The Luchazine Issue #1 (June 14, 2010)

The Luchazine has finally arrived folks! It was supposed to be out last night before the fist batch of E3 conferences, but Major Murphy showed up last minute as always. I recommend downloading the PDF here, but you can also check out the low quality version of individual pages here. It really is meant to be seen in the PDF folks. Photobucket is a bit shaky from my experience, so if there are any missing pages just let me know.
 
A big thank you goes to everyone who contributed! I also want to throw some more attention on indian_boy and aurahack for all their hard work. The ex design team was unable to contribute anything due to a variety of reasons *shakes fist* so the dynamic duo had to do everything.
 
Feel free to let us know what you think of this first issue.
 
P.S.  You'll notice that that The Luchazine has a couple of "Visual Previews" Since we don't get a chance to play games pre-release in most cases, these articles are usually discussions about publicly-shown content of a particular game. Just thought I'd clear that up.
 
Also, openings for issue 2 will be announced in the next 2 days. 
 
Edit: natetodamax was somehow not mentioned on the contributors page. Sorry for the error folks! Nate, I still love you enough to beat you <3
 

If you want to apply for issue 2, check this out.

awesome

Jesus it looks good! So where do I send the cheque to get this every month in print?

At laaaast!  :P

Well its a start. Maybe focus less on quantity and more on quality. Yes I understand the difficulty of getting this all together online. But just saying.

Awesome shit.   :)

Awesome! Thanks for the mention about my thread on page 8. It is nice to be mentioned in the first issue of The Luchazine. I will comment more specifically on it later when I have finished going through it!

Yessir, "at last" is right. 
 
Nothin like lieutenant ass-kickery to beat major murphy. 
 
Hope you guys enjoy the Luchazine!  
'cause it sure will enjoy you  ;).  

The lack of Cube is disturbing.

That Haze article was awful. Reminds me of those people on Gamespot who would review Big Rigs and give it a 10 saying "This is the best game ever! Changed video games forever! LOL Isn't this funny? Check us out!"
 
The rest of the Luchazine seems pretty awesome. Great effort guys, except the Haze clown. Trudge along with your peers.

" That Haze article was awful. Reminds me of those people on Gamespot who would review Big Rigs and give it a 10 saying "This is the best game ever! Changed video games forever! LOL Isn't this funny? Check us out!"
 
Great effort guys, except the Haze clown. Trudge along with your peers. "

 Let's not reduce this to internet bickering. Everyone has their own opinion and articulates it in their own ways.
 
@Vito_Raliffe:  Keep up the good work sir!

Wow, only aurahack and indian_boy did that? Mad props.

Awesome dude. I felt like it was lacking something though. Maybe more pictures?

Looking good.  You guys did a nice job stitching everything together into a package that looks just like something real grown-ups might make!
 
But where is the last-page image teasing next month's issue?  Just what kind of magazine is this?

Nice. I have an exam soon, but i'll check it out once i'm back.

I would have pinned this to all boards but the main forums are a little busy with all the E3 stuff going on. Maybe next week.

Over all I didn't care for it. You guys obviously put a lot of work into it, but hurt feelings aside it needs a lot of work. Some suggestions:
 

• Too many features: You had too many articles and not enough one offs. Most mag's are made up of a bunch of tiny one/two/three paragraph bit's of news, and the like, with a few articles peppered in around them. What you have there is just a big wall of text with nothing to entice people to read any of it because every article is two to three pages long.
• Bland Look: Just the basic design you have chosen looks very, my first page layout. No offense to the designer. It needs more variety in the lines and layout. Too many pages looking the same as the previous one. There was nothing on the pages that said this is product "XYZ", and everything just looked all around generic.
• Layout: The way you choose to list many of the articles on a page, or break them up with photos, didn't look very appealing. It lacked a flow for the eyes. When you look at a page you want an easily recognizable point of reference to draw the eye in, then have it flow across the page. Many a times I just kind of found myself meticulously scanning down the page trying to find a place to look at and decide if it's something that might interest me.
• Photo: Many of the pics you added in the articles looked to be very haphazardly placed. This is probably my personal taste though, so take it as you will.
  
