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These statistics fail to account for the amount of games in a category. If category A holds a single game that is downloaded five times, it gets 500%. If category B holds ten games, one of which is downloaded ten times, it gets 100%.

It's my fault that you get confused, the numbers are not calculated the way I explained in the first post. First I look the percentage of games that fall in each category, then at the percentage of downloads in each category, and finally I calculate the proportion between percentage of downloads and percentage of games of each category. I have modified the misleading explanation of the first post.

The only categories I think have any real effect on downloads are the length and the inclusion of sex scenes. The rest of the variation is probably either random or linked to which categories are stuffed with obscure games and which ones have the more notable ones.

A 125% can be considered as random noise or consequence of other unrelated variables, but have a look also at those categories with extremely low numbers, I would say that a 50% means something. I am not good at statistics, so corrections and explanations are welcome.

Soviet Unterzögersdorf:

Soviet Unterzögersdorf (pronounced «oon-taa-tsee-gars-doorf») is the last existing appanage republic of the USSR. The enclave maintains no diplomatic relationship with the surrounding so-called «Republic of Austria» or with the Fortress «European Union». The downfall of her motherland -- the Soviet Union -- in the early 1990s had a particularly bad effect on the country's economic situation.

What I'm looking for is just some idea of what sort of adventure game you like.

I just posted the magical recipe in another thread:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=30771.0

But if you ask me, I look for are adventures that:
- Are not for children. For example, you know this Emily Enough puzzle where you help one to make a dress? I love these politically incorrect details in amateur adventures.
- Are visually appealing. We are in 2007! If you are not good at painting a trick is to use photos like in Soviet Unterzögersdorf.
- Have an intriguing story behind. I usually explain to people that don't play adventures that it's like an interactive comic. You need this "need to know" to keep playing when you are stuck, otherwise it can get very boring in these moments. You achieve a lot of this with good writing, see Trilby's Notes for example. In this sense, if you are really out of ideas I would recommend you to (re-)read Edgar Alan Poe's short stories. He always leaves the best for the end and you can't stop reading.

Edited to add:
If you look for inspiration somewhere (books, other adventures...) you don't need to copy the story exactly, a good story will still work well if you change the context. For example, investigator's stories are usually about discovering a murder, but you could adapt the story and make one about somebody whose partner is cheating her/him and needs to know the truth. That would make it new and different.

CONCLUSION FOR USERS

So you want to see tits? You dirty pigs! These are the games with sex scenes the where rated at least 50%:

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ID:  38
Title:  Quest for Glory 4 1/2
Category:  Full length games
Date:  2002-01-01
Bad Language:  Frequent, strong
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Mild
Description  All is not well in the valley of Spielburg. Elsa has disappeared (again) and the sheriff has been murdered. The rest of the valley is in chaos and the influx of heroes has done little to calm the valley. Your job is not done. It's time to go back to Spielburg.
Visual  85
Immersion  81
Puzzles  87
Enjoyment  86
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ID:  356
Title:  Leisure Suit Larry 2 Point and Click (Final version)
Category:  Full length games
Date:  2004-02-26
Bad Language:  Mild
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Mild
Description  Ah, Larry, life seemed so perfect, didn't it? A beautiful woman, a nice house, in a rich city... but then, dreams usually are perfect. And even YOU have to wake up, Larry, and go Looking For Love (In Several Wrong Places)! And if you happen to get chased all over by the KGB and the evil Dr. Nonookee, well, such is life...
Visual  76
Immersion  76
Puzzles  76
Enjoyment  81
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ID:  458
Title:  Everlot-Demo
Category:  Demos
Date:  2004-10-20
Bad Language:  Frequent, strong
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Frequent, strong
Description  Join the Knave on his quest to find out his identity and save the Emperor! (download the  file AND the mirror and expand it and put all the files in the 2 folders into a new folder because the @#^%ers at MSN wont let me upload anything more than a Megabyte)
Visual  73
Immersion  73
Puzzles  73
Enjoyment  75
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ID:  293
Title:  Pilot Light: Episode 1
Category:  Short games
Date:  2003-10-30
Bad Language:  None
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Rare, mild
Description  A space pilot, a 2-ton cargo box, and a serious case of bad luck. Battle astro-serpents, tackle nefarious hoodlums, and pay for gasoline in this pint-sized epic.
Visual  89
Immersion  71
Puzzles  68
Enjoyment  71
----------

