Atari Command Free WordPress Theme
In late April 2008, I did a Donkey Kong themed WordPress layout with the intentions of making it into a free downloadable theme. However, as time passed, I realized that I didn’t want to give that theme away for free, so I attempted to make a more generic arcade game theme, on based on the games of Atari.
Well, the design ended up being pretty much only Missile Command artwork, you can only have so much arcade game artwork throughout one template without making it look too busy and poorly composed.
Here is a screen shot of this classic arcade game wordpress theme.
Instructions / Notes
First – I mention this later on, but I do provide free support for this theme. You will need to have a working knowledge of HTML and CSS.
Generic arcade game marquees are included with this template. Most arcade game collectors have games they like to show off, and this is a common way to link to those games. Change out your own marquees into this space, but make sure the width of the graphic you make is 155px wide. This will keep the even spacing.
You will also want to try to keep the same dimensions for width and height with all of your marquees if used. This display uses a float, so if you start to get odd shaped arcade game marquees you will start to get a stacking effect. Change to taste.
Demo Atari Command Theme
Visit the Arcade Game Theme Viewer to check out Atari Command
Compatibility
- Tested in Firefox 2, Safari(Window), Opera 9.5, IE7, IE8 Beta.
The Atari Command arcade game theme is released under GPL. All I ask is that you link back to my website somewhere in your site. Currently those links are in the footer and rest assured I can’t force you to keep those links, and won’t force your site to break like you might see in a sponsored link / Common Share license agreement.
Version History
- Version 1.00
- Initial Release
- Adjusted background style, the red should now fill the screen below the background
- Fixed a line of css code where the post footer wasn’t expanding the full width of the content and there was some wrapping.
This theme was based around another WordPress theme, so it is well tested but I am sure that there will be some small changes along the way to make this theme a little better. This is my first free theme, so I have some things to learn I am sure.
I will be interested to hear feedback, but since this is a free thing I don’t know how much time I will spend truly ‘supporting’ it. The theme does work, but hasn’t been planned for each possible tiny modification that you may make to fit your needs. You will need a strong knowledge of HTML and cross browser compatibility using CSS layout to make some customizations.
Download It Now!
Really Like It?
If you really like this theme and would like updates, more features, and new styles, why not grease the wheel and make a donation? Use my contact link above or send a donation to my email / paypal address – rothecreations@gmail.com
If you customize this theme with your own graphics, come back and leave a comment / link to your customized version. We’d all love to see it and the specific implementation on your gaming or other content WordPress blog.
Here are some similar arcade posts
- “Kong Me Baby” – Free Donkey Kong WordPress Theme
- Custom Super Bug WordPress Theme
- Donkey Kong WordPress Theme – Ver. 1
- Arcade Game Inspired WordPress Theme – BCPArcade.com
- New Arcade WordPress Theme – RGVAC
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Comments
Yeppers, nice theme. Now this takes me wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back in the day when Atari ruled….hahaha. You should make a dig dugg theme ;o)
Great theme Jeff. I may give it a test run on my site. I have it loaded and looked at it briefly but there are a few things I want to tweak and I just don’t have the time right now. Keep up the good work, I’m looking forward to more in the future.
Hi 🙂
You’ve done a very great work with this theme, it’s absolutely beautiful!
I’ve 2 questions for you:
1) Is it search engine optimized?
2) Have you considered to release the original PSD files of the wonderful header?
🙂
Bye
Matteo
@Matteo:
I don’t have any plans on giving out my Fireworks, not Photoshop, source files that I used to build this theme. As for whether this arcade WordPress theme is SEO ready, it is a css based layout built on the WordPress core, so yes, it is. You can always get more in depth when targeting search engines, that is up to the end user. But you will definitely want to get the All In One SEO plugin for WordPress to help with that.
@Jeff’s Arcade:
I wouldn’t hold your breath for another arcade related theme just yet. I built this free WordPress theme to gauge how much traffic and benefit from linkbacks I would get as a result. I did learn some things along the way, and would do some things differently if I built another one, but I am not sure that the amount of traffic equals the benefit. I think you would need to have a site of 10-20 plus free WordPress themes to really see some benefit and that is a commitment I don’t think I am willing to look at just yet.
Of course, there are always custom design and hourly rates to build a WordPress website however anyone wants it. I am always open to that idea.
Thanks for all the nice comments from the other visitors. I tried to put a lot of effort into the details of the design and making it really tailored to arcade game collectors without spending days and days working on it.
A Dig Dug WordPress theme isn’t out of the question, there are a ton of fans of that game. However, the color pallette kind of stinks for web layouts with the pink and yellow, and you might read my above comments about the tradeoffs of free themes vs. website traffic.
Jeff,
I Love the Theme So Much that I think im going to use it. But im having a Problem with it. I cant seem to fix the Blog Posts on the front page. The titles are not lining up / line spacing correctly. Ive turned all my plugins off to make sure.
And what template file is the My Game links in for the Banners. I will give you huge link back and more than likely shoot some donations your way.
Our i have several sponsorships for the idea of my site. I have little graphics skills so I rely on friends and free templates to make the site look good.
Thanks in Advance!
@Sammy Brence:
If you send me a link via email to the test environment you are working in showing the Atari Command WordPress theme I *may* look at it if I have time.
The marquee images on the right side are located in the footer.php file in the Atari Command WordPress theme directory.
@Sammy Brence:
You won’t be able to use the theme more than likely in a forums sort of fashion with images that go with a poster’s identity. Remember to clear all floated images when you have big images and little to no text.
Not sure what you mean on floating images. i went ahead and cleared that one off that was in the post. The site is gonna be a Amature game review site. No forums as of yet. just about 3 of us blogging personal reviews and later I will add a phpbb forum.
@Sammy Brence
Sammy, I assume you are talking about having multiple posts on one page. The second post and any subsequent posts have their date and part of the post title in the previous post’s last line.
It’s a pretty easy fix, just go into the stylesheet.css file and look for the .postmetadata section. Change the width from 87% to 100% and everything should line up properly.
The WordPress Theme is very impressive graphically, but I found that the right column links, should be even with the Left column links. Right now, the column links are lop-sided. Could you please fix this theme so it doesn’t do that? Thanks.
What you are speaking of at your website – Videogameroasis is not something that needs ‘fixing’. The amount of links in your right hand column determines the alignment stacked. Each segment in the column doesn’t have a fixed height, if you want that effect, you will need to go in and code it by again. You will need to know CSS to edit this template to how you want it.
Cool WordPress theme. However, I think you could do more with it. Have you seen some of the premium WP themes that have come out? Amazing! I bet you could make a premium video game theme that would be killer.
Ah…I appreciate the comment…but that is why the theme is free.
I can build some awesome WordPress Themes on contract, so if this is something you’re looking for, a more advanced custom arcade / gaming WordPress theme get in touch with me.
Clever me, I’m using your theme for a blog about… well, Artificial Intelligence. Anyway, thanks for the great design
Thanks for the compliment, I appreciate it. Would like to do more free WordPress arcade themes, maybe one or two in the future. Imagine though it might not be until early 2010.
I like your wordpress theme a lot, sadly it doesn’t work fine with Firefox 3. I think it’s just a little css fix, but i don’t know about web design. =(
@Carlos. Nothing has changed in terms of web standards in the release of Firefox 3. Using this theme still requires a solid working knowledge of CSS / HTML.
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June 27, 2008
That theme looks great. Nice job!