How does the community feel about an OHR blog?

"blOHRg" does indeed sound a bit like a barfing sound effect... but so does "blog," or at least it always has to me. Then again, I never really liked the word "blog" much for that exact reason... so yeah, some variety of hamster-related name (like Hamster Burrow) probably would be better.



Agreed times a million. There aren't many places on the Internet I can go anymore where I don't run into horrible Internet memes and chat/text-speak all the time... I definitely appreciated how Hamsterspeak didn't allow a lot of that kind of stuff in articles, so let's not let that sort of thing infect this OHR Blog thing when/if there is one.

---

FYS:AHS -- Swapping out some step-on NPCs for zones + each step script
Puckamon -- Not until the reserve party is expanded.[/size]

Truthfully, the Hamster Burrow does sound nice. And we don't have have a whole bunch of things in the name like "the next big indie whatever blah I like pie", as long as we can edit a sort of subsection where it has a website description. Or blog description in this case.
And as much as I'd let blOHRg be a mascot, it really doesn't seem to be fitting in with the name hamster burrow, sadly.

Eh, I'm sure if enough people care that we could fit him in somehow.

---

dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x

Bob the Hamster would make a great mascot. He was incorporated into Hamster Wheel in a rather adorable fashion, so I imagine he'll fit in here. With credit to James of course.
When I wrote that paragraph on the last page, I was imagining Bob occupying a cozy little hobbit-hole, lying on a red couch and watching a fireplace or something. If Hamster Burrow went with this imagery right now, it'd have a holiday-themed bonus going for it, which would attract more visitors.

Well this thread really took off.

Even though I see this as a project TheCube is doing and thus he should have total control over it, I'll still throw some criticism out there in the unlikely case this blohrg really takes off. Sorry, if any of this hurts feelings in advanced.

First, the hamster burrow sounds like a blog about hamsters. And having a hamster as a mascot would further enforce that. You wouldn't be gaining much from a title like that.
BlOHRg is much better, it would only really lead people to think of blogs. Thinking that people would be turned off by it sounding like a barf sound is just not true. There are plenty of successful companies with weird names like blohrg. In fact the point that Blog itself sounds like barf should be enough to convince you all of Blohrg's ability to succeed.
Also, the angry slime monster would actually make a great mascot considering slimesalad, and the common connection between slimes and old rpg gaming.

Next, I'd like to point out, that there are hundreds if not thousands of indie gaming blogs. The chance that this one is going to be anywhere near tigsource or venus patrol is really really low. I say this not to crap on the idea, but to lower expectations a bit. It's really likely that this blog won't be read by that many people, especially at first, and it's important for the people participating to not get too disappointed by that.

Further more, it's best to stop comparing this to hamsterspeak. It really shouldn't be set up in anyway close to hamsterspeak. A Zine and a blog are different in a lot of ways. Monthly updates would be slow for a blog. While at the same time the amount of content in an issue of Hamsterspeak would be large compared to the amount of content a blog normally puts out monthly. Basically putting out a game review every week would, in my eyes, secure a good chuck of repeat visitors. Also, make sure to advertise how often and when the blog updates.


As far as a new Hamsterwheel type project goes, I'm against it. I don't like the idea of a site having a copy of my game that I have no control over updating. And though I have little control over sites doing this and I don't condone it either.

If the purpose of this database is to have a place where all the old copies of old games and such are kept, I ask, what's wrong with slimesalad and Castleparadox? If someone really wants to take on the duty of collecting all the old games not currently on castleparadox or slimesalad and uploading them there then they should do just that. I'd suggest uploading them under an account titled HamsterWheel or something, so people finding and downloading them won't think you made them yourself. Also, be sure to clearly document the actual creators.

If the purpose of the new hamsterwheel project is a public showcase for the OHR's games I'd argue that it really shouldn't be an after thought of a blog idea or else it won't be any better than castle paradox or slimesalad and will likely be much much worse than both.


P.S. Charbile and Surlaw: knock it off.... It's mostly you this time surlaw

I didn't like hamsterwheel hosting games at all without peoples permission, I agree. Having it as a big wiki database including download links is more what I'd like. To be totally blunt I don't really love the gamelist format either here or on CP, they're both clunky feeling.

---

Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

What is the scope of the blog, honestly? Are we making this for our tight-knit community here, or are we trying to appeal to a broader audience?

Attaching ourselves to a name like blOHRg would make this more entwined with our community at the expense of looking very niche and not broad enough for mass appeal. I don't agree that Hamster Burrow would be an implication of being about hamsters any more than I assume Target to be an archery store - it's the content and presentation that matter. If all they see is a hamster in a burrow and nothing about video games, game design, or the like, then the blog has failed completely to deliver its premise upfront, and it wouldn't matter if you put a big sword for the logo and called it Slime Worldbuilders - there would be no attraction or appeal anyway.

Take Slime Salad for example; if I show someone the Slime Salad main page, we see many key pieces that declare the meaning up front: A subtitle (Game Design), Gamelist, Game of the Month (front and center, and huge!), a long More Games sidebar, and in the top right, Learn To Make Your Own Games. There's zero confusion once you're on the site as to its meaning. Getting people here is the only other hurdle, and you can do that with intelligent front-page design for the spiders to find...

