C2 for Interactive Website

Hi folks,

has anyone pushed the C2 engine out of it's gaming zone and used it - or considered using it - to create dynamic interactive user experiences for websites, microsites, landing pages, corporate gamification etc?

With broadband improving all the time and many clients wanting to have something that is more than just another cookie-cutter website, i see C2 as having another role to play in this ever expanding HTML5 arena. Don't forget, Adobe Edge is pushing animation and interactivity with this new tool and C2 can obviously do much more.

Feedback appreciates, thanks!

<img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

I'm actually experimenting with C2 for web dev at the moment, I work in white-label multimedia and after years of Flash work I'm seeing C2 as a confident replacement, the next revision of my site features 3 C2 powered projects and hopefully I'll show it off next month, currently customers are enjoying being able to play Snake whilst they wait for a ticket reply so something's working :)

One thing I can't stress enough, please don't use C2 as website creation tool! I definitely support it for designing fun site elements though; obviously certain assets like spry-bars should be kept away from C2, but I think there's room for experimentation in this area!

I have my company website setup using it. Mainly to shop my games around to publishers, but it works really nice because I can just iFrame the games.

elf-games.com still a work in progress. I might put the contact form in the iFrame box as well.

Using C2, my site took me about 20 minutes. I don't know how dynamic that is, but it fit my needs :).

For numerous reasons, it's not recommended to use C2 to build your whole website - however certain interactive features could definitely be made in C2.

ArcadEd For some reason the frame that the game appears in looks like it is wobbling... at least when I look at the site in IE9...

C2 can be nice for making banner-ad style splashes and eye candy. But don't use it to make the whole website. C2 is designed as a game engine, and Google likely can't index any of the content in a C2 project. So your website Google ranking will suffer really badly if you make the whole thing in C2. Go with ordinary HTML and a few C2 bonuses.

Good point ashley. I was even thinking about google ranking.

— Seems to be an IE9 thing, I just noticed it too.

I may have to rethink this approach ;).

ArcadEd

Nicely done.

Google will most likely smite you for setting it up like that, though. The fact that the ordinary user won't even be able to tell where links are heading to will mean a penalty of some sorts.

Chances are, more intelligent anti-virus software will blacklist your site, as well.

Lastly, your website will probably have a higher drop-out rate the more interactive elements you add. At this point, however, your site still manages to load way quicker than that Clikpic crap a client of mine keeps using.

Ashley

I've considered adding a few splash screens of some sort, but am kind of weary of adding another iFrame, since the first (albeit hidden) one already scrutinized my ranking.

Considering my homepage will be quite hackish in the near future anyways (I used Javascript to provide multiple language translations, which will now require me to set the translated title tags outside the actual title-field of my CMS), I really don't want to take further chances.

Frames really shouldn't bring your ranking down; does the parent page have any additional content on it? Simply using a frame to embed content shouldn't matter unless your parent meta tags/description is referring to the frame, and the actual parent page has no such content.

As Ashley said the best way around this is to use C2 for what it was made for, the interactive stuff, all your text, contact forms and links should be pure HTML; with tables dead you can make some very simple websites that still look great, and if your web-host is half-way decent, you've got access to a few hundred free to use templates!

Pure C2 websites are effectively the same as Flash sites (Though I guess they work on mobile haha!) you're not going to get good crawler results without resorting to something like white-texting,and at that point you're doing more harm than good!

Lightboxes are also a great alternative to a standard iFrame if your worried about screen estate.

— E Bear

Well. They do if they're invalid or don't have a src leading to another content website. My contact form is quite hackish and I remember having to place a hidden iframe in order for it to fully work.

Kind of makes me wish the W3C was less strict.

I can't help it, but in it's present form, HTML just reminds me of ASM. With all it's hacks and hidden features, it's like 6502 (illegal opcodes FTW!) all over again.

Of course, the fun really comes to a screeching halt upon checking one's W3C rating.

Using my language flags inside the title tag (i. e. <div class="lang:english">Home</div><div class="lang:german">Startseite</div>) further decreased my rating, unfortunately.

Which bares the question: Why is there no legit way to have a multilingual title tag yet?

Thanks all for your replies.

As a web designer, i would never build with C2 but simply embed the code in an iframe. After seeing Adobe Edge, i see a possible use for C2 as a way to add some gamification for certain sites or to add a product quizz etc. Imagine a product or service promo / micro site with a branded shooter or platform game! You could add another ?1000+ to the price   <img src="smileys/smiley9.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Using my language flags inside the title tag (i. e. <div class="lang:english">Home</div><div class="lang:german">Startseite</div>) further decreased my rating, unfortunately.

Which bares the question: Why is there no legit way to have a multilingual title tag yet?

Why don't you use PHP, ASP.NET or whatever and detect the browser language / user location if you have a website where you need to care about multilingualism?

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> Using my language flags inside the title tag (i. e. <div class="lang:english">Home</div><div class="lang:german">Startseite</div>) further decreased my rating, unfortunately.

>

> Which bares the question: Why is there no legit way to have a multilingual title tag yet?

Why don't you use PHP, ASP.NET or whatever and detect the browser language / user location if you have a website where you need to care about multilingualism?

1. PHP is an inefficient, unelegant POS. No way in hell I'm ever using it for any bigger homepage project.

2. My homepage uses Google Blogger, so there's no way to use ASP.Net. There might be a way to integrate with my favourite choice, Python, through the use of Google App Engine. I'm still working it out, though. Implementing a Python based ecommerce platform will be a higher priority anyways.

3. For what I'm doing, Javascript is way faster and more efficient. No need to reload a page just to switch languages. No people at an internet caf?/on their holidays getting mad at me because I chose to detect a language they might not even be fluent at. No need to keep track of multiple pages or an oversized sitemap.

I'm presenting a session on Game A.I. at a Norfolk Indie Game Developers meetup next week.

Rather than use Powerpoint, I'm using Construct2 to create my slide deck - with each slide being a separate layout within a single project. That way, I have interactive demos for each topic directly on each slide, rather than flick back and forth between slides and demos (I've seen plenty of demos where presenters spend ages Alt+Tabbing between different applications...).

It also means I can publish the entire presentation and all demo material on the internet after the event as an interactive website.