Am I too picky?? 99.9% of CYOA's stink - and that is across the board (intfiction posts, ifdb posts), not just Quest. Writing is poor. Games are short and thoughtless. I'm already leaning toward 'Sandpit' when I sample a game especially if it is CYOA. Also, the majority of TA's, too, lack depth and proper design. I realize there isn't much I can do about this. I'm just venting. There are now 80-ish games remaining yet to be catergorized and I'm willing to bet that 70-ish are destined to the sandpit. Why would people create games that are that poor? Is the Smobie (smart phone zombie) generation so far removed from proper grammar and creativity that text lingo, 80-word run-on sentences, and lack of capitalization are the norm?

The majority of those who post games must care, right? If not, why do it? Why waste time? So, I am stuck between being brutally honest and nurturing. But, I've been nurturing in the past (far more than I have been brutal) and in not one case have I seen a quality game as a result. That goes for those I have even thought there might be some promise in. Should I now just ignore the garbage and keep clicking sandpit, or should I continue to try and help those who I see a glimmer in?

Bottom line: Those of you who make good games, PLEASE find time to make more so I don't lose my mind. If nothing else, give me some light in this dark tunnel and throw a sample/demo my way so I can breathe a sigh of relief. I'm going crazy here!

People need to show their interest/care, nurture those WHO GO GET your nurturing/help/knowledge/expertise/etc, everyone else is a loser, never waste your time on losers.

Match your effort with their effort. If they put in a lot of effort, then you put in a lot of effort in helping them. If they put in no effort, then you put in no effort in helping them.

So many Quest games are bad because, until now, there's never been any incentive to write better ones. People release a buggy, badly written game which can’t be finished and is full of typos and grammatical errors – and it gets multiple ratings of 5 and glowing reviews. Where's the incentive to write good games if you can have people sing your praises by writing bad ones? At least now with the truly awful games being consigned to the Sandpit, things might start to change for the better (though personally I think they’d be better off deleting altogether).

Personally, I wouldn’t even waste time on people who can’t make at least a token effort to ensure their games are good. People who release games with typos in the title or describe their games as “dis is reel goods!” aren't the sort of people who are going to listen to decent advice anyway.

Years ago in the AIF scene, there was a writer called Vachon. He wrote the worst games imaginable. Typos? Check. Grammatical errors? Check. Random crashes? Check. Bugs? Check. If it was bad, you'd find it in Vachon’s games. Now, people tried to help Vachon out. They pointed out the errors in his games, told him how to fix them, offered him advice on writing better games, offered to test them for him, even offered to spell check his games to get rid of the many, many typos. He ignored them all. Every game he wrote was worse than the last. He never made the slightest attempt to improve. All the time and effort spent trying to help him was wasted and when he finally left the scene, everyone breathed a massive sigh of relief. I often think that if people hadn't tried so hard to help him, he'd have got bored and left a long time before he did. He only hung around for so long because he had a captive audience.

It's the curse of any popular system that's easy to use. ADRIFT used to suffer from the same problem until it all but died, now Quest has picked up that particular torch and taken on that role in the IF community. Twine is its own can of worms, that I'd rather not even get into because...ugh, worms. All falling into our wonderful text soup.

When various dimwitted children used to post all those awful ADRIFT 'games' that were broken things full of bad grammar it used to bother me, but now, in hindsight all I can say is don't let the bad games get to you Xan. Better to be getting buried in them than to have like three people writing anything at all and no one playing. Embrace the bad games. (Afterwards, take a shower.) Their very existence means the community is thriving and alive and attracting new people. Stupid people among them, yes, but that's any active internet community, and a few of them may eventually grow up and grow out of that and contribute something worthwhile some day.

With a situation like Quest's where so many people are using it the site is getting kind of overwhelmed, I wouldn't waste too much time commenting on the really dire stuff. Chances are good if the person did not understand that making sure there game was playable and spelling words correctly was important to begin with, no amount of explaining it will make that sink in. We should use that time instead to praise and encourage the good authors or at least the ones with potential.

Of course I'm barely active here anymore so I'm probably not one to talk. One day, I'll get serious about IF again and hopefully have some time to help you sort through all those new games and dig more fresh graves in the Sand Pit.

