4 years of OpenXcom

It’s been a long time hasn’t it? I don’t usually keep track of project anniversaries because I wasn’t smart enough to register the exact date this all started (protip: use a repository from the start so you’ll at least have a start date saved). But I’m pretty sure it’s been around… 4 years since I first started. How time flies, how far we’ve come from a one-man team to a… crazy-man team. I’d like to take this time to thank everyone involved. Everyone in the community, all the developers, modders, translators, testers, suggesters, supporters or just pains in the butt. 😛 I’m sure this wouldn’t have come this far without you.

Boy, OpenXcom sure has… changed all these years. Yet something remains. Something has been the same since the start. This website. I never really paid much attention to it, its purpose was just to convey news to you guys. But over time I’ve realized just how terrible it is. It’s ugly, it’s tiny, it’s cluttered, it’s a nuisance. It doesn’t convey anything, people keep missing obvious instructions and information, it’s not doing its job. I can’t even customize the menu or properly fit Youtube videos on it. The project has definitely outgrown it. I need something that you look at it and it just says “that’s X-Com”. So like most things, I decided to take matters into my own hands and put this prototype together:

 photo openxcom_website_zpsa5bacc2c.png

I’ll be honest. It fulfils my design goals. It’s bigger, clearer, more readable, and the “Geoscape look” does give you X-Com vibes. But… I dunno, I’m not a designer. At all. I’m a programmer through and through. And I can’t help but wonder because of how stubborn I am, if I’m just wasting hours messing with HTML/CSS on something vaguely competent when a professional designer would put something together in minutes.

 photo openicon_zpsf395498c.png

Same thing with the logo. I really like the skull-and-crossbones = OX motif, it’s distinct and it works really well as a scalable game icon. It looks good to me. But maybe I’m secretly infuriating every actual designer ever with my total incompetence? 😛

What do you guys think? Keep pursuing my crazy design sense? Or any of you out there would do a much better job taking over website design duties and putting up with me and my stubbornness? If you’re interested feel free to email. And don’t just go “oh the website doesn’t matter, keep programming away” because look at this website. Look at it. Then look at any other game website. Yeah. Come on. Really.

10 thoughts on “4 years of OpenXcom

  1. Jiri

    Who cares about the website, really? The current one works for me. Maybe your time is better invested developing the game itself?

  2. neuralshock

    How about a contest for people to participate?

    Or even, use the new design thread in the forums to have people propose something?

    I can propose something too, not sure if I then have the time to go ahead with it (my apologies).

  3. Lori Krumble

    It’s looking great! All you need now is a nice background of the Geoscape Earth in action. I’d also love to see animated buttons on the side nav. Also needs tons of jQuery.

    Come on, somebody needs to finish this! Turn this site into a million dollars!

  4. neuralshock

    @SupSuper,

    Sorry about that, I missed the “If you’re interested feel free to email.” part. 🙂

    I can help a bit I think, I have some ideas… I’ll try to find time to put them in a mockup at least.

  5. xracer

    it is not as easy (for beginner) i have been trying to do it, but the way the templates are done for wordpress it becomes an issue with the and their proper alignment, maybe i am not experienced enough. I am still trying but can get the proper look.
    SupSuper i am still waiting for the stuff you had started 😛

  6. asaf

    The website works!!! Don’t change it!
    Really, don’t!
    What you suggested is err… “nice”.
    But let’s not go with that 🙂

  7. Kastefe

    I think the mockup and the logo look fantastic. I especially like that the site mock-up is in the spirit of the game. Plus I think the logo has quite a bit of charm to it.

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