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| When the photographer was gone, Suzie quickly jumped from Java to adventure gaming |
A regular reader has asked us whether we could change our background colour to white, because apparently the black background of The Adventure Gamer has resulted in some queer looks from employers of the reader. As we did not feel we should do any major changes for the blog design just for the sake of one delinquent procrastinating at work, we decided to ask the opinion of all our readers: do you like the current colours of the blog or would you like to see them changed?
Since white-on-white looks a bit bland, we probably couldn't change just background colour, but we would have to modify the colours of other elements quite a lot. If we do end up changing the blog colours, we probably need the help of someone with experience in graphical design. So, if you have some expertise and would like to help us redesign the blog in exchange for some CAPs, say hello to us in comments.
While we are discussing changes, should we talk about the new "Read More" links as well? Posts are now being broken up so that only the first couple of paragraphs are visible unless you click on a link. This makes the main page much more navigable, but also means that we might lose some readers if they think our first paragraphs are boring.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, tell us your opinions about the way the posts are now shown on main page. Personally, I'd suspect that the new look might actually lure more people to reading the blog. If you won't like a post after a few paragraphs, you are probably going to not read it anyway. Now it is easier to see what topics the other posts have, and if you don't like my writing style, there's always Joe, Alex, Ape or someone else to choose from, just few paragraphs away.
DeleteAlso, I assume that in mobile version it has all along been like that - you have seen just a small snippet of the whole post.
That reminds me: The "The Posts That People Actually Read" section has remained completely unchanged since Trickster left. Is it some bug, or has this blog really been that unpopular after that?
DeleteNo it's not really a bug. An average post gets around 200-500 views. Until now, the widget showed posts that had had got most views in the whole time of blog's existence. For one reason or another, these had been very popular posts, views numbered in thousands (one Secret of Monkey Island -post had gathered over 7000 views), so understandably, it's pretty hard for a post to break it into the top.
DeleteI've now changed the widget to show posts that have had most views in 30 days. I think it reflects more accurately what people are reading right now.
As for unpopularity, we did hit a bit of a slump right after Trickster pulled out. Part of that slump was probably due to the games: Trickster had just ended with very popular Quest for Glory 2, and we had to continue with Operation: Stealth and Countdown. We've been slowly climbing our way back (and we've had more notable games later on). In Trickster era, the highest number of views in month was 30 403 (back in August 2014). Well, last January we broke that limit with 30 503 views.
DeleteJanuary was the month that your The Poetic Whodunit post appeared Ilmari. Any good detective would know that this correlation between quality and quantity simply cannot be a coincidence.
DeleteAs for the colours, I still like them the way they are. That said, the site is very easy to read on my oversized modern monitor, but I imagine it might not be on all devices.
DeleteLetting the readers decide whether a change is needed seems logical.
BUT BUT BUT... if we don't change the text color, how will Kenny read our blog when he should be working?
DeleteSpeaking of which, if he loved us, why doesn't he read us from home... *sob*
Do we have stats for average comments and unique commenters? I'd be curious how close we are to getting past the Trickster-abandoned-us-you-bastard slump in terms of comments. Unique visitors, at least to some extent, go up as a function of the number of pages there are on the site (because of search engines). We've added-- 200? 250? pages to the site since QfG2?
DeleteAbandonment! I merely released the blog into the world when I felt it had the maturity to survive and thrive on its own. I must admit that I was initially quite concerned that I'd made a mistake, particularly when Kenny barraged readers with 28 profanity-filled posts for some irrelevant non-adventure game, but the blog is all the better for having survived that.
DeleteI'm joking of course. We love you Kenny.
DeleteDon't worry. He can't read this. The text is the wrong color.
DeleteThanks Ilmari, but right now it practically shows what are the most recent posts anyway. What about extending the timeframe to 6 months or so, to have some compromise between "best of all time" and "popular right now"?
DeleteLaukku: As if Blogger Widget would have such possibilities! :P Only alternatives are week, month and whole time. Something like a year would make sense to me, but unfortunately Blogger analytics doesn't have that capacity.
DeleteTrickster: If that's the case, perhaps the blog should refocus itself on detective fiction ;)
Joe: No, we don't get stats for average amount of comments, although it would be easy (but tedious) to count it. But I suspect that would not tell the whole truth, since in Trickster era there were less posts during a month - an individual post would then gather more comments, whereas now comments are more dispersed between individual posts.
