AGS Games page review

[After]

Some ideas toward giving the rating descriptions clearer distinctions.

I've included the current text (grey) with suggested replacements in black.


First of all, please indicate how far you have got with the game. If you're still playing, we'd really rather that you finished it before voting.

I've completed it
I'm still playing it
I gave up on it

Visual
How well did the backgrounds and sprites suit the game? Did it go that extra mile by providing unexpected animations?

5) Superb - outstandingly well done backgrounds, sprites and animations
4) Good - there's obviously been a lot of effort put into them
3) Average - the graphics are ok, but nothing to write home about
3) Functional but uninteresting. Nothing to attract attention, good or bad.
2) A bit on the poor side, should have spent more time on them
1) Abysmal - no effort at all has gone into them

Immersion
Was the level of immersion right for the game?
Did the game lead your awareness to enhance its mood?
If the game was serious, did you feel like you were in the game world, or were there annoying reminders that you were not?
If the game was more light hearted, did that come across nicely?
Were ambient sounds and music used effectively?

5) I really felt like I was there - superb stuff
5) Thoroughly realised, engaging imagination beyond actual play.
4) It worked quite well at pulling me into the game world
4) Strong internal sense, rewarding free exploration.
3) I was as immersed in it as I'd expect
3) The mood is well maintained throughout.
2) Had its moments, but overall not much cop
2) Uneven, with occasional highs.
1) Not good at all, I just couldn't get into it
1) Erratic, with no particular mood.

Puzzles & Pacing
Was the game too easy, too hard, or about right? Did puzzles just involve pixel hunting and randomly combining items; or did they make more sense?

5) It was just right - the puzzles made sense and weren't too hard or easy
5) Inspiring and instructive. Encourages imaginative effort.
4) The puzzles were about right, I could proceed without too much trouble
4) Logical and well organized.
3) N/A (rolling demos / non-adventures / no puzzles)
2) I could cope with the pace of it, but it was a bit annoying
2) Some good ideas, but arbitrary and unbalanced.
1) Far too easy, or the puzzles made no sense at all
1) An excercize in manual labour. Frustrates thought.

Enjoyment
Everything else aside, how much did you enjoy playing the game? Couldn't wait to come back for more; or did you find it dull and boring? Did the game leave you feeling satisfied?

5) Amazing! You have GOT to play this game RIGHT NOW!
4) Recommended, definitely put it on your to-play list
3) It was ok, play it if you've got some spare time
2) Play it if you're bored, but not much fun to be had here
1) A bad game, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone

[Goldmund]

I think we should encourage people who aren't PhDs to answer those questions, After. Don't mar their innocent minds with "engaging imagination beyond actual play", or they will grow up strange and mentally handicapped.

In fact, I would even go as far as to exchanging:
Puma: 5) I really felt like I was there - superb stuff
After: 5) Thoroughly realised, engaging imagination beyond actual play.
to: 5) Supa-f**ka-momba-blasta!

[Pumaman]

After: thanks for your suggestions - I'll definitely incorporate some of them.

However, at the risk of being accused of dumbing-down, Goldmund makes a good point. It's obvious that you have a very good grasp of the English language; however, there are many people, particularly non-native speakers, who would find some of your wording difficult to understand.

I'll make some adjustments to the page and upload a new version in the new year.

[After]

I agree.
It's inconvenient that there aren't common expressions for some meanings, so something has to give.

(Of course, as soon as expressions become common, they start to be misused anyway, so there's no escaping it.)

[Pumaman]

Ok, a bit later than promised, but the new games page is up!

http://www.agsforums.com/games.php

The difference is in the voting, as discussed in this thread. All votes for all games have been reset (although the old total is still available for viewing in the game detail page).

So, any comments on implementation are welcome. Please go back and vote again for any games you've completed, so that we can try and get some useful ratings out of this - cheers

[remixor]

Nice job, CJ, it's a huge improvement.

[rodekill]

It may be interesting to have release dates for the games. A lot of people ask me what the first AGS game was, when it was made etc...
Also, it'd be pretty cool to see the progression of quality over the years, if you could sort games by date. Of course, this would all depend on getting those older dates, but hey, don't kill the messenger.

[Andail]

but hey, don't kill the messenger.

You're already dead, silly.

As for the voting stuff - really nice, except it will take ages before all games acquire enough votes to give a fair picture. The downside with using percent is that - for instance - 66% versus 33% can be the result of just three people's voting, which is pretty misguiding.

[Pumaman]

It may be interesting to have release dates for the games

Yeah, that would be handy. The games page does know (and so could display) the date on which the games were added to the database, but obviously this is not the same as the date the games were released (particularly for older games which were released before the database existed).

Perhaps there could be a new field for the user to enter the game's release date - but then, I'd wager a lot of people probably can't remember when their game was released. Hmm.

As for the voting stuff - really nice, except it will take ages before all games acquire enough votes to give a fair picture. The downside with using percent is that - for instance - 66% versus 33% can be the result of just three people's voting, which is pretty misguiding.

