Suggestion: more options for the games.php page

[Radiant]

With over seven hundred AGS games uploaded to the games page, it is not particularly easy for people to find the kind of games they love to play. Not everybody has the time to download dozens of games and see which they like best. Hence, I would suggest a couple of additions. Feedback is welcome, please!

At the top, add a field for genre. A pull-down box lets the game author select e.g. fantasy, contemporary, science fiction, mystery, parody, and some other options. This can (obviously) be searched on.

The user ratings have the problem that they're often comparing apples to oranges. For instance, you can't plausibly compare the graphics used in Larry Vales to those used in Cirque de Zale. Hence, I would suggest a few extra fields that the author can set (but only once). These can also be searched on.

The graphics are (simple / cartoonish / realistic) (set by author) and within that style are (abysmal / poor/ average / good / excellent) (set by voters, like they are now).
The plot and immersion are (serious / humoristic / n/a) (set by author) and within that style are (abysmal / poor/ average / good / excellent) (set by voters, like they are now).
The puzzles are (easy / difficult / n/a) (set by author) and within that style are (abysmal / poor/ average / good / excellent) (set by voters, like they are now).

Overall enjoyment is still a regular vote. Comments work as before. For older games, I'm sure the AGS community has a couple of oldbies who can decide which categories they fall in (it's generally pretty obvious).

Additional voting option #1: the game's originality is (cliche or strict remake / poor / average / original / one-of-a-kind)

Additional voting option #2: You would enjoy this game if you liked... (insert name of game). Each voter can add one game, and the three most-chosen options are listed. Home of the Underdogs also does this, and it works great.

Additional voting option #3: per Chris's earlier comments of abuse, any vote of 100% or 0% is summarily ignored. Nobody who has a carefully weighed opinion should consider any game that bad or that good.

Additional searching option #1: some people are more interested in hearing an expert opinion than an average of every random n00b who happened to come in and vote. Hence, people viewing the page should be able to choose between "average opinion" or "expert opinion", the latter being the average of only expert users. A reasonable definition of 'expert' in this context would be "anyone who voted on 50+ games"

Additional searching option #2: it seems reasonable that if there are people who voted on a lot of games, a viewer will find one whose opinion he generally relies on. Thus, for any expert user (as defined above), viewers can also see a list of all ratings by that person.


Example (new things in italic]):

Game: Monkey Island II
Genre: Pirate
Author:   Ron Gilbert
Resolution:   320x200 at 8-bit (256 col)
Downloaded:   0 times (buy it from ebay, you pirate!)
Download size:   n/a
Category:   Full length games
   
User ratings:   (select: AVERAGE ratings - expert ratings)
The graphics are realistic and within that style are rated 85%
The plot is humorous and within that style is rated 70%
The puzzles are difficult and within that style are rated 90%
Originality: 60%
Overall enjoyment: 95%

You would probably enjoy this game if you liked... Monkey Island I, FOTAQ, Cirque de Zale

[Mats Berglinn]

Sounds like a good idea but I think that the plot and immersion should have an extra option: half serious/half humoristic. If you think about it Grim Fandango is more serious compaired with Monkey Island but still have many humorous parts in it, the same goes with Full Throttle except less humor moments while The Dig is almost Deadly Serious with only two or three funny lines.

[BOYD1981]

one thing that might help is if a 'tags' system like you get on blogs is introduced to the games page, so you have the game's author/uploader set a few of their own tags and then allow other people to add their own, then just have a tags list page.

[ManicMatt]

Mats said exactly the same thing as I was going to say, except I was going to use "broken sword" as an example of half serious/varied.

Other than that I welcome the idea, although I have little vote here as I've rated about three games since I joined. Ã, 

I thought of the idea of searching by forum users names, aphabetically, but you could just as easily click on their name within the forum...

[Gord10]

Very good suggestions. There are more to add. For example; I would add "anime" style in the graphics. A game like The White Chamber doesn't have got so realistic graphics, but could it be called cartoonish?
And a game may be in some different genres, not a single mysterious or parody.
Anyway; the things to add has got lots of variety. This needs a good discussion. 

