It’s that time again! We’ve been lucky enough to partner with Slitherine to offer our readers a chance for a copy of Fantasy General 2, releasing in just a few short days!
To enter, all you have to do is comment below with a compliment or constructive complaint about the new website format or any of our new articles series! That’s it!
As always, our faithful Patreon supporters will receive extra entries, thus increasing their chances of winning. However, don’t let that discourage any of you from entering. It just might be your lucky day!
The random winner will be chosen on September 5th and will receive the key later that day.
We wish you the best of luck! Stay tuned for more free stuff coming very soon!
WINNER: mormengil
Congratulations!!!!
New site is good, maybe you can change the background color. White makes for too much contrast in my opinion. As for me, I’m a long time lurker, first time poster 🙂
It took me a little bit to get used to the new graphics but they’ve grown on me and now I like them! Looking forward to the forthcoming dark mode. Thanks for the giveaway!
Unfortunately I only just discovered your site today, via the Game data base that someone linked elsewhere. love the idea of the series on the obscure, because I mean we all know all the big games. 😀
Borowsing the main page is much easier now with the page markers!
A sleeker design that is easier to navigate, without any big break with the past. Best of luck!
I am liking the new format. I do agree with Alex about preferring dark background. Otherwise the updates are very welcome.
The new layout is a lot better. It looks good and it is much easier to navigate. The front page does a better job of showcasing recent articles and the articles look better.
As for constructive criticism, I feel like the sidebar is still a bit too long, which makes everything past some point a bit more hidden than it could be. Maybe review if you really want all of the things in there, maybe reduce the size of the banners for the recent reviews (I actually like them, but they take away from everything else), or merge/remove some Categories – I think “4X” for example is not exactly a good filter for this site :P. My personal preference (though I’m not a designer): removing comments, reducing the size of reviews banners, move podcast and video coverage besides “Articles” in the top bar, clean the Category list and split it to “Columns” (for recurring features) and “Categories” for a few of the most important ones. Alternatively, just reduce the size of the Podcast and move Columns/Categories to the top bar.
Great feedback! I’ve actually acted on most of it and agree! Thank you!
Great new site. Thanks for all the work you did!
The new interface seems pretty clean with some easy nav points on the right.
I like the new format, it’s much easier to find what I’m looking for than before. Thanks for running a contest!
I like the new site, definitely looks a lot sleeker.
i remember i played Fantasy General a lots at same time as Master of Orion 2 …… already 23 years ago … wow time run so fast …. and now the Second part of FG well well well , i am very interested to see how it will be this time =)
I can’t comment much on the previous style used here, but I am definitely enjoying all the new content – especially as it concerns Pax Nova! It seems that title flew under the radar for just about everybody but this site.
Congrats on the new site! I know how much of a #%^#^ migration is, so job well done. Top menu always staying there instead of only being at the top of the page is nice, no longer need to scroll all the way back up to find it. Maybe the upcoming releases could be moved a bit higher on the sidebar? It’s one of the most important features for me 😉 Oh and if you add dark mode please leave the white mode (current) as an option because believe it or not dark themes strain my eyes..
The first “Dark Theme Draft” is now available. I’m trying to figure out how the hell to get it working 100% properly, but you’ll now find a toggle in the menu and I’ll work on it until it looks as good as the light version!
Perfect, super fast and smooth transition between light and dark! My eyes are at fault for not liking dark themes here, not the quality of theme, I have a lot of issues with my eyes and especially white text on black background is almost impossible for me to read without getting some serious strain..
Fantasy General has a good pedigree via the General games. Looking forward to it.
The site design looks fine to me, although I prefer light text on dark backgrounds because staring at white screens gives me a headache really quickly, so looking forwards to the incoming dark mode. Hopefully dark just refers to the colour-scheme, and not some kind of insidious, satanic 4x content.
I like the new format: I don’t have the time to listen to podcasts, so the more written articles the better.
I liked the new site. It seems easier to navigate for me at least. Cheers!
