Dear forum members,
Recently we got thumbnails for Finished Games. You can check that forum to see how it looks.
Would you like to see thumbnails at the Game Engine/Works in Progress and Game Demos?
Absolutely! The different on the Finished Game forums is really visible I can’t imagine not having them anymore. Although there are some good sites specifically built to display your finished games, it already makes checking out some games so much more appealing.
For WIP games the clicks and checking out isn’t any less important. Sometimes the pat on the back and some comments can make all the difference in keeping people motivated trying to finish their project.
Definitely yes. I’m in favor of thumbnails in general, but I think particularly for WIP it could be neat to show your current progress in a little thumb to people before they even open the thread.
Yes, please. Feels like a great idea, to me.
To be honest, I’m not particularly fond of the thumbnails…
It’ll surely take some getting used to, (we’ve gone without em for so long) but that’s not my only concern
My main turnoff:
Take a look at the Finished Games section, every thread is a different size. It’s all very untidy, and most threads don’t even have a thumbnail to show off.
The positive side of this:
It makes the threads with thumbnails stand out more, (especially those with a larger image)
hopefully this should encourage those too lazy to take a quick screenshot, to actually make the effort and capture something before posting.
I mean, COME ON! Only like, half the threads in the Finished Games forum have any screenshot at all.
Despite the negativity, I voted yes.
It’d be nice if all sizes were the same, regardless of how big the image is…
Not sure you can control that though
There’s little you can do outside of having the forum stretch the image (making it look ugly), or shrinking the image and placing black bars (making it much harder to notice any detail).
This is simply how the forum thumbnail code works and how it’s been for the art forums (with overwhelming support from members).
I think it’s not unreasonable to constrain the images to a certain height, especially since most of them will probably be screenshots which tend to be one of just a few aspect ratios.
Lots of websites will just crop thumbnails (and avatars, and other such images) to a certain ratio, I don’t know if that much is necessary but as long as the requirements for a thumbnail are plainly laid out it’s easy to follow them and end up with a thumb that fits well.