I'm sure a lot of submissions are kids who want to share their games with friends, and that the submission process could make it much clearer that there's a way of doing that without making it totally public for everybody.

I have some ideas for tweaks which I think will help, essentially making everybody who submits a game go through and answer these questions:

1. Have you finished working on this game?
- This game is still in development
- This game is complete

2. Who can access this game?
- Only people I give the link to
- Everybody

[If the game is for everybody and still in development, it gets automatically put in the Sandpit (for now - when they submit an update they get asked again). If they choose "only people I give the link to" then it's unlisted. Only if they say it is both complete and for everybody do they get asked the next question.]

3. If you are just trying things out, or creating a game for a school project, put the game in the Sandpit. No rules, anything goes. Otherwise, apply to put the game in a category. A moderator will then check your game before it gets added to the category. Games have to meet a minimum quality level before being included in a category.
- Put my game in the Sandpit
- Apply to a category

[This is to really encourage shitty games to go straight to the Sandpit, with no moderator intervention]

At this point if they apply to a category then the process is the same as now, it gets put into Uncategorised and a moderator can review it.

I might also add some other features to cut down on moderator work. For example, if a user has already submitted some number of games which are non-Sandpit, then their submissions can be automatically approved. Likewise if a user repeatedly applies to have their games put in a category, but they end up in the Sandpit, then they can be automatically put in the Sandpit.

Wow, I love everything suggested there. I hope you're able to make changes like that in the near future. It would solve so many problems if the school kids and people making joke games for their friends could just sort of shuffle them out of the way on their own.

Perhaps there might be some way to check games that are obviously a total disaster but have glowing five star reviews. The five star reviews could be removed if the old pals act is too obvious. The same might apply to malicious or ignorant low ratings on really good games. For instance. This game is too clever for me , one star. Dint unnerstand nuttin won star.

Maybe reviewers need a rating.

BINGO! BINGO! BINGO! BINGO!

Or weight reviews on the basis of the word count, and those under ten words do not count at all.

Perhaps, instead of leaving a "comment", you remove that section entirely and combine the comment section and review section. While they are writing a comment for the game, you make it convenient for them to pick the number of stars it gets as well? Or send emails or messages out to people who play the games reminding them about leaving reviews?

I wouldn't want to see comments removed, that section is too useful for hint requests and other questions and well, comments, that aren't reviews. There's no other way to speak directly to an author on the site. (Which makes me want to request a PM system for the site itself, though that would be a much bigger change than the other stuff requested here, so probably unrealistic...)

Pixie's idea of a minimum word count is a good one all on its own, but I've seen other sites handle rating weight in different ways. Some give each reader a point for each review, and the more points you have the more your rating counts for. Points were useless otherwise except for bragging rights, but it does keep the drive by reviewers who show up just to pat their friends on the back or troll a bit from having any real impact.

Another had a system put in combating ratings inflation and what the community would call 'fluffy fives', caused by people who would run around post nothing but things like '5 stars this was grate i luv it!!!!!' on a writing site where 5 star stories were supposed to be rare and implied professional level quality. I'm a little fuzzy on the actual formula used, but basically, the more 5 stars you handed out in comparison to other ratings, the less impact they would have over time. (inappropriate 1 stars might've been factored in too, but those never got as out of hand, because authors would notice and complain about it when they got those.)

There was also a way to 'thumbs up' detailed reviews with constructive criticism. (that anyone could use, not just the author of the story they were reviewing.)

I'm sure we could all sit down and brainstorm other methods too. It might be as simple as making a new user's first...three ratings or so not count. But nothing short of a mod individually deleting reviews is going to stop the 'friend rush' on some of these games. And they have a heavier weight than they should when a game doesn't attract many real reviewers with more sensible ratings. I don't know...it's annoying, but maybe not a huge issue? Most people who care about such things can look at a game and instantly identify that kind of BS for what it is.

Once thisd forum is integrated with the main site, the forum would provide an alternative to a comments section for erach game. It would be nice if the two were integrated in some way.

How many games do people typically review? I have only done 4 myself (though I am not so innterested in playing so that is partly why), and have only awarded 3 or 4 stars. It would be worth while looking at the statistics and seeing how they need to be "massaged" to get the right result.