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ID:  263
Title:  FLASHBAX:
Category:  Medium length games
Date:  2003-09-04
Bad Language:  Strong
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Strong
Description  FUTURISTIC-ADVENTURE.
Visual  75
Immersion  67
Puzzles  79
Enjoyment  66
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ID:  4
Title:  Novo Mestro
Category:  Short games
Date:  2002-01-01
Bad Language:  Frequent, strong
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Frequent, strong
Description  Inspired by the pioneering feats of Cap'n Mostly, AGS is taken in a daring new direction.
Visual  65
Immersion  60
Puzzles  52
Enjoyment  60
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ID:  260
Title:  Caleb's Drunken Adventure
Category:  Medium length games
Date:  2003-08-17
Bad Language:  Mild
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Mild
Description  You are Caleb a young guy who can't stop partying. The story begins at your house during a house party. You wake up the next day to see your house trashed and your GF, Stephanie, a bit tiffed. Anyways as you go through the game you just solve the puzzles around and outside your house. Along the way there's quite a bit of humor. Anyways without further explanations start the game and wander wildly.
Visual  70
Immersion  59
Puzzles  70
Enjoyment  55
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ID:  470
Title:  James Bond - Who wants to live again?
Category:  MAGS games
Date:  2004-11-23
Bad Language:  None
Sex/Nudity:  Sex scenes
Violence  Mild
Description  You are James Bond and someone kills you while you are in bed with Janine, you're current girlfriend. But you have luck. A man called A offers you the possibility to live again, but he wants you to do something on earth before you can live again. The only problem is that you're dead enemy Clawman has been offerd the same possibility to live again by a man called Z. And Clawman tries to kill you and to destroy the earth. Will you manage to give James Bond his life back?
Visual  65
Immersion  55
Puzzles  55
Enjoyment  50
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Did you ever ask yourself what is people looking at when they decide whether they download a game or not?

With a script I made some stats and these are the results.

What do the numbers mean? First I look the percentage of games that fall in each category, then at the percentage of downloads in each category, and finally I calculate the proportion between percentage of downloads and percentage of games of each category.

CATEGORY
Full length games: 357%
Plugins: 200%
Medium length games: 147%
Short games: 88%
Joke games: 60%
MAGS games: 54%
Non-adventure games: 37%
Demos: 26%
Dummy entries: 0%

BAD LANGUAGE
Mild: 150%
Strong: 133%
Unrated: 118%
Occasional, mild: 105%
Frequent, strong: 100%
None: 85%

SEX
Sex scenes: 400%
Frontal nudity: 150%
Suggestive dialog: 125%
Unrated: 100%-118% (My script distinguished explicit unrated and no info at all)
None: 88%

VIOLENCE
Rare, mild: 125%
Strong: 114%
Mild: 116%
Unrated: 118%
None: 75%
Frequent, strong: 50%

CONCLUSION FOR AUTHORS
The magic formula for a succesfull game seems to be (In order of importance):
- Put as much sex as possible. Internet is 4 pr0n
- Make a long game. Size matters.
- Too much violence scares people.
- Do use bad language. The best is to keep a balance, but it's better too much than none. (It has been suggested that the variation is to small to be considered)



Tartalo
PS: As usual I belong to a minority, I prefer bloody games.

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

We've discussed allowing to sort/filter by rating before, but discounted it for various reasons.

Oops! True, there are a lot of previous threads requesting this feature. I did a quick search on the matter before posting but not the right one, sorry for arising an old request. (Pesky users! We never learn)

Tartalo

Hi all,

AGS and it's community made me rediscover the pleasure of Adventure games so I feel I should give back something.

There are now almost 900 games in this site and, in my opinion, there are too few options to filter or sort this huge list. I would like to use rating, advisories, ... to find more easily the games I will probably like.

I know a bit of PHP and have some spare time now, so I offer myself to give a try if site owners think it can be good.

(I have seen the digest, it's good and can still be improved by adding fields. Anyway I would prefer to have filtering or sorting options in the regular games list too because it gives more information of the game.)

The admins can see my email, contact directly if you prefer so.

Ah, and thanks for AGS and the games!

Tartalo