GameDeveloperTools.com Ratings & Reviews

TMichael · Post by **TMichael** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:03 am

Hi Everyone,

I just completed work on a major update to my game dev resource site. I hope the community finds this useful.

The official announcement:

The GameDeveloperTools.com Ratings & Reviews system is now live! Please stop by and rate your favorite books, engines, libraries, and other tools.

At the heart of the new system is the Total Score, which is calculated using both the average rating and product popularity. Read more about the Total Score here.

A number of other features have been added since launch. Highlights:

- The database now includes more than 2000 books, engines, libraries, and other tools
- There are now more categories in Engines/Libraries
- There is now a full directory option in Engines/Libraries
- Tools->Physics now has four categories
- Tools->File Management has expanded to eight categories
- Tools->Audio now has two categories
- Perl and JavaScript have been added to Books->Programming

About GameDeveloperTools.com:

GDT was created to provide a one-stop resource of available tools for game developers everywhere. While there are many great resources currently available, few are kept up to date, and nowhere can you browse every category in one place.

The website houses an ever-expanding database with links to more than 2000 books, engines, libraries, and other tools. Our goal is to be as comprehensive as possible, and in that vein I encourage visitors to contact us with submissions, corrections, suggestions, or questions.

PS: Come rate Irrlicht!

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:41 am

Hmm, how do I learn about the tools and books, besides going to the online book store or tool website? I've seen much better directory pages which also provide comprehensive feature lists and comparisons

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:23 am

The site's o.k., but you might want to use valid CSS 2.0 and XHTML. It looks like it's from the 1990's

TMichael · Post by **TMichael** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:56 am

Hybrid: I intentionally pared the feature list down to the essentials so that the site can be maintained and kept up to date. Keeping track of too many categories for a growing list of books, text engines, MUDs, 2D engines, 3D engines, MMO solutions, and every kind of tool you can think of just isn't feasible, and inaccurate or outdated information doesn't help anyone.

Tor: Thanks! I'm not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, and this is my first website. The primary goal is to provide access to the resources listed all in one place. CSS is used, but is it valid? At this point, I'm just happy to have it all working.

That being said, if you have any advice to help improve the site's functionality, I would love to hear it. I am already working through a growing to-do list based primarily on visitor suggestions and requests.

Current update requests include:

- adding edit functionality to user ratings
- adding additional sort options in the Engines/Libraries and Tools areas (similar to the Books sort-- this is in addition to the Advanced Search already in place)
- updating some price fields (free products) to include general license information
- many more...