View Full Version : Dizzy Stories
Over the last 2 days i have been working on a website to promote not just CoTM, but all of my games. I've now got it to a point where, while not quite completely finished, it's finished enough for me to show it off.
It's called <a href="http://dizzystories.110mb.com/index.php" target="_blank">Dizzy Stories</a>, and the intention is to make it the place to go for anything to do with any of my games.
<a href="http://dizzystories.110mb.com/index.php" target="_blank"><img src="http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/eqixx/snapshot.png"></a>
any comments are very welcome. :D
quiggie
11-10-09, 02:38 PM
well legals and technical stuff aside [cause i know nothing where thats concerned] I LIKE IT :v2_dizzy_clapping:
Looks brilliant, will have a better look when I get more time. But will defo donate cause I love all your games and the hard work you put in in making them. Keep up the good work and look forward to your next game :v2_dizzy_happy:
Mataeus
12-10-09, 12:21 PM
Wow, it's already looking really great. Love what you've done with the title. Bookmarked :v2_dizzy_happy:
It's great to have something like this, because although each game is independent of the previous one it's nice to be able to play them in some kind of order and see how they progress, or check out recurring themes and characters used by a particular author, and with your site that's now so easy to do with your games :)
It would be cool if in the future we can leave small comments and ratings on each game's page.
It would be cool if in the future we can leave small comments and ratings on each game's page.
unfortunately i'm not using a database (costs money, more complex to code etc etc), so the site doesn't have any user-changeable content. (apart from the download counts, which i implemented in an old, backwards way)
Mataeus
12-10-09, 01:19 PM
No biggie, we can always rate them on here anyway. Once again, great work on the site!
DizzyFanUK
12-10-09, 05:55 PM
Wow looks great Jamie.
I look forward to visiting this site regularly.
I think its real positive that we'll have an extra forum that promotes Dizzy as well as your other projects also. it would also be a good place to attract your next gen of beta testers :P
A real success story
:)
Just imagine if other developers also set up their own websites - we'd have Dizzy appearing all over the net - Wonderful - and it'll mean that visitors to those sites will hear about Yolkfolk too
The only thing Id suggest is maybe you could suggest a recccomended donation amount and have some blurb about what its for ie along the line you dont get paid for this but if someone wanted to show their appreciation, you accept gratuities...?
The other thing I miss, and its silly really, but on the forums you have little icons below your name, and when new ones appear with just letters and a big '?' i feel a sense of expectation and mystery about future surprises - maybe you can do something to that effect in your upcoming section???
All in all - I love it!!!
:v2_dizzy_clapping:
DizzyFanUK
12-10-09, 06:01 PM
Ah sorry - I just saw the 'Why donate' - that explains my q.
Oh and as a website its great - clean, simple and each page is just the right size!
btw, i noticed the copyright at the bottom - is it actually copyrighted?
Lord Dizzy of Yolkfolk
12-10-09, 06:13 PM
Great site Jamie, anything you do is usually quality though. Like the look of it. :v2_dizzy_clapping:
Thank you!
regarding the copyright thing, nahhh tbh the design is so simple it's probably not worth copyrighting. It just looks better :p
also I may add something to the 'upcoming' page. we'll see :p
xelanoimis
12-10-09, 07:45 PM
The site looks good!
Thanks for the references.
One thing though: you should buy a domain name.
I think dizzystories isn't taken for .com or .co.uk
The co.uk are cheaper.
Of course the hoster must support your own domain name, but the good thing is you can always change the host later.
It's quite important to have your own domain name and if you don't do it now it will be a pain to make people update their links to your site later. I experienced it before simion.co.uk and there are still incomings for simion.co.uk/dizzyage.
Good luck and I wish you lots of donations :)
Alex
Thanks Alex!
I've just purchased dizzystories.co.uk, and will update the nameservers for it in the next day or so, so that www.dizzystories.co.uk automatically re-directs to the free hosting site i'm using at the moment.
xelanoimis
13-10-09, 09:55 AM
Great! It sounds really cool :)
the *only* problem with 110mb.com is that sometimes (as now) the server it's hosted on goes down. New server, issues with stability, etc etc.
Mataeus
13-10-09, 01:48 PM
the *only* problem with 110mb.com is that sometimes (as now) the server it's hosted on goes down. New server, issues with stability, etc etc.
I know, I can't get on :(
Slightly off topic, but: I followed the link from the site to your tutorial videos, and sat and watched them all back-to-back late last night, rewinding here and there to go over the coding bits a few times until I understood what was really going on...
I'm heading back into DizzyAGE now to try out my new-found knowledge!