[HillBilly]

A reasonable definition of 'expert' in this context would be "anyone who voted on 50+ games"

If there's something I've learned from the internet, it's "quantity does not match quality". This could result in your average bored teenager vote blindly, or roughly, on a bunch of games during a Saturday. If we were to have an "expert" system, I think reviewers should be rated by other users(Did you like this review etc). Of course, this would result in alot of rating, and is probably overkill.

I like your other ideas though.

[SSH]

We could learn something from the IMDB, who have various policies on voting. For example we could have only votes counting from members that met the following criteria, other votes would be stored and would become valid later if that member subsequently met the criteria...

1. Must have been forum member for at least 1 month
2. Must have voted for games by at least 3 different authors
3. Must have voted for a game in the last year

Also, imdb has an algorithm for calculating the weighted vote of movies so that movies that have more votes can deviate further from the average vote for a movie, i.e. a game that has a few votes and is bad is probably not as bad as a game that has lots of votes and is bad. Similarly, with good games, a game is rated better for the same actual mean vote if the number of votes is higher...

And like amazon you can have "did you find this review helpful" and rate the raters, etc. as other have said, and incorporate that into the voting, too. In fact, you coudl have somethign that says:

Unregistered users rated this game at 99%
Registered users rated this game at 86%
Qualifying users rated this game at 56%
Expert users rated this game at 52%

Qualifying being those meeting cirteria like those I said above, and that woudl be the "headline" rating. This coudl allow games trhat dont have enough votes of certain types to stil have an indicator.

In unrelated news, I foudn that games that don't have enough votes can still have their "detailed voting" displayed:  http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=votedetail&game=479

[Pumaman]

Hmm, I must've missed this thread first time round.

Yes, I certainly like the idea of a "genre" setting -- perhaps each game could be in up to 2 genres? And then you could search based on other games in that category. Whether this should be a predefined list of genres, or some sort of tag system as Boyd suggests, I'm not sure.

As for your other ideas -- I guess the question is, as a game player, what do I want to search on?

Well, "serious / humorous" is certainly a good one, that way people can find a game to play depending on their mood. As has been mentioned, another in-between option is probably required, or maybe something like:
1. Serious  (eg. King's Quest, Police Quest)
2. Serious plot but with humour  (eg. Quest for Glory)
3. Humorous  (eg. Space Quest, Monkey Island)

Some sort of "If you liked this, then try this:" feature would be quite good too.

As for "Expert ratings", the idea sounds nice in principle, I'm just not sure how someone would qualify for the position. Some suggestions are good -- SSH's idea sounds quite doable -- but I'm still not sure about this one. Perhaps in the "user comments" section you should be able to click on the commenter's name and it then shows you all the games they have commented on?

[LimpingFish]

SSH just wants to lord his "Expert" status over the rest of us plebs. :'(

I think a pre-defined list of genres would be handy. Getting the balance of Genre vs Sub-Genre right would be important, though. Overcomplicating the matter could lead to headaches.

[Ponch]

I quite like this idea.

Honestly, by the time summer break rolled around, I was so behind on what games had been released since last summer, I had no idea what to download.

Clicking through page after page looking for those one or two games that suit my off-beat tastes does get a bit tedious.

Anything that helps someone find a game they're more likely to enjoy (I highly suggest the Barn Runner series -- shameless plug!), is welcome and valuable for the AGS community as a whole.

- Ponch

[Radiant]

What I'd like myself is some way of searching for subratings. For instance, "ignoring graphics and plot, which game has the best puzzles". Or the other way around. Or "find a game that has easy puzzles and a good storyline".

So the reason I suggested expert ratings is so that I can filter out all the n00bs that simply give a game they like high ranks all over the board without considering what areas the game actually excels in. I'm kind of assuming experts wouldn't do that

Whether this should be a predefined list of genres, or some sort of tag system as Boyd suggests, I'm not sure.

