Indie Flux is born!

[Uhfgood]

Okay so now I've got indieflux.com, and I've got a temporary banner up.

Also I've switched out the ads in my sidebar and consolidated it into 2x2 add slots all with Project Wonderful. Apologies to those who already had bids, I am still new to the system and was trying to get it right.

I am looking for a way to get an automated ratings system. By automated I mean allow me to choose the rating and it will generate the graphic I can put in the post.

This way I can have an actual ratings for reviews. I think people want to see that. In fact I think I'm going to start doing reviews in such a way as there's a small paragraph, rating, screenshot or video on the main page, and then if you wish to read the full things, the "read more" link. Sort of like I do it now, except you should be able to skim that whole thing on the front page and not have to read the full review if you don't want. Rather than me starting with a meaningless paragraph at the front.

A quick question, does anyone know if they ever rss individual posts... I don't think it works that way but since I don't know alot about news feeds I'm not sure. I know there are some sites that add the rss icon to each post, but I'm guessing maybe your subscribing to the news feed through that post, maybe those are just for convenience, or are they actually rssing the individual posts?

Also I am probably going to start a mailing list, but I don't really know how to do that. I don't have any money to spend at the moment, just my time. All of my money is actually going to maintain my domain names (say that 5 times fast). Any free ways to start a mailing list so I can alert people of reviews or whatever. (I think maybe a monthly with the links of each post for the month in it or some such)

I really want to get more eyes onto the site. Thanks for any help you guys give, and have already given. Thanks for not chewing me out for so many forum threads about the same thing (well different aspects).

[Bad Sector]

Well if you want more people seeing this, make it easier to see :-P. The current theme is bad, try something easier on the eyes :-).

[Maupin]

I am looking for a way to get an automated ratings system. By automated I mean allow me to choose the rating and it will generate the graphic I can put in the post.

At least as of a few years ago there were Wordpress plugins that allowed you to add arbitrary fields of data to your posts. (For all I know this may be a feature of standard Wordpress these days.) For example, you could have a dropdown list between 0 and 5 for every post, and in the page PHP code read that value and put the appropriate rating graphic <img> tag on the page.

A quick question, does anyone know if they ever rss individual posts... I don't think it works that way but since I don't know alot about news feeds I'm not sure. I know there are some sites that add the rss icon to each post, but I'm guessing maybe your subscribing to the news feed through that post, maybe those are just for convenience, or are they actually rssing the individual posts?

I believe in those cases you are subscribing to the article so that any new comments will show up in your feed.

Any free ways to start a mailing list so I can alert people of reviews or whatever. (I think maybe a monthly with the links of each post for the month in it or some such)

I and many others use Your Mailing List Provider. It's free up to 1000 subscribers (though you don't get all the features).

[richtaur]

This way I can have an actual ratings for reviews. I think people want to see that.

Just curious, what makes you say that? Have users asked for it? Have you surveyed your readers?

Any free ways to start a mailing list so I can alert people of reviews or whatever.

Why not just use Google/Yahoo Groups?

[Uhfgood]

that's really something like a forum. I mean a mailing list so I can mail out newsletters.

As far as my readers are concerned, I haven't actually put the question to it, but considering that most of them are developers, and I have had comments from developers about adding ratings to my reviews (so they could tell at a glance whether it was good or not), indicates to me that it's probably one of the things they might want.

Far from conclusive though. That's also what I would probably do with the mailing list... polls or whatever.

[JGOware]

"but considering that most of them are developers.."

It's almost impossible to make any income from that demographic when it comes to a blog, forum, etc, unless you have some popular tool to support.

Your time is much better spent in researching what end users want in a review blog. Even though that's a very competitive area, the market is much more broad and you could affiliate with games, etc, and sell them on your site as well. Perhaps negotiate with devs to provide special discounts only on your site, etc, etc.

content, content, content.

[Uhfgood]

Obviously I will attempt all of that. It's mostly dev'vers right now. I just mean about people telling me they want to see ratings, it's mostly dev'vers that say it. There's a point to that though, and that is wanting to see what I think of it right away, not wading through paragraphs to see if I liked it or not.

In any case I'm going to try to find a way to research what people want in a game blog, and especially an indie one

[Uhfgood]

Check it again, please. Too eye gouging?

[Bad Sector]

Much better. Now get rid of the double gradient headers :-).

Also, this pixel art at the banner reminds me of something but i'm not sure what game is from. Is it from an indie game? If not, ditch it. Indie Flux is supposed to be about indie games, not retro mainstream games :-).

[GolfHacker]

Also, this pixel art at the banner reminds me of something but i'm not sure what game is from. Is it from an indie game? If not, ditch it. Indie Flux is supposed to be about indie games, not retro mainstream games :-).

Agreed. Perhaps a collage or mosaic of graphic elements from various indie games - that would look pretty cool. I'll gladly give you permission to use some of my art assets for such a collage.

[BantamCityGames]

Agreed. Perhaps a collage or mosaic of graphic elements from various indie games - that would look pretty cool. I'll gladly give you permission to use some of my art assets for such a collage.

Same here.

--------------------------------------------

[Uhfgood]

Actually it's from Loom and you're correct, it's about indie games not retro mainstream games.

I've actually got some help with the logo. Personally I wanted to do something on the right side (where the loom image is) and have a symbol that makes you think of the flux capacitor from back to the future. But since it's about indie games, and some of you started offering, maybe a collage would be good. (or maybe I'm thinking of strips over the right side of the banner, slanting to left or right where each strip has some graphics from a few indie games... it won't exactly be a collage, but it might look nice)...

I will get back to you guys once the logo is done and I've put it up...

I really appreciate the help, I think this blog will become very good considering a lot of people have already given input.... When others start to get involved it usually bodes well with the project :-)

Thanks again

[Reactor]

Wow, that looks a ton better. Nice name, too.