I have recently been working on a highly versatile premium theme for WordPress which is due for release soon. As part of the project I wanted to test how the theme (and WordPress itself) could work with sites of various different genres. My intention was that the theme would be configurable enough via it's Options Menu that it could easily be styled to suit corporate sites such as recruitment, blue chip company, technology site & product portfolio, media sites such as magazine, news, image & video gallery and also youth oriented sites such as music / band website, games website.
The theme also features simple integration for banners and advertising, so creating a couple of 'working example' sites was not only a good way of testing the theme's versatility but also a potential source of a few extra quid!
I had been wanting to do a games & videos website for a while, and I had built the theme's default settings around a 'corporate magazine' look & feel, so I decided the games site would be a great way to test the theme. Here is my wordpress games arcade site so far: Zap Gamez
I decided to look around and see what articles I could find about creating a games arcade website with wordpress, or if there was a plugin that allowed you to easily insert games into your WordPress blog. I found this article by Emanuele Feronato:
It describes a method of populating your WordPress blog with games via a feed from MochiAds (A source of free games for websites) using custom fields. However, for my site I wanted to be able to integrate games from various free content suppliers and host games on my own server as well as embedding games hosted by content suppliers. What I really wanted was a plugin that could embed games into posts or pages using shortcodes.
THE PLUGIN
The prototype plugin I have built includes the following features:
4 Different views:
- Grid view - a grid of thumbnail images linking to each game (can be restricted to a single category or parent category)
- Category view - this view includes a medium sized image and a written description of the game
- Single page view - the page where you play the game itself
- Featured Game view - a page with a list of featured games
Different embedding modes:
- iFrame embedding - embed iFrame content using code provided by free games sites, or use this method to display games from your own server where an html file has been provided with the free game download.
- Flash embedding - embed Flash content using embed codes provided by other sites, or embed flash games directly from your own site. You can even upload them easily using the wordpress 'Add Media' tool.
The beta version of the WP Game Embed plugin can be found here.
Brilliant work mate. Was looking into doing something like this for my Scottish Football site but don’t know where to start etc.
i am using your amazing wordpress layout and i love it but i was wondering how i can change the header to a custom one that i have. it doesn’t blink or anything it is just a png. file. help! please. you can mail me back at the email i gave you. thanks!