Website input needed...

keithsarcade

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My Wife works at a university here in our town. A student who is taking web design has approached her and is wanting to build a website, naturally Sue mentioned that I collect both console and arcade video games, and that I never got around to building a site (I usually just make videos for my YouTube channel).

Anyway, I have basically been given one week to give her ideas on how I want it to look, what kind of design, images, text and so on. So I'm looking for any input or comments. Also looking for any links that I can share with her so she can get some ideas of what a gaming website generally looks like (if you have a site, feel free to share that also). I am assuming this student dosent know much about gaming and so I basically have 7 days to show her "my world".

Anyone want to give me some ideas and/or links to present to her?
 
Every legit arcade page requires to have a page with all your games (cropped images of cabinets?) with links going to there each individual page. With details of how you found, got though, smelt, played and repaired each game.
Repair guide for the new guys."How do you collect arcade games?"
Tips, tricks and trivia section.

Maybe the back round could be a picture of your game line up with Flash animation images laying over the arcade screens showing an animation of the gameplay so I looks like the games are 'alive'.
 
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I have an update

I think the best way for a website to look nice and professional is to use a template. Here are some free template websites look through them and see if there is anything that you'd like to use.

http://freewebtemplates.com/

http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/



http://www.freecsstemplates.org/



http://www.freelayouts.com/websites/html-templates



http://www.entheosweb.com/photoshop/free_photoshop_templates.asp



http://templatetop.com/



http://www.webtemplatesgallery.com/free-website-templates.asp

http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/templates/

http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/

http://www.elated.com/pagekits/

http://www.freetemplatesonline.com/templates/49.html




So on your website lets say you'd like a Home page, Arcade games page, home console games page, YouTube Channel page... What else?

Also, do you have a company name or a name you'd like to put on the website?



We defiantly have to link your YouTube channel! Personally I like the Galaxian Game, even though Galaga is my all time favorite :)

Im going thru templates now, there sure are a lot of them to choose from. Nothing jumping at me yet.

Anyone care to share any more ideas?
 
I use moonfruit.com. It's free and their templates and interface are easy to work with. Though, they obviously limit your storage space and number of pages if you don't purchase a plan. I don't have anything really heavy so it's no big deal to me.

With that said, I know my site isn't the best example of a "good" site since I don't update much and I'm lacking in content. Maybe down the road, I can sit down and take the time to overhaul it. :)
 
I just made a "sample" on wordpad for Ms. Pac-Man. Like already mentioned (and like you would find on a typlcal arcade collector's web page), I envision a dedicated page for every game with a brief description, how I scored it, and what Ive done to it. I have named appropriately named these descriptions as "the Story", "The Score" and "The Service". What do you think, good idea? Unique?

Heres what my sample looks like:
Ms. Pac-Man (1981 Namco, Licensed to Midway Mfg.)

The Story: What can I possibly say about Ms. Pac-Man that hasnt already been said? Pac-Man was an instant success in the Arcade world, and this sequel was no exception. More mazes, enhanced gameplay, and who can forget those intermission scenes? The Pac-Man series was so popular, it rapidly spawned into unlimited merchandising, more sequels and even a TV show.

While this wasnt the first arcade game I ever bought, it was the first of all games I currently own. It brought me back into the arcade collecting scene. Before buying this game for a mere $150 in 2008, I had bought and sold numerous games, but not many of those had a "classic" status, and I usually only kept one or two at a time. This game must have had a bug in it and it bit me, it bit me good.

The Score: Found on Craigslist listed as fully working for $200. Upon calling the seller, he mentions that he just started having trouble with the game. I decide to preview the game and discovered that playing around with the fuses brought some life back. We agreed on $150 and I brought it home with a big smile on my face. I had been out of the collecting scene for awhile and was thinking these games still went for around $1000. While they have gone down significantly since then, they still merit a decent price tag, certainly much higher than my original investment.

The Service: After reading up on Bob Roberts' site, I quickly discovered that my Ms. Pac-Man was "drunk". The quick fix for this was to chuck out the widely hated filter PCB, change fuse's and blocks as well as the edge connector. I did all that with the help of Dave (AKA Dokert) who replaced the edge connector for me. I also had a flaky Hantarex monitor to deal with, and I ended up replacing that with a proper Electrohome G07, which has gotten new caps and a new flyback since. It has some burn from another game but nothing major, and the smoked plexi hides it well. The cabinet is in OK shape, typical fade. These games are notorious for "hand wear" especially on the LH side, and while mine is no exception, its not bad, I've certainly seen much worse. The bottom of the cabinet had huge holes in the wood where leg levelers used to be. I ended up removing the bottom 1/2" from the cabinet alltogether and replaced the bottom, wood, leg levelers and all. These games are also notorious for faded marquees, so that was replaced. The T-Molding was worn, and just for kicks, I had some T-Molding from a Sega Turbo that I recently parted out (it's a smooth black with sky blue pinstripes), it turned out looking good so I just left it on. The Bezel and CPO are in good shape with only a few imperfections, nothing to worry about.

I also decided to replace the plain jane white start buttons with Bob Roberts' illuminated button kit in cherry red. The PCB was also replaced. I ran a 48-1 in this game for awhile with a Pac-Jamma adapter. After the basement started seeing more and more games, I decided I wanted original hardware again and bought a 4-1 PCB from Souzilla. It is the latest version with "top 5" high score save and free play wit attract mode.
 
As a Web Development major, I would say draw something out or show them one of those templates and have them create something similar from scratch.

Keep the image sizes down for loading times, nothing above 72 dpi (as computer monitors don't display above that anyway), and make sure that the page is easy to update. Perhaps get a "blank" version of an individual page for you/someone else to be able to add new games as time goes on. Also make sure you know how to handle other basic tasks when it goes up, like deleting pages for games that you don't have anymore.

Too many times I see people build or have a website built, then they don't understand it, the original designer moves on, and the page becomes outdated and unusable. Plan for the future if possible.
 
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