• Columns are Your Friend: Try to use columns on some pages for the articles text instead of nothing but rows. It can be easier on the eyes if done correctly, and add some variety to the pages.
• Word Limits: I didn't read any of the actual content and that's a problem. When every article looks like half of a novel on the page it deters people from reading. Try to limit reviews and general articles to around 500-750 words each, and save space for one or two big feature articles with no word count. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to fit at least two written articles on one page, or one article with a few side bars with various things like Did you know, trivia, and other little paragraph long things related to the game/topic on the page to entice people to read the article. An interesting Side bar can make some people read a story they may other wise skip over.
  

Read the most of the magazine( it was late so I skipped a few reviews) and loved it! It was really well designed and had some good articles. The spawn camp studios and the defending Shadowrun were probably my favorites. The visual previews were also really cool, lots of information packed in them. My only complaint was that there were too many E3 preview articles, maybe it was because of the timing but it seemed that everyone had similar predictions and it felt a little repetitive. One big article would have been better IMO. Keep up the awesome work guys! Maybe I can join you next month.

Needs wayyyyyyyyyy more pictures.

I dont know if it was the layout, but I found it incredibly hard to read.

Great effort, but that's too much reading for me. 

NICE

Sweet. Gonna read through as much as I can before more E3 conferences today. Thanks for finally getting it out.

" @armaan8014: theres 0 chance of a major "world cup thread" going by us, unnoticed 
 
@Fallen189: "Hard" in what sense? Not enough spacing between the lines? Not enough kerning? Too much kerning? Etc etc "

Thoughts as I go through:

• Rough images. A little too 'cut out in photoshop' since you still see some edges. Also needs to have consistenly high res images.
• What's with every other page being blank? (at least at the start now i'm further in)
  
• Font for the list of contributers is rough. It would also be neat if everyone had their role listed.
• Contents is rough. Less of the oddly placed images pointing to things, and it might just be better to list individual pages in some sections. Like all the individual reviews, previews, features written out with their specific page numbers under each subheading, while things like E3 predictions can rightly stay all within that single grouping.
• Font for the main body of text remains strange for the digital format.
• Nice use of embedded links. Good usage.
• Misspellings like 'FluWaveZ' as opposed to 'FluxWaveZ'. Probably more elsewhere. Worth checking everything more, or have someone act as copy editor to read it all through carefully.
• Intro logos at the start of sections are neat, but take up too much room (half the page!) when they're minimalist in design.
• At the end of some articles where the author is listed. They could be linked to the respective dude's GB profile.
• First opening paragraph of any article doesn't have to be indented? Only subsequent paragraphs. I think it's fine either way actually. Moot point.
• Pages within a particular section could have the section included within the footer. i.e 'Reviews' alongside 'The Luchazine' 'June 2010' stuff.

Great job guys. I hope to see more of these .

wow, nice work

Thanks everyone for the excitement, the praise, and we will be taking legitimate critiques into consideration for the next issue of course.
 
@Red12b: The PDF is fine, there are 64 pages just like the table of content says. If you're getting blank pages it has to do with your settings.
@armaan8014: Football (soccer) is where its at!
@arab_prince: We're not forcing anyone to read everything so that's why variety exists. Also, I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say gaming related news because there is no news section in The Luchazine except for BS News, could you clarify?
@Steve_C: Rough fonts? Did you look at the jpeg version or zoom out too much in the PDF? Or did you just mean that you don't like the fonts mentioned?

Thanks for all the support you guys. 
 
@VIGGO123: you definitely will 
 
@Steve_C @Fallen189 @arab_prince: Definitely constructive. Apart from answering Goran, above, this should explain the situation to you and others alike: this.

Great first issue.

Good work editing people, I had fun writing.  
 
Ren, the most boring article in the mag, McCormack

I'm just now seeing it. Glorious! Sure it can be improved, but for a first issue with some complications behind the scenes, I think it turned out great. I'm sure the next issue will go much smoother and will have more features, including some that were unfortunately cut. Best get that whip of tyranny back out, Goran...

Awesomesauce! Taking a look at it now, will read it in bed later. Sexy. 

There's an awful lot of stuff of in there, and I'm not sure you would be able to pack the same amount of content in each issue. But if you can, I'll be very impressed. :)

That's a lot more than I expected.  Not bad.