At last, the Firestorm Productions website enters a new age of… erm… newness! Yes! As you can see, the not-hyped-at-all renovation of the website has been put online. The construction process is partly why there have been so few updates lately, although there was at least one other reason for that (which I’ll explain later).

This brave new world of Wordpress is brimming with features which I’ll probably never use - but some of them were actually worth the effort…

• The site doesn’t have to rely on a bulky forum just to display news items
• It’s easier and tidier for visitors to post comments and view content through RSS
• I can maintain and update stuff in half the time it took before
• Adding pointless bullet lists is easier than ever
• Oh yes, and it can still do smilies!

I’m hoping that the speed of the site will be smoother, if not necessarily faster, due to another change in web hosts; the old one appeared to be overselling quite badly, and when I tried this Wordpress installation, page load times frequently were above the 10 second mark. More than long enough to drive away the scant few visitors Firestorm gets…

Anyhow, enjoy the new look. Sorry about the lack of content right now… there was only so much I could prepare offline, so expect the game pages to look a bit out of place until I can fit them into the new layout. That aside, I hope you have a pleasant browsing experience!

Meep!

Do not adjust your internet in any way if you find the site is behaving even more strangely than usual. A redesigned website is imminent, as well as (yet another) switch in webhosts.

And very soon afterwards I’ll try to give you some idea of why things have been so s-l-o-w lately…

Goodness gracious. August really has been a slow month! Yet it’s somehow managed to pass so quickly. Damn you, real life, for stealing away my free time!

Ahem. Yes, so, despite the appaling lack of updates last month, you can check the updated Mordor: Return to Dejenol front page for some small gist of what’s been going on, and while you’re there, take a peek at the development progress page to see a more detailed breakdown of last month’s coding (sorry it took so long to get updated). Things are moving forwards!

A big thanks must go to James Monkman and the other intrepid team members behind the latest and (dare I say) leetest issue of RGCD. Issue 3 of the downloadable retro discmag contains a whopping 29 reviews and 6 articles, their most content-filled production yet. In the selection of reviewed games just happens to be Millenipede, scoring quite respectably. In its review, James says:

…the game performs brilliantly as a short and rewarding distraction from work.

For the full lowdown, and of course a smashing round-up of the other excellent retro releases of the past couple of months, follow this ‘ere link to go straight to the RGCD download page.

Though I dislike mentioning stuff that isn’t freeware on these pages, I do want to give a passing mention to Guild Wars: Eye of the North, the just-released expansion pack for the rather fab free-to-play competitive RPG Guild Wars. Truth be told, it’s what has kept me from updating the site as much as I should have last month… Well, that and the early release of Knytt Stories, I suppose. Everybody should play KS - it’s like pie, after all, and everybody likes pie, right?
‘Til next time, then - watch out for marmots!