Thanks for taking the time out to do those vids for n00bs like me, it really helps MASSIVELY to have something like that to hand when trying to work through the three DizzyAGE books. The were easy to watch, fun to follow and set at a gentle, almost soothing pace - when someone has been doing something they know inside-out for so long, it's often easy for that person to fall into the trap of skipping over the 'for granted' parts when trying to train someone else (as I've often found at work - both as a trainee and trainer) but you avoid that trap. Also, because you can see the results right there in front of your eyes, it makes it feel more rewarding - to follow the code and then see you put it into the game and see the apple-giving, coin-hiding, bat-killing, door-unlocking code in action is great and really spurs you on to go and try it for yourself, a lot more than just reading the code in the e-book.
Anyway, I think that's enough ass-kissing for now :v2_dizzy_tongue2:
according to the server monitor here: http://grd.110mb.com/server-monitor/ box 17 (the server Dizzy Stories is on) has been down for nearly 7 hours now! :O
bit annoying really, cause i'd quite like to add something to the site...
I'm glad you've got some use out of the tutorial vids! :) that's what they're there for!
Mataeus
13-10-09, 11:16 PM
I know, so much for their 99% up time 'guarantee' :dizzy_confused:
yeah. still down. I think something has gone seriously wrong with that server! :p
but i've had a few sites on 110mb.com, what you tend to find is that whichever the new server is tends to be down a bit more than the others, until all the issues etc get ironed out. Never known it to be down for over half a day tho...
110mb estimate that it will be back up at some point tomorrow.
xelanoimis
16-10-09, 09:05 PM
when I go to www.dizzystories.co.uk I get redirected to http://dizzystories.110mb.com/
I suppose you set your domain to simply redirect there.
However, you should set your domain account with the hosting site server info (not sure how they are called - there are 2 adresses or so). This way when navigating the website it will show www.dizzystories.co.uk in the address bar, not dizzystories.110mb.com.
If you don setup this way, your pages will still be indexed in google as part of 100mb.com and not dizzystories.co.uk. And game sites will just link to your game downloads using 100mb (they use to link to the zip file directly - so I can't track downloads from them)
See if the hosting service supports this (most of free host sites don't).
Also you can implement some sort of "database", without a real mysql database. I use txt files in dizzyage for games listings, downloads tracking, votes, etc. Of course you need php support. If you need I can give you some of my php scripts for inspiration.
Alex
Hi Alex, yes you're correct, as it's a free site they don't allow you to change the domain name, so the redirect is all i can do.
Yes I'm using text files to keep count of the number of downloads for each game. It's not at all secure, but it really doesn't need to be.
Every other piece of information on the site is stored in a php file that pretty much every page references. All I then need to do when adding or editing something is to edit one file, which contains all the information. It's quite a simple and effective way of doing it.
I don't know if people have noticed, but i've put a 'news' page on the site, as somewhere to note when i've changed something on the site, or uploaded anything new.
Over the next few weeks I'll be putting up maps, walkthroughs, and 'coin' locations for each of my games. There are already quite a few up there.
Mataeus
17-10-09, 10:39 PM
How are the donations coming along? Or is it rude to ask ?:dizzy_confused:
How are the donations coming along? Or is it rude to ask ?:dizzy_confused:
there have been a couple of small donations, which are very gratefully received. :)
xelanoimis
20-10-09, 05:25 PM
I noticed the "Winter Nightmare Dizzy" in development :)
I suppose it's gonna be ready "before Christmas?" or it's a different kind of nightmare? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107688/)
ermmm no, not that sort of nightmare. Not really much of a nightmare at all actually, it just sounded good. and the story kinda explains it.
it is actually completely ready now, apart from one small issue that i've asked about in the 'General Coding Queries' thread.
I'll probably put the story up in a week or so. :) then maybe one screenshot a couple of weeks later! hehe
Hello you lucky lucky people, I've just uploaded a map of Illusion Island Dizzy. ;)
Lord Dizzy of Yolkfolk
20-10-09, 09:04 PM
It sure does look enormous lol
Lord Dizzy of Yolkfolk
20-10-09, 09:36 PM
:D
it's still quite a shock to see the actual map and realise just how big it is! Even for me, because the editor doesn't zoom out nearly far enough to get the whole map in one screen!
Mataeus
21-10-09, 11:10 AM
Although I'm nowhere near to finishing this game (having only dabbled in it so far and reading the 'author notes' on Dizzy Stories (which I love by the way! It's great to have insight into the making of the games)) I couldn't resist taking a quick look at the map. Wow! I thought Rail Road was huge! I think you've hit a whole new level of massiveness here, Delta.... doesn't that make it about as big as the first five Dizzy games combined, or something huge like that anyway? Well, I'm recovering from the 'flu, I'm actually managing to walk about today which is good, so I think it might be as good a time as any to really get into this game...
Winter Nightmare Dizzy.... :dizzy_cool:
Something you haven't got on your site.. a 'link' section.
Dunno if its worth having one linking to various programs you use, (graphic editor or music editors) and others.
I may well add one at some point. My intention is to put something new on the site every two or three days now. I worked out that if i put something up every three days, that will take me until the middle of December before i run out of game solutions, maps, coin locations etc.
Really like the site and reading about the development of each game.
thank you very much! :v2_dizzy_thumbsup:
Just uploaded the locations of all the Zzzs in Dreamworld Dizzy. The site now shows everything that is needed to complete the game - map, Zzz locations, and a walkthrough. :dizzy_cool:
Huckleberry
23-10-09, 10:22 PM
Be under no illusion though, any money donated goes directly into my pocket (apart from paypal fees. Grrrr.) It doesn't go to charity, it doesn't go to any company. It all goes to me. :)
Ha ha, This is my favourite bit. A tip of the hat.
Would you like both of your upcoming games to be mentioned on the Coming Soon page of Yolkfolk.com?
Thought It'll be safe to ask first. :v2_dizzy_happy:
Your games and about 6 other upcoming Fangames are on the Coming Soon page :p there might be 1 or 2 more games missing from the list :confused:
Your games and about 6 other upcoming Fangames are on the Coming Soon page :p there might be 1 or 2 more games missing from the list :confused:
If your lucky i might have some details about mine before the year is out.
ho hum. seems it's down again. :( replacing a failed HDD apparently...
xelanoimis
28-10-09, 09:55 PM
Your dizzystories website got a little well deserved advertising :)
http://www.yolkfolk.com/dizzyage
Would be great to find a good hosting service. I used something called staghosting in the past - free decent service (had to place small advertising text on my pages, but almost no servers down time). Not sure if they still running. Maybe someone else has more recent experiences with hosting.
thank you! :)
the site is back up anyway, that was sooner than i expected!
i've posted the story for WND today... ;)
I dunno how you keep coming up with ideas.
i've uploaded a map of TLoD and changed the news, however i don't think it's uploaded correctly - i only get the top part of the map showing - and it's not letting me back in to edit the news! bah.
EDIT:: double bah. it seems that it's actually having problems loading any large image. most of the maps won't load properly atm.
all seems to be working fine now :)
I've just uploaded a screenshot of Winter Nightmare Dizzy ;)
Don't forget it's released in two weeks time, on Friday 4th December :)
We look forward. http://zxaaa.untergrund.net/dizzy/v2_dizzy_eat.gif
quiggie
21-11-09, 12:16 AM
lookin good jamie, can't wait to get my teeth into winter nightmare on friday the 4th :v2_dizzy_clapping:
joneback
04-01-10, 03:56 AM
Wow looks great Jamie. I look forward to visiting this site regularly.
I think its real positive that we have an extra forum that promotes Dizzy as well as your other projects also. I really like.
I've updated the site for the first time in nearly a month, and it's quite a nice update too! Two forthcoming games added, plus a 'cheats/hidden rooms' section added to each games page, with a cheat for IID the first to be added (others will follow)
:)
ever wanted to know how to get to the intro screens in Diamond Mine Dizzy? Wonder no longer, it's up on the website ;)
Right, I've spent a bit of time today updating and uploading a load of stuff to the site. So the following are now available on the site:
Author Notes for:
Egyptian Tomb Dizzy
Game Map for:
Winter Nightmare Dizzy
Game Solutions for:
Diamond Mine Dizzy
Winter Nightmare Dizzy
Collectible Item Locations for:
Winter World Dizzy
Magic Star Dizzy
Illusion Island Dizzy
Winter Nightmare Dizzy
Hidden Extras for:
Dreamworld Dizzy
Rail Road Dizzy
Magic Star Dizzy
The Lord of Darkness
Illusion Island Dizzy
Winter Nightmare Dizzy
phew!
Dizzy Stories has had a Major Re-design today, and is now live!
<img src="http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/eqixx/newsite.png" width="700">
if you use Internet Explorer, the 'rounded' corners will be square. Blame Microsoft, then get a better internet browser! :p
I also just added a 'difficulty' rating for each game. If you think I'm wrong, tell me and I'll change it!
WhyNotSmile
15-06-10, 11:28 AM
Looks great Jamie! I see where the extra lives are in Egyptian Tomb... I didn't work out how to get into the room on the lower right though :(
Looks great Jamie! I see where the extra lives are in Egyptian Tomb... I didn't work out how to get into the room on the lower right though :(
it opens automatically once you've got the final treasure. There's only one life in there tho ;)
I also just added a 'difficulty' rating for each game. If you think I'm wrong, tell me and I'll change it!
I thought Magic Star was quite hard.. harder then Rail road.
Maybe im the only one? lol
hmm i was taking into account the game size too, and trying to base it on how long it would take someone to complete as well. I do realise that I can't really judge them myself too well, because I can never play them through the eyes of others :p
any future updates for any of my games will have the 'readme' file as a web document, rather than a text file.
I've done a prototype using the new style of the Dizzy Stories website, and it's looking very good! :v2_dizzy_thumbsup:
All the coding for it is self-contained, so you won't need to be connected to the internet to view it.
this is a screenshot of the readme file for CoTM:
(apologies for it stretching the screen a bit)
<img src="http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/eqixx/cotmreadme.png">
Lex_Hedley
21-06-10, 04:31 AM
That looks great :tup:, I like how you are linking everything together with the same look and feel
I've added all my Video Tutorials to Dizzy Stories today, as well as doing a bit of back-end coding to enable me to create pages in future explaining how to implement some of the custom coding I've done. :)
I'll probably change it around a bit once I start putting up some of the custom coding I've done.
having done the back-end coding to allow me to put code on the site, I thought it would be a shame if I didn't do any, so I've done a few new pages with some examples of custom coding. :)
more will follow in the coming weeks/months.
I've updated the 'Legal Stuff' part to add a Creative Commons License to cover all of my games, following a bit of a issue that Wikipedia had with a screenshot from one of my games.
whoopsies! The walkthrough for Dreamworld Dizzy was actually for Rail Road Dizzy... Dunno how long it's been like that...! :dizzy_rolleyes:
Anyway, it's now been changed. :)
Mataeus
13-09-10, 02:59 PM
Hi Jamie - Just wanted to say the new look Dizzy Stories site looks great :)
Also, well done on Egyptian Tomb, the save points work brilliantly, a great idea :)
the latest update adds the map, cheat, and game notes for PSD, as well as custom coding for the Jetpack item :)
(let me know if the jetpack item coding doesn't work for whatever reason!)
I've just used your custom climbing code.. it works a real treat nice and smooth too, :tup: Best part is once the code is in place it's so easy to just add it to the map/game.
The website seems to be pretty slow atm, especially when downloading games (so slow that it fails most of the time). Sorry! :(
EDIT:: it seems to be much faster now, and downloads are working fine. :)
dizzykei
13-03-11, 05:25 PM
Pixel Dizzy and Dizzy RPG links are dead.
thanks, I'll remove them the next time I update the site. :)
works fine for me, I just tried it.
I just downloaded it from that link and it's fine. Maybe it's your browser - have you tried a different browser?
It is the same link anyway, so there is no reason at all that one will work and one won't. Your internet connection isn't dropping is it?
I just tried it and it works fine!
I downloaded from the 2nd link and the bottom of the page and extracted the files as usual.,, no errors my end.
right, just to clarify, the file it's downloading is the same file with each link. There is only one file, so there is no difference. Now I don't know why it's doing it to you, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with the file or the link itself.
Did you try using a different browser?
oh and one other thing, what are RRD BD DDTR in your sig? is BD Bubble Dizzy, and DDTR Dizzy Down The Rapids? You can't use RRD either, I've already used it for Rail Road Dizzy! haha! :p
[QUOTE=Pogie;20384]Yeah, it must be my browser - I was using IE8 /QUOTE]
I'm useing IE8 and it works fine, so it's got nothing to do with that.
X)
Well I've finally got around to doing the map for MFD, but I can't upload it as the control panel isn't letting me log in. Hmph.
I will tell you a couple of cheats though, as I can't add them to the website yet.
Rock Dash Dizzy:
To play any cave, on the intro screen type 'teleportXY' where X is the difficulty level (from 1 to 5) and Y is the cave (from A to T).
To play any bonus cave, on the intro screen type 'teleportyX' where X is the bonus cave (from A to T).
Mystic Forest Dizzy
To access the secret room, use the Pickaxe on the large rock at the bottom of the pool in room 'The Hopeful Miner'.
Have fun! :)
Everything is now added to the website: Maps, author notes, and the above cheats, for Rock Dash Dizzy and Mystic Forest Dizzy.
:)
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