You can now upload any file type for your project, not just .zip/.rar/.tgz.

Videos! Now it’s easier than ever to add videos to your project - just upload your .avi, .wmv, .mov, or .mpeg files and let GameProjects.com do all the work. You can still use the previous method of linking to your YouTube or Google Video videos, but there are some major advantages to uploading your videos to this site: video quality and convenience. GameProjects.com videos are larger and clearer than those on other sites, so your work looks as good as possible. Also, you can update them at any time and choose your own thumbnail image - things other sites don’t let you do. In all, these are just a few more features to help you show off your game projects in the best possible way.

ThreeSixBox.com originally came from my desire to have a web site where I could showcase my XNA projects. In the process of creating the site, I realized that others might like to have such a site as well, so I made a number of adjustments and the ThreeSixBox.com that you all came to know was born. But things change, and even though I’m continuing my work with XNA I’d like to have the option to put up some projects for other platforms, so I’ve made some changes to allow for that. Of course, in expanding the focus of the site I then felt it would be a little awkward to keep the old name, so I chose a new one that would capture everything that we’ve been doing for all this time - GameProjects.com. I hope that, as before, many people find this new site to be useful.

Still, even though the name is different, you’ll realize that not much has changed with the site during the transition. The core focus is still on having a showcase for your projects, it’s just that now there are more platforms that the projects can be created for. Also, I’ve made sure that all of the old ThreeSixBox.com links still (hopefully) work correctly and are redirected to the appropriate location on GameProjects.com, so if you’ve posted any links to the ThreeSixBox.com web site (which I appreciate!), there shouldn’t be any problems. It would be nice, however, if you updated your links to reference GameProjects.com directly.

So that’s about it. If you run into any issues or have any comments, you can contact me in the usual way. And as always, I look forward to seeing what everybody creates, regardless of which platform it’s on.

I’m happy to announce the release of the new community links section. Here you’re able to add and find links to useful resources on other sites. You can even link to your own site if you’d like. You might notice the addition of this section had a ripple on the rest of the site since there is now a new search type dropdown box at the top of every page. Also, your adminstration page (if you’re a member) and profile pages have been tweaked to make room for the extra information.

I’ve been making a number of internal changes to the site and, unfortunately, there were a few problems today. If you tried creating a new project or uploading any kind of file within the last 20 hours you probably experienced some issues. Things seem to have stabilized now, but I apologize for the inconvenience.

It is now possible to link to your projects videos uploaded onto services such as YouTube and Google Video. It’s really easy to do, taking not much more effort than uploading a screenshot. If you’ve already uploaded a project on this site, then go check it out.

I also added some new types of viewing options to the projects page. You can now view all project comments, screenshots, and videos. This is really handy for seeing what kind of changes have taken place on the site since your last visit.

You may have noticed the newly added community section that is now home to XNA news. This will hopefully make it easier to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in the XNA world, whether it be from Microsoft themselves or the community at large. If you have an XNA site with an RSS feed or know of one you’d like to see added to the current collection, as always, please let me know.

Probably more notable than the community section are some of the changes I’ve made to the way projects are managed. You no longer need to upload a project file. This change was made in response to the many XNA developers who already have their own sites but would still like their work to be featured. Such users, and anybody else who chooses to use the feature, can now also specify a external link to their project’s web site.

Some time ago when I began updating projects that I had added to this site, I realized there was no good way to publicly note the changes other than writing a little bit about them in the project description. It was a passable solution but not very elegant, and many members called me on it, suggesting I add a way of keeping track of versions. Well, that’s just what I’ve done. It’s actually such a simple feature, I don’t know why I waited so long to add it. When you update your project file you will now find an additional (optional) Update Description field that allows you to enter a description of the changes being made to your project. When you enter an update, it will be added to your project’s update history, which can be viewed by anybody visiting your project’s page. If you are hosting the project files on your own server, you can still add project updates by accessing the additional Updates tab on your project’s adminstration page. That page can also be used at any time to edit past updates.

I’m also happy to announce the addition of Flash game support, so if you have some Flash games lurking on your hard drive there’s now a nice, easy way of adding them.

