Hey guys - Tom here!
If you're reading this blog post, you've already noticed that our website got a complete overhaul! I'm excited to announce the NEW iteration of Megatoxic.com!
As you can see, I've decided to keep a similar aesthetic to the last version of the site, but evolve it into a much more robust design. The previous version of Megatoxic.com was made in what us developers call a "WYSIWYG" editor ("What You See is What You Get"), and I had been using that for a while. Lately I've become more adventurous and decided to train myself HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and PHP. That's right-- I painstakingly manually coded this website myself in HTML5 by hand. LMAO.
By coding the entire website by hand, it's actually much easier for me to manipulate all the elements of the website, and it's way more optimized than the last version of Megatoxic.com. With that, there's also a whole slew of benefits that this website gives both you guys and myself:
On the Front:
Immediately you'll notice that the website has a brand new layout. Many of the elements that were used in the old website are still here, but the navigation menu is now at the top instead of the side. There is no more hamburger menu anymore, so that's one less navigation button you need to worry about.
The slideshow at the top is completely dynamic and interactive-- not only can you scroll through the slides like before, but each slide is clickable and takes you to a page that has more relevant info.
Below the larger slideshow I have the blog ticker on the left, which I completely coded in JavaScript. Clicking on this ticker will bring you to the "News" section of the website where you can read more blog posts. To the very right of the Blogger Ticker, there is a mini Facebook feed that shows Megatoxic's latest posts. And just below that, you'll see that I've moved the social media buttons from being somewhat hidden in the top-right corner, down in the forefront where you can easily find them.
If you navigate around the new website in general, you'll notice that there's actually a lot of new content here. I actually went through the trouble to create a brand new cover image for Ballzerk specifically for this new website, and I think it looks super epic. I also have new cover images for Quad-Ball that I recently re-discovered. Quad-Ball was actually a game I did for a college project back in 2013, and along with the original game I actually made box and cartridge label art for it. As I was going through my old files for this website, I recently re-discovered this art and decided to repurpose it for Megatoxic.com. I think it came out pretty cool-- let me know your thoughts!
On the Back-end:
Along with the many front-facing changes on the website, there are a huge number of under-the-hood improvements that should make maintaining this website much easier for me. Almost everything on the website is now powered by a SQL database. The large slideshow, the entire Games section and a lot of the other elements can all be controlled and modified though a MySQL editor. What this means for me is, I have a much easier process if I want to make (non-blog) updates to the website and I actually don't even need to republish it anymore. I can now add new games on the fly and change anything I want on each page. I also have full access to the HTML code so I can just modify that as well if I need to.
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Smaller announcement:
Along with our new website, you may have noticed a very familiar symbol on the home screen that was never on the Megatoxic website before. I'm excited to announce that Megatoxic now has an official Discord server! Right now, I'm still in the process of setting up the Discord server, but as soon as I do I will make an announcement here on the website, and all other social media platforms. Stay tuned! :)
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Well, that's everything!
I hope this was an interesting read for some of you guys, and I hope you enjoy this brand new iteration of Megatoxic.com! As a way to pay our respects for everything the old website gave us the last couple of years, here are some nice screenshots of the old layout to reminisce:
