Game Cipher Reviews is a website that has been designed for the use of attracting a game lovers’ audience. By posting reviews about recent games that have been released to the public and giving an honest and interesting perspective to how the game appeals to myself as a gamer. Sharing my opinions about games that I’ve personally played and completed. Appealing to the audience of Xbox gamers as that’s the most familiar platform gaming console I know the most about in comparison to the Play Station and Nintendo consoles that are out there.
What makes Game Cipher Reviews unique in comparison to the many other gaming websites that are out there, is the fact they’re personal from me. They’re my opinion and I’ve taken the time to dedicate myself to writing these reviews in order for my audience to understand how I feel about the games I’m playing and furthermore hoping that they’ll have a similar reaction to me whether they play the games themselves after reading my reviews. Appealing to a mature aged audience as the games that are reviewed on this site are for people who are aged fifteen and older.
I aimed to attract my audience through using a very dark colour scheme as it would draw your attention to the graphic details of the images representing the video games. As the visual images of the game are what gives the audience the most excitement as graphics are one of the many important elements when deciding upon a game you’re considering playing and getting the most out of. The header of my website changes a lot as well depending upon which review is my most recently posted. As I have a picture image from that game on display. Did this in order to let my audience know in a discrete way that this is the latest content from me. I currently have a very simple logo for the website as well due to the fact that I’m not a tech savy person when it comes to design on a digital piece of technology (in reference to photoshop and illustrator). With the use of the Xbox remote control within the design, it would let my followers know that this is my most comfortable platform that I prefer to play on. But am not limited to. Through an easy access menu bar on the site you have access to all the published reviews, information about the site. Having a contact page with an easy layout to send any concerns on. The widgets published are of my social media platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram. Videos are also linked to YouTube, as viewing visual game play gets you interested to what story the games are telling. Photo galleries of the reviewed games are within the widgets section of the site as well. Giving a lot of visual content to interact with, because in gaming related topics, the visuals are considered one of the most important aspects.
Game Cipher Reviews, yet although it follows a simplistic design, it has all the relative information in a sense of how to attract a gamer and to further get them involved within the site and what it has to offer. With the easy working menu bar in order to look at the game reviews published, having the game name and what console platform they’re from. Helps establish which consoles audience members are interested in. Eventually later down the track having a menu bar label for each different console with sub links to game reviews from that console. Making it even easier to access the reviews instead of having the read them. Alphabetisation of the menu bar when seeing what reviews are available has been done as well. If an individual who is viewing the site it looking for something in particular it won’t be hard to find. On the first page when viewing the site you see the most recent review to the left of the screen and next to the review in on the right side you see a gallery filled with the images of the game covers of all the games that I personally own and may potentially write reviews about if I haven’t already. Through further development upon this site as well I hope to have a blog post page on the site where I publish all the videos that I’ve uploaded of my video game play, so that my audience gains an idea of how good a gamer I am, as well as being able to gain more followers who have the same passion as me when it comes to gaming. Having the most input to what images I post being the most important development on the site as this is what I know to be that draws audiences interested in gaming in to what content that I have to offer.
The most interactive social media platform that Game Cipher Reviews was most active and interactive on was Twitter. Although there are Instagram and YouTube social media accounts for the site, they haven’t been used as I’m not as familiar with them as I now am about Twitter. Usually posting on the @gamecipherreviews Twitter count in order to gain views on my website, by tweeting when I had recently published reviews on the site and what made them interesting. There were also tweets that I retweeted by gaming companies as they’re either giving resources to new games that were coming out shortly, or had really cool videos of what was yet to come in the future. Being able to tweet those kinds of things onto my Twitter feed gave my social media platform an extra element in order to gain a greater following on Twitter and potentially increase views on my website and other known social media platforms. That I had designed and create in relation to my website, with extra information as to what it was all about.
Due to not having been as interactive as I would have liked to have been on my Twitter and Instagram social media accounts. In order to gain a greater following for my website. I haven’t got a huge amount of data in relation to my site views. From the data that was collected though there was the recognition that individuals only viewed the home page on my website and there wasn’t any further exploration from there. Although there were some visits, it was at least 2-3 visits per month. Which is practically nothing, as the content I was producing had a lot of time and effort put into it, I would’ve liked to have received a few more views on the site as a whole. But due to my lack of acknowledge and sharing of my web link there wasn’t much awareness created about my website being out there for the public eye to see. If I was to repeat this project again I would make sure that my social media platforms are set up and make sure there is a publishing and sharing plan in order for my website to be more successful and gain a greater following audience. Maybe even to make sure I have more experience on my chosen topic as due to what I’m studying overall within my university degree I wanted to make sure it was something that I could further develop in the future, but that may have been what made this site not as easily accessible because I didn’t understand all the resources that I had readily available to use.
The future of my website Game Cipher Reviews will go further down the path of looking at Play Station 2 games. Adding a retro feel to the website as that is what I’ve recently become very interested and involved in. Also gained inspiration to do that through looking at the magazine Retro Gamer. Especially interested in analysing the graphics evolution of games that have been around since the sixties. Doing so through a timeline set up sort of display. Through this I hope to gain an older audience of individuals who have the memories of playing these games and want to acknowledge how far design and technology has come since the retro days of gaming. Hopefully developing a better colour scheme in a sense of finding a way to make the sight look more interesting with interactive background games. Maybe even making your mouse cursor when on the website look like the design from the game Snake. I just want to have fun with this website, develop upon my design logo and see where it can get me in terms of what I want to achieve in my future and job goals. Gradually as I develop skills from my university classes, being able to see my evolution of learning while I’m doing all my university classes.
Game Cipher Reviews 