Here’s an update on Vooks in 2015 (and a new design to boot)

So, things look a little bit different around here don’t they? As you have guessed we’ve redone the design on Vooks for what will be our 15th year. It’s not our 15th birthday just yet, we’ll be sure to have the appropriate party when that happens but thought the site needed a new coat of paint. Think of this new design as your Nintendo dashboard, all the things you need in one place.

The last design of the site was launched in 2012 and in that time the internet has changed a lot. We had a mobile site before but it didn’t look anything like the actual site, so instead now we have one site that’s fully responsive and will fit any screen you can throw at it.

This is more than just a new design, while we have you consider this an update to where Vooks is in 2015;

New Things

• Design – The most obvious thing right? This new site will work on any device, at any resolution and hopefully look great. We’re still working on the placement of things, what columns do what and what works and doesn’t work so bear with us while we work through it. We think this new design is brighter and easier to read and we hope to make some interesting looking content. This year we’re doing more than just news and reviews! Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

• Dashboard – Sounds a bit 90s doesn’t it? The new Vooks homepage is your Nintendo dashboard, everything you need is here. You’ve got news, you’ve got reviews, the latest eShop releases, the newest Vookcast episode. Don’t visit everyday? The trending topics and stories will fill you in, they tick over at the end of the week so there’s always something new to read no matter when you visit. If there’s something Nintendo you need to know, it won’t be hard to find it.
• Categories – Look at those icons up there! Click em, hover over them and explore.

• Reactions – So at the bottom of every story you can now immediately give your reaction to a news story be it positive or negative and let the world show what you think. It’s almost how you ‘Like’ something on Facebook but without your parents or boss seeing it, you’re sharing it with other Nintendo fans and that’s all.

• Video Series – We love to write, you love to read but a lot of people like to watch. That’s why we have a couple of original video series in development for the site. These won’t be your face-in-camera angry rants (although…) but instead great video content you can watch anytime and well something we love. We’ll talk about this more soon.

Broken Things

• So uh, the web isn’t perfect and either is this site, like we mentioned there’s a ton of things around here to fix and improve but there’s one really big one. The site is missing half the reviews! Well alright the reviews are there, just not the scores. We’re manually (by hand, one-by-one) working through these to get them up to the modern design. There’s 15 years of content here, I think we can be cut some slack… right? As a wise man once said, please understand.In the meantime why not check out the Review Directory, it’s huge. When you see a review of Beach Spikers you know we’re close to finishing.

Forum Things

Not too much is missing from the new site, the login has moved, the content is all pretty much in the same place but this has more to do with what’s not on the site.

For over 10 years the Vooks Forums have been the place to hang out and talk Nintendo. Over time the forums have slowed down and they’ve now reached a point where unfortunately the days where people don’t post are over taking the ones where they do. Unless you have a huge forum, forums are pretty dead.

We’re not closing the forums, we just as a team aren’t going to be putting anymore effort into them – aside from trying to keep it free from spam and secure. It’s a sad day, a lot of us met real friends through there but we hope that with the sites new ‘social’ features, the reactions we can foster another positive community in the comments, on Facebook and on Twitter.

The forums will never be deleted, there’s so many memories, stories and information in there to ever give up – the internet needs it.

Finally…

Remember if you like what we do the site is kept alive by our Patreons, the awesome people that they are. All of this money goes toward the server bills and nothing more. If you want to become one then you can find out more about that here. What about if you like Vooks enough to wear it on a shirt? Our shirts support the site and you get something you can wear and hold in your hand back in return, check out our store here. If you don’t or can’t do any of the above we love you all the same.

That’s it, this has been a long enough rant as it is – please enjoy the new site, give us any feedback you wish – we want to hear it all!

Vook and The Vooks Team.