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The Kiwi's TaleWitchBlasterDerelict Blow Stuff Up

Test freeware games site

free.earok.net

I spent a couple of hours today working on the prototype of the Freeware games site I talked about in the last post, which I've tentatively entitled "Simply Freeware".

There's incredibly little content (Five games!) though it's reasonably functional. End users can sign up, post comments or rate games on a scale of 1-to-5. The developers themselves have pages, which list contact details as well as all of the games made by that designer. A forum is planned, as well as the functionality to "Bookmark" favourite games into a special area of the site.

I don't know when, or if, I'll officially "launch" the site, but I certainly won't be able to do it without some keen volunteers to help me add the mountains of required content. Get in touch if you're keen to help out - Who knows? This could become something big!

If you want to check it out, mosey on over to http://free.earok.net (Note: I'll need to register a better domain name sometime!)

Comments

JoshuaSmyth (not verified)

Cool Idea, nice prototype - I'm just wondering what Drupals caching ability is like? A site generated from a DB on every hit can use up quite a bit of cpu on a server, you might need a dedicated server if you want to scale it up for many people to use.

arran4
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Joined: 05/05/2009

Do you want me to write a small script to generate hundreds of semi-realistic/plausible gibberish to test if the searching capability is what you want it?

Earok
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Joined: 02/06/2009

Cheers Josh. Drupal does have quite a few options geared around caching (Though these are obviously more effective when dealing with static pages delivered to anonymous users). Though I have them all turned off at the moment, as they can interfere with development.

Heh, I'd rather not feed any rubbish into the site Arran, though if you've got a script that will rob an entire existing freeware site of all it's game info and screenshots, and then be able to re-upload that into my prototype... ;)

arran4
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Joined: 05/05/2009

Yeah, scripts which rob sites are on of my specialities. My favorite one of all time, was a script that would go to one of the 'find the best prices' pages for Australia, download their entire SD/USB card section import it into a database and let me find the best value for gb, with my own queries. :)

You will need perl, and/or python for Windows installed if you want me to write a script, and you will need to be prepared to leave it running for hours. (Nonstop.)

Earok
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Joined: 02/06/2009

I was only kidding, but if I do need to strip an entire site of it's content, I will get in touch with you first.

arran4
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Joined: 05/05/2009

It's a serious market, with serious customers. Such as when you are migrating between platforms.. Such as eCommerce sites.

Avengingwatcher
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Joined: 12/21/2009

or when you are making parody sites, kinda like HTTrack lets you do.  Know what I'm gonna make a game for yo. it's going to mostly be a guy drinking piss pretending it's magical fairy juice. Wait check that, I've just been listening to yahtzee ramble on about how he hates Joss whedon.

arran4
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Joined: 05/05/2009

ORLY? What videocast?