Indexes

Regular punters will of noticed that the expandable index that used to live on GameSquats homepage is no more... In its place is a link to our new 'indexes', page. This new page contains the old Games Index albeit with a few tweaks, as well as a brand new tag index.


(The New GameSquat Tag Indexes)

For those new to GameSquat's ways a quick explanation of the link cloud used by our indexes page is in order. Behind the scenes a complicated formula that takes into account a game's rating and download frequency is used to work out a games popularity. The more popular, the bigger the text used to display the games title, hopefully this means the cream will rise to the top. If you disagree with the prominence of a game have your voice by rating the game yourself.

Our new tag index lists all the tags GameSquat users have added to our games. Just click any of the tags listed to view all the games that fall into that category, the more tags you guys add the more useful this page will get. The weight of the text used to display a tag is solely down to the frequency of the tag, the bigger the tag the more games in that category.

Like other new elements of GameSquat the indexes page has been given the AJAX treatment, meaning that the indexes displayed are bang up-to-date streamed and updated live from GameSquats servers, take a look.

New Homepage Hits The Streets

We're a small team at GameSquat, we all care massively about the site we sweat blood to develop, so we tend to get overly excited about big site updates, but we think this ones worth a bit of fuss.

Those more observant GameSquat users will of noticed that the new homepage went live yesterday, a few last minute bugs meant a late night and updates this morning to zap the last remaining gremlins.

The biggest change is obviously the GameSquat Viewer - the element at the bottom of the page that displays the latest releases and charts for all of GameSquat's genres. Last night I left the GameSquat homePage in my browser and this morning it was happily displaying our new chart and a new release too, cool stuff.


(GameSquat Viewer Displaying New Releases)

Then there's the carousel at the top of the page. Changes mean it can now be switched to display the overall chart or latest releases using information streamed live from the GameSquat servers, updated within your browser without the need to refresh anything.


(Improved GameSquat Carousel)

Rather that clutter up the homepage, we've moved the games index to it's own location, a tag index will soon join it to form GameSquat's new indices page, keep an eye out for that hopefully coming over the next few weeks.

We've improved accessibility and shaved well over 30k off the weight of the homepage, making things load a little faster. Finally there's new links to our widgets so those without can easily download our free warez.

Next on the todo list is our comments functionality, code that will allow you folks to rant and rave about our games, it's looking real good and coming soon! In the meantime check out the new and improved home page.

Coming to a browser near you soon!

These last few weeks we've been madly busy completely re-working our homepage. Key to the redesign is the 'GameSquat Viewer', a cool little web application that lets you view the GameSquat charts and latest releases in one place.

Its updated real time - meaning games are updated in-front of your eyes without the need to refresh anything.


(New GameSquat Viewer)

We hope to release the fruits of our labour into the wild next week, check it out then and let us know what you think.

Favorites

Got a couple of favorite GameSquat games, you could use your browser to bookmark them but bookmarks soon get messy! Signup to GameSquat, (it's quick and no private data is required), and create yourself a list of favorite games.

These games will then always just be a click away, always available just underneath the main menu.


(Viewing GameSquat Favorites)

Adding a game to your favorites couldn't be simpler, just browse to a game and click the '+' icon shown below. Vice versa to remove a favorite just navigate to the game and click the '-' icon.


(Adding A GameSquat Favorite)

Mac users can view and edit favorites via the OSX Widget as can users of our Yahoo Widget, (Available late Nov 2008). Our Vista Gadget will also contain this functionality real soon.

For those without one of our widgets there's a dedicated page that lets you edit all your favorites in one place, check it out here.