Yeah - currently it needs 3 votes before it will display a percentage, but that should probably be increased to more like 5 or 6, preferably 10, so that you get a proper picture of it.

It will take a while, sure, but if in the end the ratings that come out are more useful to potential players, then it's probably worthwhile.

[remixor]

It may be interesting to have release dates for the games. A lot of people ask me what the first AGS game was, when it was made etc...
Also, it'd be pretty cool to see the progression of quality over the years, if you could sort games by date. Of course, this would all depend on getting those older dates, but hey, don't kill the messenger.

It also would have helped when I was entering dozens of AGS games into the Adventure Gamers Underground database.  For some reason, at the time, I could have sworn there were release dates.  It would definitely be a cool addition.

[AGA]

Yes, it's hard work trawling the internet trying to find out when a game was released. Half the entries in the AGU database (that I entered, at least) don't have them noted because I just couldn't find it out. People could at least put an update on their website when they do release a new game

[Pumaman]

Well, it's worth noting that the Completed Game Announcements forum does not expire old threads, so you should be able to just find the game's release thread and look at the date of the first post.

The same applies to the old Announcmenets forum on ezboard, which goes back to March 2001.

[Timosity]

It seems like a good system, but yes, it will take a bit of time for the results to make any sort of sense.

but on the other hand, I can still see it being some what similar to the old system, where if someone doesn't like a game (or person) the results will be a bit off (which in turn might influence other peoples decisions on their submissions.

Just an example of what I mean, If you notice not many games have got enough votes yet, But Flasbax & Who wants to live forever, already have percentages (and fairly low ones) I guess people are already being spiteful, even though both games probably are better than the marks they've got so far. (obviously this is just my opinion)

(on the other hand, a lot of the classics have got really high marks, even though when it comes to reality, it is other biases pushing them up, as compared to some more recent games, they are pretty ordinary.)

I supose only time will tell, but as the stats showed before that there were a lot of "1" & "10" votes, I think people will still try to adjust the percentages  (not by giving the votes they think it deserves, but if it is higher than they think it should be they will be harsh, and vice versa)

It would probably help a lot if it were people outside this community voting, but I guess a lot of the percentage of people playing them are from within, and the others probably don't even know where they got the game anyway.

Anyway, it's just opinions, At least the system is now more complex, so people might think a little bit more, we can only hope.

[Pumaman]

Yeah, you could well be right there, only time will tell. I hope people do use it properly, it's a shame if people just try to distort the averages.

In other news, I've added a "Most popular last week" thing to the bottom of the main page:
http://www.agsforums.com/games.php

This was suggested by someone earlier in this thread, and I thought it was a good idea. It should give an interesting view of how things change from week to week, and how many extra downloads being Pick of the Month gets you

The "last week" chart updates every Saturday with totals from the previous 7 days. And please don't let's have people abusing it and clicking their download link hundreds of times, or I'll just remove it.

[mätzyboy]

I was redricted here for the discussion of "list games by rating".

What's the point of rating if one can not search for games with high rating? The game creator might find an interest in looking up his game to check the rating, but does it have any functionality for anyone else? It gives a hint about game quality when searching in any group of games, but isn't game rating something that would be intersting to sort by? I think so, especially after the implementation of "not enough votes" which seems to work fine. I say more options is better! Make list by raitng (and maybe list unrated) possible!

Anyone else up for it?

[Tartalo]

I think this is the right place to post my opinion about ratings, if not please forgive me.

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1.1 There's no perfect rating system, but anything is better than alphabetical order for an almost 900 games database.

1.2 If you do have ratings it makes sense to use them (filter / sort / search... something)

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2.1 If you don't like sorting you might like a "Users that liked this game also liked..." system.

2.2 If the server load is affordable you can even complicate it further and make personal recommendations based on the users own ratings. This should help to improve the ratings (There seems to be a problem now). Something like: You liked Emily Enough and Trilby's Notes but disliked 5 days a stranger, so you nearest 5 users are this, that and the other, and they liked these games you haven't rated yet:  Reactor 09, blah, blah, and PacMan.

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3.1 Another simple method to improve the ratings quality is to make comments mandatory. (But expect less votes).

3.2 If you want to complicate it, allow moderators to delete comments and their corresponding votes when the comment doesn't satisfy a minimum quality.

3.3 Or complicate it even more and allow users themselves to ignore the comments (and votes) they don't find useful.

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Whatever, but please make something, wandering through 900 alphabetically ordered games is not the best way to find good adventures. I download the games half-randomly now and that is affecting my enjoyment and your server bill.

Tartalo

[kaputtnik]

Excuse me for digging this up, since it has been started sometime in 2003-but I considered that, if including a "Music"-category into the rating system has been discussed even then, it could be time to politely ask why this hasn't been done. Other than that I think the rating system is quite alright, altough I sometimes don't know which answer to choose because neither of them really fits my appraisement...

But I think that all the musicians working on adventure games would like an evaluation, too, not only if the music and sound were disturbingly bad or outstandingly good.

[jetxl]

Ah 2003. SARS, presidents in flightsuits and lesbo music from russia...