{"id":1752,"date":"2023-05-25T19:55:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T00:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/?p=1752"},"modified":"2026-01-25T13:55:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:55:43","slug":"i-just-keep-tweaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/2023\/05\/i-just-keep-tweaking\/","title":{"rendered":"I Just Keep Tweaking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have been putting in some work on the Royfuss Games website<\/a>. I have been updating some cover art, making some adjustments to the layout, and overhauling a lot of code. I am loving the backend stuff, but I am not sure if I 100% like the look. It does allow me to do more, so I am going to stick with it for awhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am very happy with the new cover art. I wanted every game to be identifiable by its cover art. I had lot of ones where I hastily cropped and resized them, and you could not make out the title of the game. Also, several of the covers just looked bad. I found cleaner artwork, and cropped and resized hundreds covers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Before<\/a>
Much better<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With a tedious, but simple task, complete, I decided to tackle larger issues. I wanted to condense my navigation and make the website mobile friendly. I downloaded Pico CSS<\/a>, and experimented with the framework. I jammed my design onto its bones, and it did not go well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent a lot of time making changes, and testing it on desktop. When I got things looking good, I resized the window to see how it would look on mobile. I had a few gripes, but it was functional. I uploaded it and opened it up on my phone… it was a dumpster fire. When I tested it on desktop, I would always load a page, and then resize the window. This worked like a charm. Loading the page in a smaller window, like on a phone, yielded horrible results. I scrapped it, and went back to my old design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still wanted a more condensed navigation, and at least lay the groundwork for a future mobile friendly version of the site. I learned some things from Pico. I started with the navigation. I got rid of the dedicated “Home” button, and changed the banner to be a link to the home page. Instead of the big and blocky sub-navigation for the data and search pages, I moved those links to a drop down menu. It has an added benefit of being able to get to those sub-pages from any page. After making those changes, I suddenly had a lot more space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Games<\/a>
Again, much better<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next up, the text needed some updating. I updated to a modern fontset, and the font sizes are more mobile friendly. I think it looks big on desktop, but it still looks small on mobile. The backend code makes it easier to address a possible mobile layout in the future. I purposely made lists of games on the data and search pages bigger, so it is easier to click on mobile. Again, it is still too small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To fully commit to a mobile friendly layout, I need to do some major overhauling to my horizontal space. A thing like limiting tables to two columns will go a long way, but require major changes to my Python scripts. The screenshots on the game badges are currently 1040×300 pixels, and they were cropped for the full layout; I would have to change those to look good at dynamic resolutions. I am just not ready to jump into all of those changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With my navigation layout updated, I decided to actually add some new content. I added a new Games by Status<\/a> data page. It breaks down the status of a game by “playing,” “completed,” “incomplete,” “resting,” or “backlog.” I have been curious (and a little scared) to see what my actually backlog looks like. This puts it with a nice perspective. I would like to breakout the “backlog” category to “want to play” and “no intention of playing,” but that will require a redesign to the database. Still, the page has some good information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I added a whole new section: top games. Right now I have four sub-pages. Each page contains a dataset of games, and ranks them. It displays the top 10 with the game badge, and then displays the full ranked list below it. The top games by value<\/a> page is interesting. I do not like ranking games by “cost per hour.” I would gladly pay $50.00 for a two hour game if it is outstanding. It is a little weird to see the values spelled out like that. Obviously, I could not calculate free games, or any game that I did not know how much I spent on it. It is still a good dataset with over 250 games. I should limit it to completed games, or games where played for more than an hour. Seeing Shadow Warrior 2<\/em> ranked with $150 per hour is ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four pages I have now are all data driven, so those are easily generated using my Python scripts. I would like to create some top pages that are more curated. It would be fun to have my personal ranking of all the games on each console. A couple things are holding me back. One, my rankings change all the time; one day I will say “Super Mario World<\/em> is the best game on the Super Nintendo,” and the next minute I will say, “Kablooey<\/em> is the best.” Well, maybe not, but you get the picture. Two, I do not have a lot of games to compare on the consoles. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow<\/em> is the only Game Boy Advance game I have played. Good job, Aria of Sorrow<\/em>; you’re the best. Thirdly, I have played a lot of games on PC from several decades. How do I compare Starcraft<\/em> with Psychonauts 2<\/em>? I consider both games outstanding PC games, but they do not seem to fit onto the same list. Lastly, some PC games deserve to go on other lists. I would consider Chrono Trigger<\/em> a Super Nintendo game, even though I played it on PC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been chipping away at the problem of ranking video games. If I like the outcome, I’ll add it to the site. For now, I’m just enjoying summer. A lot of video game announcements are on the horizon; Sony already did their PlayStation showcase. If some announcements catch my eye, I might revive an old series from the blog’s history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been putting in some work on the Royfuss Games website. I have been updating some cover art, making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-website-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royfuss.com\/royfuss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}