TLDR at the bottom.
​​
Hello! As the title says, the Blinx The Time Sweeper Fansite rebuild is finally ready to go public! I bring you this long delayed update.

I made the fansite rebuild announcement all the way back in May of 2021, what have I been up to since then? Why no update posts?

Basically I started a full time job as a software developer back in May of 2022 (hooray!). As you can guess it takes up a lot of my lot of time and energy, and I had life things to prioritise. I also went on something on an unintentional semi-hiatus from social media. I was still around, but I kind of just cut back my social media activity.

Despite my silence, I have been quietly working on the rebuild. From the beginning it was a project I fully intended on finishing, even if it did took more than my estimate of a year. I guess making project updates was just one of those things I couldn't manage to do alongside the actual work.

That’s the gist of my absense. I’m back now to push forward to the Blinx The Time Sweeper Fansite rebuild!

If you have sent me an email last year, I apologize for not getting back to you. It's a bit late to send one now but I have read them and will update the fansite rebuild if required.
​​
But enough personal updates, let's get to the actual project.

​The rebuild version of the Blinx Fansite can be viewed at:​

beta.blinxthetimesweeper.com

Most of the Handbook, Gallery and Download pages have been copied over with the same structure and layout. It’s the same content more or less in a different website theme.

I am pleased with the overall improvements to the presentation of the content. I think it’s a lot nicer to read and navigate.

​Performance still could be improved, namely with the image format and size. This has always been an issue with the fansite because I don’t normally optimate the images. This is something I will do after the jump to the rebuild version happens.

Some other aspects need some refinement (like the text scaling, the image gallery experience and the overall appearance) which will be cleaned up eventually.

Some things still need to be added, including:

• News, guides and content blog posts except for "Blinx: The Time Sweeper Now Available on Game Pass". Featured Fanart posts will not be included in the rebuild.
• General website pages like the Home and Contact page.
• Some site components like the blog sidebar and sitemap.

I’ve set up a #fansite-feedback channel in the Blinx Corps discord server where members can drop their feedback on the rebuild version. If you have any thoughts or find an issue with the website, drop a message in the channel and I’ll easily be able to find it.
​
If you don't wish to join the server, you can always email me your feedback at [email protected]. I should be better at replying this time around.

Before sending in your feedback, be sure to check the public Trello board that lists all the known issues and ongoing work.

The migration to the rebuild version will happen when all the content is copied over. So that’s basically the blog posts and a couple of loose pages. Certainly achievable within the near future!

Gonna be working on finishing the rebuild version more frequently, while still prioritising my time, energy and generally what I want to do.

So no set completion date, it’ll be done when it’s done. Feeling pretty satisfied with things, and I’m excited to move the fansite off this cursed web builder platform.

That’s all for now, thanks for once again visiting the Blinx The Time Sweeper Fansite!


TLDR: beta.blinxthetimesweeper.com

They freed our boy.
​

To celebrate 20 Years of Xbox, Microsoft has finally added Blinx: The Time Sweeper to Xbox Game Pass. As of July 26, Game Pass members will be able to play TTS on cloud and console.

The OG Xbox classic Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge was also added to Game Pass alongside it.
​

​With this, the first Blinx game has never been more accessible. Now if only they would make the sequel backwards compatible too.

There's already a noticeable increase in the number of Blinx: The Time Sweeper Twitch streams. It's equally fun and frustrating watching people playing it for the first time.

If you're interested in getting Blinx: The Time Sweeper (or Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space for that matter) running, you can read my updated 'How to Run the Blinx Series' guide.

​I'm excited to announce that the Blinx The Time Sweeper Fansite is getting a fresh rebuild from the ground up.

When the fansite was first created, I wanted an easy place to put anything Blinx related to refer to later without having to worry about the backend. Four years and over 200 pages later, the fansite has pretty much outgrown its website builder host platform. I believe that building the fansite from scratch is long overdue and will benefit its growth in the future.

​Faster Load Times
Without getting too technical, the current fansite is dynamic and the fansite rebuild will be static. The content on dynamic sites is rendered by server and database processes while static sites are pre-rendered and can be passed straight to your browser. As a result, static sites have faster load times since there is no processing time required to deliver a webpage.

In addition, I can trim away all the fat that comes with the generic page rendering processes that come with website builders and optimise the architecture to suit the fansite's requirements.

Better Workflow
The Weebly editor is the biggest obstacle to making changes to the fansite due to its slow speed and how it handles page editing in general. Less time spent fighting with the editor is more time spent writing content.

Full Creative Control and Freedom
What content can be added is determined by the website builder. Custom visuals and more advanced behaviours are often only possible with paid feature apps. Because of that, I often spent unnecessary time trying to find free workarounds.

With the freedom to code whatever I want, things like proper references and dark mode can finally be added.

Because I Can
May as well since I have gained skills in web development from my job as a software developer. Looks good on a resume (probably).

​Below are several screenshots of what's been built so far, just to show it's doable.

As seen from the screenshots above, I've built the foundation of the new fansite and I've started the process of moving content over.

I don't have a current timeline yet but I hope to get it done by the end of this year at the very latest. Extra time will be spent adding new site features and refreshing old content. If it's not finished by the end of this year, blame notna888 for not being able to copy and paste.

I'll be doing regular updates on this blog so keep a watch out for those.

Updates on the current fansite will slow down as I focus on building the new fansite but new content, news and revisions will continue as usual.

That's all for this announcement. Thank you for all the support over the past few years. I don't think the fansite would nearly be as big without it. :)

​From this month onwards, I'll no longer be posting Featured Fanart as I'll be uploading fanworks on the Fanart gallery on the new fansite.