Have started the process of transitioning the site to become a purely gaming focused blog.
Registered domain: abbysblog.net
New site will be known as: Abby’s Gaming Blog
I anticipate some interruptions and broken links as I slowly move things away from atelierarcade.net to abbysblog.net - however, the original domain will stay intact until its registration period finishes at the end of the year.
Changed the Playstation Vita platform code from “Vita” to “PSV” - it’s one letter shorter and starts with “P” so it groups nicely with the other Playstation codes.
Added “welcome” header to home page
Changed the following platform codes so that they make more sense and save some space:
Android is now Droid - Android Mobile Devices
Linux is now Lin - Linux Operating Systems
N-Gage is now NG - Nokia N-Gage
Switch is now NS - Nintendo Switch
PC is now Win - Windows Operating Systems
I never felt good about PC representing Windows OS only, so felt like it needed a better label. The cheat sheet on the About page has been updated to reflect these changes.
Also updated all Release Dates to include leading zeros. For instance: 1/1/2019 should read 01/01/2019.
Have updated all gaming posts with new platform labels and leading zeros.
Swapped the ‘art’ and ‘gaming’ columns on the archive page to offer better readability on mobile.
Added developer and publisher tags to all game posts to enhance discoverability (like this).
Updated meta blocks on some early gaming posts to follow the same formatting as more recent meta blocks.
Added a 'game post notes' section to the about page - I've been asked a few questions repeatedly, so hopefully this will answer some in the future.
Deleted hidden galleries - doesn't change the public facing side of the site, but some old links may become invalid as a result.
Added a list of platform abbreviation explanations to the about page.
Updated all gaming blog posts to have appropriate platform abbreviations and alphabetical sorting.
Replaced all instances of the tag "twin stick" with "twin-stick".
Updated gear on about page to current setup.
Added some links to the 2016 GOTY Post, for games that have had posts written about them.
The intention is to keep GOTY lists updated with links to posts as they roll out in the future, so that more context can be found if/when anyone's looking for it.
Have reactivated the atelier arcade Facebook page after reviewing analytics for the last month or so. There's some traffic that comes from Facebook, which is as easy to push to as Twitter, so it's worth reinstating it across the site.
Instagram is still not worth the added effort, unless there are simpler push methods implemented in future.
Updated the description on the Gaming page.
Edited the description and links sections on the About page.
Updated archive list of Sunday Sketchbooks to include a descriptor for each post, instead of unidentifiable numbers.
Update social media links in footer, as the atelier arcade facebook and instagram accounts have been deleted. Analytics have shown very little traffic on these accounts, so I have decided to close them, as the return does not justify the upkeep. However, there is enough traffic through twitter to ensure that managing that account is worthwhile.
I may implement facebook and instagram again in the future if there is potential for them to be viable methods of communicating with the atelier arcade audience.
This is a change log I've started to keep track of how atelier arcade evolves over time. It probably won't be interesting for anyone else to read, so it won't be advertised, but it will be available if anyone's interested.
NOTES:
Not one hundred percent happy with the template currently used on the site, but have tried others and haven't found an alternative yet. It's the balance between making a blog manually, or using a service like this one (squarespace) to use their back-end. I'd like it to find a better template option, but will look again in the future.
Additionally, the art and gaming blog is structurally made of a single blog, with two categories (art and gaming). I had initially made two separate blogs, but it caused some issues listing recent posts on the home page and using a single blog made life a lot easier. However, if I ever find a decent blog template, it might be worth moving posts back to a two blog system to avoid using summary blocks that are often not ideal.
This might be the longest post in the change log. The site is constantly in a state of shift as I figure out what I want to do with its layout and structure, but the content is pretty stable these days.
PLANS:
Will continue to evolve the layout as time goes on and the site fills with more content. It's easier to make changes when there's a lot of content to see it reflected. The current state of the site is fine, but if anyone ever interacts with it, there might be problems to fix.
