Greetings Researchers & Readers:

_About These Questions_
It has been far too long since we've posted on this wonderful service!
We've got a new series of questions related to the newest version
(4.0) of our web site, and really hope you guys can help us out. 
Hopefully these questions/tasks will be fun!  Oh, and no fair
answering identical questions ? feel free to answer different, but not
the same!

_About The MyAdventureGame.com Project _
MyAdventureGame.com is a website dedicated to playing, creating, and
sharing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style games. The people behind
MyAdventureGame.com (us) created the site as a hobby and to have a fun
learning experience. Because of this, we have no real budget or
anything like that, which is directly reflected in the questions'
$-to-time ratios. But, we hope to make up it for fun.  The current
live website has some more information if you're interested.

_About The New Version _
Being never satisfied, we've decided to complete redo the entire
website - from giving it a slightly cleaner interface to using an
industrial strength 3-tier ASP.NET web application (in our humble
opinion).  Currently, we're in the Alpha stages, which we define as
having enough functionality to determine if the design/interface will
work.  Expect broken links and errors, but don't worry about reporting
them unless we specifically request in the Question.
 
_And Finally, The Questions_
Home Page
What do you think of the home page (same on Current & Alpha) design?
What mood/feelings does it invoke? What message does it convey? How is
the organization?

Secondary Pages - Appearance
What do you think of the new secondary pages compared to the current?
Do the new colors and tab styles make a big difference?

Secondary Pages - Navigation
Do you find the names on the tab easy to understand? Do the tabs
contain the content you would expect? Is the Sub-Navigation bar (with
the overline and underline) useful and clear?  Any suggestions?

Random Game
We absolutely love this feature -- what do you think of it? How does
it make you feel?

? so we just asked a whole bunch of questions, but we're just trying
to explain what we're thinking.  You don't have to explicitly answer
each question, but try to have your response answer the four main
areas (Home Page, Appearance, Navigation, Random Game).

_Links_
Current Site: http://www.MyAdventureGame.com
Alpha Site: http://Mag.Papadimoulis.com


_Closing_
Please accept our apologies for the novella of a question.  But,
understand that we want to be as concise as possible, and explain
exactly what we're looking for, and try to make sense of why we're
asking such atypical questions.  Also, we really appreciate your help.
Everyone on this site has been very helpful in the past, so thanks in
advance!

Sincerely,
The MyAdventureGame.com Team

myadventuregame-ga,

Thanks for another entertaining question! I fired up your homepage
under several different browsers, to get an idea of how it looks.

The design on your home page is rather straightforward, with a
somewhat retro look, which fits in well with the old-school gaming
feel of choose-your-own-adventure games. The links are
well-positioned, and I like the clean look of the icons. I'd say the
page conveys a playful mood. The Logo Guy and choice of fonts are
particularly whimsical. The main block of text clearly communicates
the purpose of the site. I have two suggestions for the main site
design: the FAQ might be easier to find if it were linked to as an
icon, as well as through the site text. Also, the "What's New" section
hasn't been updated since April. I would suggest that this should
either be updated more often, or cleared periodically, as older dates
in the News section might be a turn-off for casual browsers of the
site.

Also, the page looks a bit odd using my main browser, Mozilla 1.5 on
Linux. There are white gaps between some of the images: one between
the two halves of the Logo Guy; and two more, one between "Top Games"
and "The Wal*Mart Game", and one between "Alien Planet" and "Random
Game/How To Make A Game". I also tried your homepage under the Windows
version of Mozilla 1.5, but the problem does not seem to exist there.
It does show up on Netscape 4.78 for Windows, however. The page looks
fine under Internet Explorer, as well as under Opera. When present,
the white bars seem to be wider on the Alpha page than in the Current
page design.

The new secondary pages seem a bit crisper than the old ones,
particularly the design of the navigation tabs themselves. It is
definitely much better to have all of the personal data collected
under the "My Stuff" tab, rather than scattered among the main tabs. I
also like the addition of the "Random Game" link on the "Games" tab.
The "Play", "Create", "Chat", and "Log On" links on the Alpha page at
the top right-hand corner could use some extra space inserted before
and after the individual menu items, because they look a bit cramped.
Other than that, navigation is just fine - the headings for the tabs
are concise and clear, as is the options on the sub-navigation bar.

The Random Game feature seems pretty fun. It's a good way to get a
sample of a few games, without having to decide which look best. It
might also be useful if there was a way to get a random game for each
of the individual categories. I also like the "Top Games" idea, both
as a way for the user to find quality games, and an incentive for game
creators.

The other major thing I noticed when browsing was the forums. Under
the original page, they look a bit old-fashioned. I'd suggest using a
third-party bulletin board system, like phpBB or vBulletin. These tend
to be free or inexpensive, and are pretty easy to set up. They should
scale better than your current system, and they'll also look a bit
smoother.

phpBB:
http://www.phpbb.com/

vBulletin:
http://www.vbulletin.com/

Once again, I hope my comments come in handy for your Alpha release.
If you'd like some clarification on any of these points, please
request an Answer Clarification. I'd be happy to help you. Your
question isn't finished until you're satisfied with my answer, so
please don't hesitate to ask! Thanks again!
-vorfeed_ga

Good stuff! Thanks vorfeed!