Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Megatoxic Rebranding!


Hey everyone!

It's been a while, and I have a lot of really exciting announcements to drop in one blog post, so grab yourself a drink or snack, and read on.

To start off, as you can tell I've decided to completely revamp the website. It's interesting to note that this is the fifth iteration of megatoxic.com, and for this one I've decided to tone down the color scheme a bit and go for a more traditional look. I've also designed the website to be fully responsive, so you can view it and navigate comfortably on the full spectrum of devices (smartphones, tablets, PC's, etc.)

On the homepage there are a lot of visual elements now. I have slideshows presenting some recent projects I've worked on, as well as older projects I've done which I regard as my best work from back then. I have also integrated a Disqus commenting system on the homepage so people can leave comments and feedback on the website, or just say hi.

As for other sections of the site, I've re-designed the About section to look more professional. I have links to my e-mail and Skype account for people to contact me. You may also notice that the Games section has been stripped down quite a bit. I've removed a lot of my older projects from the early-to-mid 2000's, because while those projects nicely demonstrate how I've progressed over the years, I find them to be a bit childish. The goal of this re-design is to make it presentable to employers who want to see what kind of work I'm capable of as an independent game designer, so I want to adjust the content of Megatoxic.com to suit that notion. The other issue with my older works is that some of them utilize copyrighted assets, such as character names and music, and I want to be careful in which games I make available and in what context. I spent a lot of time going through each game, and picking out my most original work to host on this website. Ironically enough, the Atari 2600 games I've made are really what fit that category, as those are the only games I have available right now. For those that are fans of my childhood game projects, I'll likely make a dedicated post on the forums so they can still download them.

...... And that brings me to my last segment of this blog post: Megatoxic now has its own official forum! You can access the new forums anywhere from the website by clicking on the button in the left-hand navigation pane. The forums are more-or-less an experiment I'm trying in generating social awareness and interest in Megatoxic as a brand. In this iteration of Megatoxic, one of my goals is to make it as open to the public as possible. I want people to be able to leave feedback, post comments, exchange ideas, and engage with other people. I think the forums are a great way to enable this to happen.

So that's everything I wanted to announce in this blog post today. I consider all of this to be more than just a revamp of the website; it's a rebranding of Megatoxic. My goal for this year is really to start making Megatoxic a more serious entity, and make it as public as possible.  I'll be posting more things on Facebook related to Megatoxic, and make more references to the site in general. People will be able to respond to blog posts, leave comments right on the home page, or participate in the new forums (which by the way, are not free, so I'm taking this whole thing pretty seriously). I also have a slew of new game ideas I'd like to pursue over the next few months, so stay tuned for those. Until then, I hope everyone is excited about this new rebranding of Megatoxic and thank you for the support you've given me. :)

- Tom