I calculated some monthly comment sums randomly, beginning from August 2013. The results were surprising:
Starting from Trickster era:
August 2013: 449
October 2013: 465
January 2014: 403
April 2014: 388
July 2014: 218
If you don't count the sudden rise from August to October, there's already a downward trend in the number of comments in Trickster era (August had even less comments, but in that month there were very few posts coming out, so I didn't include it in the list).
Here are some random numbers from post-Trickster era:
December 2014: 287
April 2015: 236
July 2015: 222
September 2015: 322
November 2015: 279
So, judged by this standard, we are still not yet in the same numbers as in the best days of Trickster era, but we have managed to stop the downward trend in the commenting, and there might be potential to do even better.
Of course, this is not the whole truth, since back in the day, many comments were just announcements of Steam and GOG sales, but it gives a rough idea.
I randomly googled the "popular posts" widget issue and saw evidence that a "last year" option has been added since this discussion. A couple of Blogger tutorials (such as this and this) show it in a screenshot. IMO the current 30 days setting is nearly useless and "last year" would be much better.
DeleteYou're absolutely correct. It's a part of the blog I never actually look at because it's been mostly a list of the latest posts.
DeleteI just changed the option to 'last year' and it IS more interesting.
Thanks for the heads-up, Laukku!
YESSS! Now, finally, it lists what I expect to see: Kyrandia, Lure of the Temptress, Fate of Atlantis, and... Adventure Quest!?
DeleteYes, that one Adventure Quest -post is one of our all-time most popular posts, along with the Mystery House post that's also on the list. Why? I have no idea. I am more interested that Oo-Topos is doing so well.
DeleteMystery House I can understand for its historical significance, but Adventure Quest? Maybe the "Beeb beeb" in the title happens to be particularly click-baity?
DeleteOther hypotheses: Either some other site linked to those posts (or to labels containing those posts), increasing traffic, or somebody F5'd them a lot. I remember those getting a popularity boost sometime when it was set to 30 days, but they dropped off the list after a while. Maybe they'll drop off again after a year has passed since the popularity spike.
The most likely explanation would be a link at some other site, but I haven't found such a site. The title of the post (and the game) is so general that the post doesn't rise to a high position in a Google search.
DeleteMost of my web projects have gone up against a black background for high-contrast reading and a visual throwback to my years toiling under MS-DOS. I have gotten comments on the matter also, which I have weighed and disregarded.
ReplyDeleteMy employer does not matter*, but on high-resolutions screens the background black bleeds into the text and makes it hard to read.
ReplyDeletePersonally I like dark text on light background more and would welcome a different colour scheme.
*) I DO my job, after all : )
Personally I have no preference at all whether it's black on white or white on black, but I have noticed it is hard to read text with links, which is something like grey on black background.
ReplyDeleteI like the current colour scheme, but it's not like I'll leave if it gets changed!
ReplyDeleteI actually like it as it is now. It is true that reading text with links (grey on black) is a challenge. But I wouldn´t mind a change of the colour themes either.
ReplyDeleteI like the black background with white text. Please don't change this as I find white background black text gives me eye strain.
ReplyDeleteAnd it seems "Love it how it is" is winning at the moment with a 2-for-1 ratio against "I hate it - change it now".
ReplyDeleteMy personal vote goes for "Don't care either way"
I suggest changing the text colour to green, so it looks like my Linux terminal, making it easier for me to read the blog when I'm at work. Yeah, that'd be greeeat...
ReplyDeleteThen again, I could just fire up Lynx ( terminal web browser ) and read it there...
Grey on black would serve more core Unix users, clearly (with Lynx users unaffected. Maybe white on blue for the Midnight Commander look?)
DeleteJokes aside, I'm almost solely a mobile reader so black on white or vice versa are both quite reasonable alternatives - I'm easy either way. Maybe a new logo might suit? (Though I do so enjoy the minimalist approach.)
I cast my vote for the current scheme, but won't be terribly upset if things change. Is there no option to allow a reader to select their own preference locally?
ReplyDeleteThere's even now a pretty easy way to read the blog in white-on-black -mode - just use http://advgamer.blogspot.fi/view/classic
DeleteProblem is, I don't think it's possible to comment on that mode.
Keep it black.
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you!
DeleteIn honor of some of the early Sierra games (and possibly others) you could keep the theme, but implement some sort of boss key feature, so that pressing CTRL-B would make the webpage look like a spreadsheet.
ReplyDeleteI think the white on black is awful - to the extent that this is the first time in months that I've actually visited the site rather than just reading posts in Inoreader (with its nice light grey on dark grey scheme).
ReplyDeleteI like the current white on black scheme.
ReplyDeleteI would think that the pictures inserted into the text after every paragraph would be a much larger problem for people reading at work than the color scheme. :/