Site Improvement Plans

Posted On: 2025-08-04

By Mark

It's been 15 years since I first created the site, and some parts (such as the list of blog posts) haven't aged very well. While I'm not yet ready to commit to changing it (there are other, higher priority tasks I'd like to clear up first), I thought it would be good to document my intent to change, as well as some of the core design principles that will remain the same.

What Will Stay

Before looking at what will change, I want to highlight three core design princples that will remain the same:

No Ads - There are no advertisements on this site, and it will remain that way for as long as it exists.
As a side benefit, you can use this (or any other ad-free site) to verify that you don't have malware injecting ads into your browser.
Progressive Enhancement - This website will generally work even if javascript is disabled/malfunctioning. Some small parts may fail (ie. games that require JS), but as a whole the site should continue to function.
A Simple Aesthetic - The focus of this site is its content, so the presentation should be simple and clear.

What May Change

While the exact scope for the changes is still up in the air, there are three specific issues that I'd like to address when I have the chance:

Using the list of blog posts involves a lot of scrolling to find anything older than a few months.
It is not currently possible to view posts related to a specific topic.
The prototypes page is not well organized. Some aren't even playable anymore, and there's nothing present to emphasize the ones that are the most polished/complete/relevant to my current work.

In addition to these three, I have some more general concerns about the overall level of polish for this site. The site was originally designed while this was still just a hobby, and many of the design choices (color, layout, etc.) reflect that. What (if anything) I will change is unclear, but any changes that I do make will remain true to the principle of keeping a simple aesthetic.

Coming Someday

As mentioned in the introduction, I haven't pinned down either a timeline or concrete scope for any changes. Nonetheless, I wanted to bring these topics up now, so that I have this post as a reference for when I do implement changes. If you have any thoughts or feedback, please let me know.