One more round of site theme ideas. I think I might really like this round. Do folks like these more or less then the last batch? I did not fill in all the content for these, just a few boxes and headings to give a sense of the concept. Each of them would take a bit more work. These are generated out of cut up shots from mega man, so I would be mushing and chewing on those original images a bit, but I thought I would share these.
I like the top one again. Seems important to me to say the 'source for history games' right away to let people know what you're all about. I like those colors and contrasts better than the purple, it's historical and dignified looking. The one picture where you highlight the featured game, that background looks like it could be cool. If you had stuff from different ages of history as pictures, like a Greek soldier and a hot air balloon and a bill of rights document or something that might make a good backdrop. But I like the header? in the first example.
I actually preferred the last batch, but that's probably just because more content was filled in. I have trouble looking past the sparseness.
For this round, I also vote for the first one. (Since you are of course tallying votes right?) I like the footer in the purple one, too. I would have voted for that one, but I think the space look in the header doesn't really say 'history'.
I also like the top (latest) one. It seems clearer to have the content in panes. I am wondering, however, how you will address in the home page the fact that you will probably have a significant number of games, categorized by topic, age level, and perhaps quality (or maybe you plan to put only games that meet your criteria). How will users search for games?