Suggestion - More Tags

Marzipan
I'm not even sure if this is the right board to post this on, but I've noticed that--depending on how picky I'm feeling--looking for games to play can be kind of a pain. A lot of times I'm in the mood for a certain kind of game and with the way they're categorized narrowing them down is difficult.

Gamebooks vs Parser IF is a big one...most of the time the authors don't make it clear which it is and I have to actually load the game up to tell if I'm going to be playing it or note. We've at least got genre categories, but even that might not let you know what you're getting into sometimes. 'Sci-fi' and 'Fantasy' are both very broad settings, and what about games that won't fit into just one genre? A historical romance, sci-fi horror, comedic fantasy, mystery with puzzles? I could sit here and come up with mix and match possibilities all day. :)

What about the size or difficulty/cruelty rating of a game? These are all things that might be handy to know.

At the IFDB I know that the players can write up their own tags and add them if they feel the author's left off something obvious.

Has there ever been any thought about adding more of them here?

Silver
It's been discussed before and the parser vs gamebook issue raised. I think you can suggest a genre to Alex if you feel your game fits elsewhere.

OurJud
Marzipan wrote:Gamebooks vs Parser IF is a big one...most of the time the authors don't make it clear which it is and I have to actually load the game up to tell if I'm going to be playing it or note. We've at least got genre categories, but even that might not let you know what you're getting into sometimes.

Not just me then? viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4797

The Pixie
As you can make a text adventure appear to be a game book, it may not be trivial to categorize games on that basis.

Alex
There may be some merit in a "Parser" and "Hyperlink" tag. A game like Moquette isn't a gamebook (it uses text adventure mode), but it is hyperlink-based - it clearly doesn't have a parser.

Some games might use both, so they would have both tags (in fact by default all Quest text adventures use both).

Every single game on the website would need tagging though, so we'd have to come up with some way of doing that.

george
It wouldn't have to be all or nothing; if we introduce new tags, at least new games will have them.

Silver
I seriously don't mind doing some donkey work and going through the back catalogue although I wouldn't include the sandpit in that and it'd just be a quick glance to ascertain whether it was parser or hyperlink: I wouldn't do anything too in depth to say whether they did both. However, this is surely to separate parser puzzle games from CYOA so it'd be pretty obvious from the outset?

Marzipan
OurJud wrote:

"Marzipan"

Gamebooks vs Parser IF is a big one...most of the time the authors don't make it clear which it is and I have to actually load the game up to tell if I'm going to be playing it or note. We've at least got genre categories, but even that might not let you know what you're getting into sometimes.


Not just me then? viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4797



Whoops, somehow I missed that. Though I just recently figured out what 'TA' stood for, I still think of it as IF. :P

It'd be hard to cover every game, but maybe there'd be an option for authors to add tags to their own? Or like Silver, I'd be perfectly happy to go digging through the archives and making a list myself if that would help at all.

And yeah, thinking about it 'parser' vs 'hyperlink' makes more sense than parser vs gamebook.

OurJud
Marzipan wrote:Whoops, somehow I missed that. Though I just recently figured out what 'TA' stood for, I still think of it as IF. :P

Ah well, I'm old skool, you see :D

Silver
I don't think there actually is definitive names for the two which is why everyone fumbles around in the dark saying gamebook, cyoa or hyperlink vs parser, text adventure or interactive fiction with at least one of those descriptions from either side being applicable to the other.

Maybe that needs sorting? But who is the official body?

This topic is now closed. Topics are closed after 60 days of inactivity.

Support

Forums