When I review games I tend to do it in bursts, and then go back to slacking off. Lack of feedback is a real problem in any community like this, the most active members tend to be writers rather than readers and more focused on their own projects.

Another trend is that it's sooo much easier to spend 5 seconds declaring an obvious crap game to be crap and then move on to the next, compared to really putting effort into completing a good one that requires time and thought, so that the worst games get the most attention.

I pretty much only review/comment on games that are either good or, in the least, show promise. Those that show promise I only comment on until they're finished, then I review. It's sad though, that most games that I comment on and I think show promise, I never see a finished product! Bleck.

Lack of feedback is a real problem in any community like this, the most active members tend to be writers rather than readers and more focused on their own projects.

I'm a little guilty of this. I pretty much only respond to people needing help (when I think I can help a little), or I'm asking questions about this or that. I don't tend to look at other games from the site. The few I have looked at didn't really merit a review simply because they were so short I didn't know what to say, or if the author is even going to see the review/comment.

I pretty much only review/comment on games that are either good or, in the least, show promise. Those that show promise I only comment on until they're finished, then I review. It's sad though, that most games that I comment on and I think show promise, I never see a finished product! Bleck.

Aw, you never commented on mine! Haha, kidding. Maybe there should be a category of "work in progress" or maybe a category of how frequently a game is updated or "frequently updated" and then "completed". Though that's probably just adding to the work load. Sorry, I'm not very helpful @_@

game makers are important too, without games to play, quest wouldn't be getting more popular/recognition (and without games, it's kind of pointless to have reviewers, lol). Also, in making a game, you're learning a lot, which allows you to be able to help others if/when you got the time, as you're making a game that has deadlines, that obviously comes first.

I try to help too much, confusing people as I'm not good at helping/explaning/guiding and/or I try to help with stuff too advanced for me. I need to spend more time trying to make a game and/or learning more new/advanced stuff...

Bad submissions are the only way to learn. You could throw early Asimov into the sandpit! Artists need to start somewhere - all you can do is keep the criticism honest and helpful. Try not to get jaded, if you get too numb you'll stop recognizing the potential in the 2% who are all we have left.

I have great news! There are a large number of excellent games on this site and they have generally bubbled to the top through the grading system. I speak as someone who has just recently returned to playing games, with a little experience of creating them. Having found one good Quest game, I chase up others by the same author and also find new games by following the recommendations of reviewers who have been enthusiastic about a game I like. There are, of course, some very strange reviews and some unplayable games but for the moment they are just a minor nuisance and not blocking my path to the good stuff. The site feels very healthy to me.

You should also look for games that are frequently played :) Sometimes people forget to leave a review and just come back to play a game over and over again ^_^

I have not had a chance to test and place many games recently, but the good news is that with the new publicizing options for users, it doesn't appear that I need to. This is awesome!! Out of sight, out of mind!

I'm still trying to catch up with the backlog of good games by enjoying each one like a fine meal, which stops me pigging out! For the moment I probably have enough to keep me going up to the end of the year, especially as I mostly play the puzzle-oriented games that can takes days to finish. It's amazing that such a rich facility exists.

@DavyB - in that case, you should try out my Xanadu games! ;)

Yes, they are on my list!

I have played two of your Xanadu games and loved them both. The first time I tried playing the first one I gave up after a few hours because I could not get past the town. Later after visiting the forums I was able to complete the game and then make it through the second installment. Really looking forward to the third one! I don't spend much time with most of the games I come across for the very reasons you describe. Right now as I am waiting for your third Xanadu game I am fighting with another game. It is reportedly the first and probably the only one put out by this writer. Goes by the name "Longshot". The name of the Game is WHOO GOES THERE? I have enticed one other player to try it out. We are both stuck. Some of his puzzles give yours some serious competition. It is well written although there are a few glitches here and there. I'm hoping more people will get into the game and share some feedback. Like the first Xanadu game I played presently I am bewildered and need some help. If you want a challenge here is a good shot.

I'm going to have to give it a shot, but will not get to it until the weekend! If you run across any others, please let me know. I'm interested in playing games similar to what I write. Thanks.