I'd think predefined genres would work best; it's easier for the game authors to select one (or two) from pulldowns. New genres could be suggested in the forum, but really there aren't all that many if you want the categories to keep making sense.

[Pumaman]

Ok, so shall we agree a Genre list.
Also, how many genres would it be appropriate to allow each game to be in? 2?

So, based on Radiant's list:
Factual
Crime
Fantasy
Science fiction
Drama
Comedy
Mystery
Parody
Educational
Children's

Any changes? Additions?

[edmundito]

Pirates! yar...

Just saying because there are so man Monkey Island-inspired games out there.

[SSH]

Horror
Adult
and I was trying to think of what genre the Princess Marian games come in, but I can't... 

[LimpingFish]

We'd have to have to have some sort of cross-referencing system.

What if I wanted a crime comedy, and crime and comedy are two different selections?

Of course it could be somthing like:

Crime - Drama - Medium Length - Easy - Rated above 60%...

And maybe have a seperate theme keyword list, like Underdogs has...

[Radiant]

Pirates, definitely, as suggested above.
Cyberpunk is also a good genre, but I'm unfamiliar with any AGS cyberpunk games.
Gothic could also work if we have vampyre games out there (kind of close to horror, though)
Non-adventure goes here, I'd say. It's better than among 'short' and 'long' because this way you can identify a short n-a game.
Cartoon, probably (or maybe Slapstick). It just feels different than plain comedy. DOTT != MI.
Remake should go here as well, for (well duh) remakes of old games. Actually, it's probably best to categorize all games as 'remake' (straight remake a la Larry 2 P&C or MM deluxe), 'fanfic' (better title please? for MMMania and all MI fangames) and 'original' (anything else)
Maybe something like "almost all story and no puzzles" or "almost all puzzles and no story"
"factual" should probably be "contemporary" (e.g. No Action Jackson is not really factual but doesn't quite fit any other genre, unless you want it to be just 'comedy')

Isn't 'childrens' roughly the same as 'educational'? At least for purposes of categorizing AGS games. I'm also tempted to combine 'mystery' and 'crime', not sure about that though.

And finally, Unique, because there are just two or three games out there that defy description.

Of course, some forum oldbies will (probably) have to volunteer to 'tag' all existing games. Based on that, if any categories are too broad or too narrow we can get more or less cats.

Oh and yes, two cats per game sounds about right. One is too few, and too many cats make them rather pointless by default.

[Redwall]

and I was trying to think of what genre the Princess Marian games come in, but I can't...

Children's?

[MashPotato]

Some of these genres seem a bit too specific and could be combined.  For example, like Radiant mentioned, Crime/Mystery.  Perhaps Fantasy/Sci-Fi, and are there any parody games that aren't comedic?  (that's not a rhetorical question btw, I really don't know ^_^).
Instead of a "pirate" genre, maybe a "historical" genre?  That would cover a lot more games.

Then again, I guess being too general defeats the purpose of having a genre search
If there are a lot of specific genres, I think allow more genre categories per game than 2... 3 or possibly 4, depending.

[HillBilly]

Well if we're gonna have pirates, why not knights or austronauts? Here I agree with the potato. Maybe we should just lower it down to "Historical" and "Sci-Fi". Also, do we have any children's or educational games?

[Pumaman]

Ok, how about:

Contemporary
Mystery/Crime
Fantasy
Science fiction
Historical
Drama
Comedy
Parody
Childrens
Remake/fan sequel
Experimental

I'm suggesting "Experimental" rather than "Unique" as a way to try and describe the sort of games that I think we're thinking of here, but I'm not sure if it works as a category.

Also, I'm not really comfortable combining Fantasy with Sci-Fi -- King's Quest is Fantasy but definitely not science fiction; Space Quest is Science Fiction but I wouldn't really term it Fantasy.

Thirdly, MashPotato has a point, do we really need both Parody and Comedy, or would Comedy suffice?