Category: Web Hosting

Why I Made Cul-de-Sac Crew

I’ve been talking about Cul-de-Sac Crew for decades. Here’s why I finally built it, who it honors, and what comes next.

I always wanted to make a video game. It started in the 1990s, when I was a teenager playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I never let go of that feeling. Anyone who has known me long enough will tell you I’ve been talking about Cul-de-Sac Crew™ for decades.

Then I played Vampire Survivors, and it clicked. That was the kind of game I could actually build.

I Wasn’t Starting From Zero

I’ve worked in IT since 2001 and have run my own web design and development business on the side since 2004. Back in the early 2000s I launched a resume building app, getnoticedfirst.com, which I plan to bring back soon. I’ve been an adjunct professor since 2015.

Over the years I’ve done media design, creative direction, project management, development, IT support and maintenance, planning, procurement, supervision, and training. Every one of those skills went into this game.

When AI got good enough to help build video games, I jumped right in. In July 2026 I started creating art and learning Godot. Now it’s October 2026, and it’s push to launch time.

What the Game Is

Cul-de-Sac Crew: Suburban Survivor is a top-down survivors game with a Saturday morning cartoon feel. You play as one of the kids on Maple Court, and the block is under siege. The animals want your Treats. The people want your Blessings. Your job is to take back the block.

Nobody gets hurt in this game. Everybody gets chased off, and every one you chase off earns you Respect. You fight through five stages: Maple Court, a haunted mansion, a corn maze, a parking lot, and the mall, where Big Bad Maple Man is waiting for you.

The four starting crew members outside a cafe, with pets and cookies

This Game Is Personal

The good neighbors who help the Crew honor real people in my life.

Grandma Lilly honors Ms. Leslie Coach, my teacher when I was a kid in North Philadelphia. Annie honors my late mother, Angela. Dad-Dad honors my late father-in-law, James. Sally honors my late sister, Saleah, and Farmer Tee honors my sister Tiara.

My daughter Gabriella helped design it.  The Crew itself comes from Gabby’s childhood drawings.

Where You Can Play

The game started on the web, mobile is next, and Steam follows in early 2027.

Everything lives at CuldesacCrew.com.

This Is Only the Start

I put my passion, my soul, my creativity, and my direction into Cul-de-Sac Crew: Suburban Survivor. And this is only the start.

Cul-de-Sac Crew is a series. My daughter and I are already working on our second game, Cul-de-Sac Crew: Living Large. More games under the Cul-de-Sac Crew name are on the way.

That’s my why.

Demetrius Pinder
Nuts and Bolts Web Design

 

Finding the Best Web Hosting Service

Finding the Best Web Hosting Service

Locating the best web hosting service can be a complicated chore. There can appear to be a limitless amount of options for your choice with each one claiming to be the top company or the most affordable. Without knowing fact from fiction, it can be almost impossible to sort out the good from the bad. You need to make this a step-by-step process if you wish to find the best web hosting service possible.

Assess Your Needs

You first need to assess your web hosting needs before selecting the best provider to meet these. What kind of website do you have or are you going to create? A small personal site has totally different criteria than a large commercial one. If you have e-commerce needs for selling products and accepting payments, your site will have both file storage and bandwidth requirements that a small information-only website will not need.

Plan for Unexpected Growth

However, it is extremely important to determine what your present hosting requirements are while, at the same time, making sure both your planned and unexpected growth is taking into consideration. Choosing a host at that proves inadequate for future needs will result in the need to find a suitable provider when that time arrives. This can be both a difficult chore moving files as well as an unnecessary cost avoidable when choosing the best web hosting service from the start.

Pricing Does Vary

Do not be surprised finding a broad variety of pricing for hosting services. The best web hosting services will offer dedicated servers that will cost significantly higher than any offering from budget web hosting that includes only limited bandwidth. Additionally, you will find competition from remote parts of the globe offering temptingly low pricing but don’t bite quickly. Pricing, although extremely important when making a choice for the best web hosting service, should not be your single concern. Professional websites, specifically ones seeking to engage in e-commerce, need to look beyond free and extremely cheap web hosting services.

These may be quite suitable for small personal or family fun sites, but rarely, if ever, meet the needs for online marketing.

Nuts and Bolts Web Design offers shared web hosting for only $95.88/yr!

Use More than Just Your Brain to Choose a Domain Name

Purchase your domain name through Nuts and Bolts Web Design for $14.99/yr.

Thousands of articles have been written about marketing – both online and off.  None have offered a 100 percent for “dummies only” process that anyone could easily follow and implement correctly. Many overlook the most profound and fundamental SEO technique that sets you apart from other site owners who overlook this step – choosing a good domain name.

What’s in a Name?

Hey – this is an important step on your road to millions. (Visualize the mansion, cars, planes, boats, etc.) Don’t worry if it takes a while to arrive at the right domain name and, do not attempt going it alone. Have a conference. Invite your peeps and your peeps’ peeps. Have a kegger and the only entry ticket is people have to contribute a suggestion for a killer domain name. Use what your friends and relatives throw up on the wall looking to see if any stick.

Go Generic

Place your primary keyword in a generic-based domain name so if, for example, you are selling pets in San Francisco, try SanFranciscoPets.com or BayAreaPets.com. Choosing a generic name will fulfill two purposes:

  • It attracts a more focused targeted audience. Targeted audiences produce greater conversion rates that allows you to make better use of the traffic you do get.
  • Generic domain names using primary keywords help induce higher search engine ranking.

Creativity May Be The Key

There are so many domain names on the Internet today that you may have to crank up a little more creative process so you can use your keywords in your choice. Let’s say, for example, SanFranciscoPets. com is taken already – play around with a number of different versions. Try, for instance, PetsinSanFranciso.com or PetsofSanFrancisco.com. Keep in mind you can use hyphens in your choice of domain names. This may allow you the opportunity to always use a keyword and, an important point, allows use of the much preferred suffix, .com. Always use .com because 99 percent of searchers will type it in even if presented by a search engine with a different suffix.

Purchase your domain name through Nuts and Bolts Web Design for $14.99/yr.