:D
The Rainfall Studios (http://www.rainfallstudios.com) site has been undergoing some changes in an effort to present a more polished face to the public. The Katsu's Journey page has yet to go through it's re-vamping process, but I'm curious to hear what people think about the site layout/colors/content etc.

We also posted some pictures from our company field trip in the about us section and we plan to do a similar little report on the IGC when we get back.

I like it. I was a little confused by the logo at first, I thought it was rain falling on tires. The pictures of your trip to Japan (Canada) were very funny.

Overall, it's a nice, clean layout.

Take care,
Bill

Thanks Bill, lol, I never noticed the "tires" look maby we should add solid horizion line... not sure. Thanks for the insight.

Okay, here's my little review:

It looks great. Very professional. I love sites where the main page contains "What's New" sections. I have not done this with www.monolux.com yet becuase, well, it's not changing a lot. But I plan on doing it when my second game nears completion.

I like how Katsu's Journey is framed at the top of the page. Good to highlight that.

About Us and Company seem like they could be combined. I don't know.

I think, for a game studio though, it may be a little *too* professional. Please don't take this the wrong way, but with the exception of the "Katsu's Journey" graphic at the top, the site looks perfectly acceptable for a company who makes Spreadsheets or Library catalog software. What I mean is, it's always a fine-line to walk when you're dealing with a website ... you want to look professional to your customers, but you also want a little bit of humor, fun, and style added in there (all, of course, depending on the intended image you want to convey). My own site is still guilty of that, too, on a lot of the pages.

Some ways you may be able to game-it-up a little is to add some cool or funky graphic bullets to the Site updates (like, concentric circles for rain-drops in a puddle, perhaps?) or, a suble but fun pattern to the background. Screenshots or little graphics work well, too. I try to put my headlines in a fun font (I use a graphic for that, and I only do it on static headlines that don't change too often).

Overall it's great. It's got a lot of stuff I want to add to my site. Oh, if there were more hours in a day.

~Hanford

Thanks for the great feedback hanford, after looking at the site again I can see what you mean. It's very formal and lacks the little informal game art type things that make viewers feel at home. As we have time we'll make a point of adding more little gameish details like you suggest. Thanks again

Dan, I'd have to agree with both Siebharinn and Hanford.

The logo does looks pretty cool but a few visual cues would help like the horizonline since the top of the "tires" are seen, we're is should be ripples on a plane of water.

Another this that might help with the logo could be to try concetric rings to convey the ripples.


On the gernal entry page it does seem a bit spreadsheety in heart. I think the one thing that would probably help would be to drop the gray blah. And definetly throw in some more of that cool artwork :) I actully like the colors and soul of the katu's Journey page better perhaps throw a screenshot or concept artwork on the main page in with the Katsu info box at the top for a quick fix.

Keep the page color scheme somewhat simple. Use for instance the white and blue scheme, then when you use a colorful image, it puctuates the view.

Also the sidebar text on the Katsu page was a more fun yet still really readable.

O.K. we took all your feedback and re-worked the site a bit. You probably don't remember the old version (I barely do) but I'm curious to know if the type of things that are present now are what you had in mind.

Rainfall Studios Web Site (http://www.RainfallStudios.com)

(I should mention that the work being done on the site is the work of Rainfall Studios resident critical thinker Morgan.)

Whelp Morgan has made some great improvements, be sure to pass that along :)

I like that there is no gray and a lot more bold color.

That said, there still is a bit of a utility feel. (but much less)

Try to do something that wraps around to form a header to the top. maybe incorporate the "welcome to Rainfall studios" into a wrap around dealy that merges into the side bar.

Also, try something to break the lines by having something like the logo poke out from the right angle lines.

One note on the logo... it's really dark and brooding but now the site is getting a dose of Glee. Not exactly a perfect match. You might want to either drop the image and use the Cool text part of it, and incorporate it in the scheme or redesign the image so that it's not so heavy. It reminds me of Ravens logo more than one that would go with a game like Katsu's Journey. I love it, just not sure if it works for the situation in it's current form.

DarkCastle Entertainment (the movie company) has a scary logo, but they make scary films. Does mean you need to have a totaly gleeful logo, just something that can where more than one hat.

I really love the logo and the orange side navigation images! :D