One thing I’ve noticed, and I’m sure others have noticed as well, is that my activity on this site seems to go in spurts, with weeks passing between new announcements. But in actuality, my work on the site is continuous and there is hardly ever a day when I don’t make some change or addition to the site. I generally don’t keep track of these changes since many are so small, trivial, or just not very interesting, but I did something different this time and jotted down most every little tweak and update. I probably forgot some, but here they are:

• Added a private download counter. You can now keep track of how many people have visited your project’s download page. This feature is private for the time being since new visitors to the site might be confused when they see a project has been viewed hundreds or thousands of times, but only downloaded once or twice. You can find your projects’ download count on your My Projects page.
• Modified thumbnails on project screenshots and videos page to be clickable. This is convenient when adding new screenshots or videos and you want to jump directly to the publicly viewable version of what you added.
• Tweaked layout for Internet Explorer 7. There were a few functionality and layout issues with IE7 that have now been fixed.
• Added projects RSS link to main page.
• Added support for more video codecs. There were a few issues with some uploaded videos that have been fixed. Many more audio and video codecs have been added to address this.
• Changed “External Link” to “Project Home Page” on the project information administration page. This new name seems to make more sense.
• Video thumbnail will be used when there is no screenshot. This “feature” probably won’t be noticeable since everybody adds screenshots to their project - not just videos - but I figured it was a case worth covering.
• Increased vertical spacing for project details (tags, category, etc) on projects page. It’s a little easier on the eyes now with the information being further spaced than before.
• Modified forums and project page so that you won’t receive notifications when posting a reply in your own forum topic or a comment on your own project. It was kind of dumb that you received notifications for such things.
• Added iframe support for profile. This means you can now add your Xbox Live gamertag to your profile.
• Fixed “code” block. There was a long-running problem with using the “code” block in the forums. It’s been fixed.
• Added MySpace video option to project videos administration page. I still think it’s best to add videos directly to gameprojects.com, but if you’ve already added videos to MySpace, it’s easy to link them to your project.
• Fixed problem with 2-character search terms not returning any results. You would have noticed this problem if you ever clicked on one of the 2-character tags on the main page.
• Modified paging links display for projects, comments, news, and other pages. This was done since the number of pages being displayed was becoming ugly.
• Fixed link generation in project comments and description. When you post something of the form http://somesite.com in a project comment or description, it is now correctly turned into a link. There was a problem that prevented the generated link HTML from being displayed properly in any browser except Firefox.
• Added project title to each of the project administration pages. This helps you to keep track of which project you’re editing.
• Removed time range from projects page. Projects weren’t added often enough for this feature to be relevant.

Now I know why I don’t generally write about all the small things I do to the site…it takes way too long!

I’ve recently converted a number of my projects to work on the Xbox 360 and to commemorate the occasion I added a new Platform filter to the projects page to make it easy to find projects that work on Windows, Xbox 360, or both. In addition, the detailed project listings pages such as the home page and individual project pages (like this one) display the supported platforms in the project description.

I also fixed a number of typos, bugs, and other little annoyances that I’d discovered in the last couple of weeks of using this site. The most pleasant addition is the message notification that appears at the top of the page when you have a new private message. This way you don’t have to manually check your messages to see if you have something new waiting for you (assuming you don’t have e-mail notifications set up). Of course, you do have to be logged in to notice this feature.

When you work on the cutting edge you tend to bleed, which is what I’ve been doing for the past month. There have been numerous bugs and missing features resulting in more false starts than I’d like to admit, and more time wasted than I care to share. But I’m not complaining - this is what happens when you use the first version of any software.

But now that I’ve managed to at least finish something, I think I’ll change gears for a bit and shift some of my focus back to this site and improving things. I appreciate the feedback that I’ve received from people and the infinite patience some of you have shown while waiting for me to implement new features. Believe me when I say your suggestions have not been forgotten. I will be continuously developing and releasing many of your ideas in the coming weeks, so please stick around for that.
Which leads me to the next point. I’ve noticed there are quite a few new “silent” site members - people who have joined but not posted anything. My question to you is: what would it take to make you less silent? Let me know here or here.