Welcome to the new Penny Arcade website! Before I go into all my favorite parts of the update, I want to say thank you to Gavin and Buland and Kiko who are the ones most responsible for bringing this incredible new site to life.
There's a ton of great stuff built into the new site but I want to cover a few of my favorite features here.
-The site functions across all sorts of resomolutions now!
In addition to the entire site being designed with this functionality in mind, through some form of technomancy Mike Buland was able to devour the entire PA archive and slice each comic into three individual frames. This allows us to reorganize the comic for vertical viewing on your phone! If the comic is oddly shaped or has text across borders you can still view them the traditional landscape way but for a huge portion of the archive it works like a a charm. It also allowed us to make the next awesome new feature.
-The Comic Remix
Not unlike a slot machine you can now pull a lever to get three random Penny Arcade panels arranged for you in classic three panel format. People are already getting some amazing results and if you use the hashtag #PAComicRemix we will keep an eye out for the best ones to share. So go have fun discovering one of a possible 29,790,990,698 remixes!
-News Post Comments
Take a look at the new front page and you might notice something like a text message alert on one of our news posts. This means that either Tycho or myself has commented on a post. Sometimes we have something to say but don't really want to make an entire new post. This is a feature we have wanted for years and I am so excited to finally have it on the site!
-Accessibility Options
Check out the top right of the site! You can now adjust the font size and even switch between a light and dark theme. The site has also been tuned to work with screen readers including the archive of comics!
-Twitch integration
Besides being a webcomic, Penny Arcade has also become a Twitch channel with cool shows all week long. The new site recognizes that and shows you when we're live and streaming.
There's tons of other incredible work that went into the site's design as well as its backend construction. Jerry and I have access to a suite of tools to create, upload, and manage comics that is not only beautiful but so easy to use even I can do it. I am so grateful to the quite frankly brilliant fucking minds that designed and built what has got to be the best webcomic site on the internet. I can say that because I didn't touch it!
-Gabe out