I do find the page markers on the homepage to be quite useful. I also appreciate the new “Less Explored” series so I can be on the lookout for obscure, but potential gems.
You guys are putting out more content around my favorite gaming genre and that’s what I like. The quality is great and I enjoy all articles.
I would like the dark mode to be fully dark, I see a white border around the text boxes, no big drama though.
I’ll work on that! Promise 🙂
Some of your old reviews seem missing – eg: https://explorminate.net/2016/11/04/sid-meiers-civilization-vi-review/
Link found in https://explorminate.co/endless-space-2-review/
The site looks good after the change, but several older reviews have pictures missing – I hope that there are more coming across in the migration…
Yes, the migration is still in the works. It’s incredibly time consuming. Unfortunately we DID lose some media, so we’re going back and manually adding what was lost.
Sorry about that 🙁
I’m enjoying the new site and very happy that Rob is back on board. It’s great to have so much activity lately.
With regards to the site, the dark mode is great except in the Post Comments section. When you enable it the text beside the two checkboxes for Notify me of new comments via email and Notify me of new posts via email disappear so the checkboxes are by themselves. You have to toggle back to light mode to see the text.
I think you’ve done a great job on the Website.
A little bit of constructive criticism maybe….I would love to read more articles. While your Audio and Video content may be nice, it is very difficult to consume on work. Reading on the other side it perfect… so I would love to see more articles/tests/etc.
As for the comment section:
The form is just odd.
On >90% of the web pages, it is just: Name, Mail, Website.
On yours, it is now “Mail, Name, Website”. This is confusing if you’re used to something different.
I’ll fix that 🙂 Thank you! And we’re definitely getting back to our writing roots!
This mobile layout works a treat, and tha content is great as always.
More to read, less reliance on audio. Fantastic, thank you.
I like the new design. Keep on the good work. Thumbs up. 🙂
Good work, It is loading faster and i like the dark theme. But i have some big empty space to the left and right and i feel the tiles in the top slide bar are to big.
~OsirisDawn
I like the new mobile Layout!
This site is my only reliable source for 4x games, I can’t thank you enough.
Very streamlined. Liking the new look. Thank you so much for the content you produce!
The site looks very clean, a purely black background looks a tiny bit weird though. Maybe it would also look better if the logo is in the top left instead of centered? It’s a bit old school 🙂
The banner/hero image carousel looks cluttered because of the variety of styles used. Feels inconsistent. Love me some 4x!
They’re all roughly the same style. It’d be just as “various” if we used various game icons, etc. I’m sorry it looks cluttered to you.
The website is great, now I don’t follow it since years. If I could mention a desiderata, I would love more articles over old 4X games, if you want to write them. I like people writing or speaking of retrogaming!
I am new here, courtesy of Rob’s activity with AoW:Planetfall. I don’t know the old layout, but what I see here is not bad at all. Friendly, not over-engineered, no nasty advertising scripts that kill browsers. I do believe I shall revisit this place repeatedly.
congrats on the website rework! One thing on the podcast though – you are no longer hosted on hipcast? Can’t find the explorminate page and my (still recent) bookmarks don’t work anymore.
cheers
Design looks great, I’ve had some small issues with the podcast but mostly on my own mistakes, other wise everything is much easier to navigate
The new layout is very good 🙂
I am naturally resistant to change. I claim it’s a byproduct of getting older, but the truth is that I openly wept when my parents replaced the couch at age 6. And I love the new look of the site, so that’s saying a lot! Lol
I’m especially fond of the ability to post comments again. Thank you so much for finding a way to sort that out. I also love the new article idea on interesting mechanics and very much look forward to reading more of those!
This makes me particularly happy to read. Thank you!
I quite like the new design. At first I was a bit confused since as it didn’t load up correctly for me (putting articles side by side), but after hitting the refresh I thought it looked nice and it feels slick (almost like it’s faster or something xD)
The new website format is simply amazing! It is simple and fast. Keep working like this!
Congrats on the win!
whelp, did I win or am I still too sleepy?
Gratzy =)