fairly less than most games that you can get on stores. In other hand, if you have new technology available in your computer our games will take advantage using it.

should read:

South Winds Games tries to let you play its games without the need for a powerful computer; our systems requirements are typically lower than those of most games that you can get in stores. On other hand, if you have the latest technology available on your computer, our games will take advantage of it.

Submit the Tech Support form telling us your name, email address and the approximate purchase date, and we will send you a new download link.

Submit the Tech Support form telling us your name, email address and the approximate purchase date, and we will send you a new registration code.

Also, there are several links in the text that are not marked in any way as links, so that people will not necessarily know that they are such.

[Pogacha]

A huge thanks!
My English is that bad, the rest was corrected by a friend.
I'm going to emphasize the links too.
Thanks again.