We are pleased to take down the old front page that we were utilizing for our closed beta period and toss up the new, feature-packed front page. First impressions are important, and for those coming to Great Games Experiment for the first time, we wanted them to realize that there’s a whole bunch going on inside!

Here’s the awesome design, with thanks to Nate Feyma for his awesome art! Be sure to give him kudos!

The new front page contains the following features:

• The most popular “Play Now” games! — These are games that have a playable flash file attached to the game submission
• Top Games — A frequently updating list of the top games as judged by our formulas
• Top Developers and Gamers — Awesome contributors to the community are rewarded with an appearance on the front page!
• Newest Reviews — See the latest game reviews easily
• Featured Gamelist — A regularly updated feature showing off a lucky community member and a gamelist of their choice!
• Blog Overview — View the latest blog posts with ease, a great way to keep in touch with the developers of the site

Enjoy and let us know what you think!

So I’ve been quiet for a little while… this is mainly because I’ve been working on revitalizing and amping up a major piece of the Great Games Experiment — the games! There are two main pieces to this puzzle– tagging and gamelists.

Much like how you can tag your personal network (friends) on GGE, you can do the same with games that you’ve played. The functionality is quite similar and will take you a long way with GGE features both current and on the way. Right now, this is awesome for the use of quickly creating a gamelist. You may recognize the concept of the gamelist as what was formerly the “Gamelist Module”. These modules were slick additions for your profile, which you, in the past, used to crank out a quick and dirty list of games. Well, the concept remains, but the interface has drastically changed.

Read more about Steppin’ It Up with Game Tagging and Gamelists!

Describing it as “a little bit gamer social network, and a little bit (indie) rock ‘n’ roll,” the PC Gamer article explores what makes the Great Games Experiment tick in a page-long feature. An overview of site-specific features is given, as are comparisons to other game-related collaboration sites. The article ends with questions about what GGE could mean for the future of community-driven gaming and game development.

Space Trader, a popular GGE game, receives the royal treatment in the magazine with a screenshot of the game in action, as well as a lengthy quote from one of its developers, Phillip Daigle.

To see the article for yourself, check out the May issue of PC Gamer, available now in newsstands.