From Google's search entry for Slime Salad:


With a short mission statement on the page underneath the blogroll at the top, the site would register with that mission statement on the search, making it even more attractive. Add in some advertisement or word-of-mouth on indy sites or on reddit etc and we could have a thriving blog if our content is high quality.

A lot of it is easier said than done, but there is no reason that we cannot present ourselves as the Hamster Burrow and still draw a large userbase.

---

I... I still exist... somewhere.

Come join us on irc.esper.net in channel #slimesalad for help, chat, and general fun! We love company.

I'm actually totally on board with a plain to make a new OHR database. You may remember my plans for a OHR Arcade a while back. Despite my grand plans for advertisement funding and game selling options, the core idea of a showcase database for OHR is still a good idea i think.

However, as I said, it's kind of a completely different project though. I'll go rez up my old OHR arcade thread, so we it can be discussed there.




Your arguement against blOHRg could be an arguement made against Hamster Burrow too.

But I can see where this is going, so instead of arguing over the name, which TheCube is picking himself anyways, I think it would be more productive if we all just start listing new ideas for names instead. Even if you agree with a name that was already suggested, you should still try to suggest a new one.


OHRsource
OHR Game News
Official Hamster Republic Post
OHR Indie

Well here's MY two cents:

I think one of the biggest problems with OHR stuff on the internet is how fragmented it is. I mean, at this point, Slime Salad has the most resources and is really the only place you need to go to get your OHR fix. But, there was a time when OHR content was spread out amongst a few different forums, a few magazines, and a wiki. This may have been fine when the community was booming, but we are on the decline, gentlemen.

It doesn't expand the community, nor does it raise awareness of the OHR to set up various sites with the same community members signed up on all of them. That just sort of creates the illusion of expansion, you know? Just because Slime Salad has 100 members (for example sake) and Castle Paradox has 100 members, that does not mean that there are 200 members total. Rather, there are 100 people (realistically less given double/dummy accounts) who are signed up to two accounts. This now means that ONE person has to check multiple sights to find the information they are looking for.

I think the best, most useful thing that this community could do would be to CONSOLIDATE rather than try to expand. That was kind of the idea behind the Hamster Wheel, but I feel that took the wrong approach. It got stuck in the trap of false expansion (ironic, no?) We ALREADY have a main, all-OHR site going on RIGHT HERE. Why not work towards expanding this site by consolidating all OHR content within its framework?

We could allow a journal/blog section for EACH MEMBER. The entries could have tags that you could use for organization purposes. Like, I could write a blog about pixel art and tag it "art." Then someone could search the blogs by that tag to find what they need. Any forum discussions could take place in the comments section of the blog itself. The blogs could even be rated with the same star system we currently use for games to show which are the most helpful.

This way, there will be no deadlines or editors or release dates. Just write an article and post it. If it sucks, it will get a poor rating and probably won't get read. If it's good... well you get the point. I don't really need to explain how filtering works.

Obviously this would take some work to implement. But not as much work as starting from scratch. It just seems like we keep trying to reinvent the wheel by building the spokes over here, and the frames over here, and the tires over here. Just put the goddamn thing together already! Just take what we've got and make it cohesive, comprehensive and easily searchable. Don't make me drive to Chicopee to buy some damn handlebars.

Well, castleparadox already actually has a personal blog system, and it didn't really work out. It basically just created a bunch of sub-forums to the main forum, making it harder to actually search through all the new content on the site.
Also, personal blogs are basically already kept here too. Take the development journal threads several people maintain.
So, basically, that is a bad idea in my opinion.



As far as consolidating, I see no reason why the new blog couldn't have a nice big link to slimesalad and vise versa. This would link the two together and thus not actually spread anything out anywhere.

The real fragmenting problem stems from several users branching off completely on their own to make new OHR sites that they have no interest in connecting to the old sites with for personal gain and glory instead of coming together as a community and deciding on how we can use a new webpage, or blog to help spread our communities news and games to a wider audience.

I actually like that idea, though I can see how it might be a bit tricky to implement. Another community I'm part of, the Maille Artisans International League, does something similar. While the main part of the site is the forum, it also alloes for user supplied articles and posts with a single directory consolidating all the posts. I'm not entirely sure how the back-end looks, but it does seem to work rather well.

---

Being from the third world, I reserve the right to speak in the third person.

Using Editor version wip 20170527 gfx_sdl+fb music_sdl

I'm all in favor of a database like OHR Arcade. At the same time, I'd also be perfectly happy with a total revamp of the Games section here.

Also, I'm really pleased to see this many people discussing this stuff passionately.

---

Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

As for personal blogs on this site, I agree that that might not be the best of ideas. I'm all for a separate blog site, though I do still see the merits of being able to publish articles here on Slime Salad. On the front page, there's a bit of text at the upper right hand corner that says "Learn to Make Your Own Games" but doesn't really have much content about learning to make games.

I think it might be interesting to be able to submit articles, not short blog posts, but full-length articles, here on SS much the same way we can submit games. I'm guessing there should be some sort of quality-control or style-guide for the articles which would deal with game-making and the OHR in general.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea, or if it's even feasible, just throwing the idea out there.

---

Being from the third world, I reserve the right to speak in the third person.

Using Editor version wip 20170527 gfx_sdl+fb music_sdl

I'd like to form a backup archive of all released OHR games that haven't yet disappeared into the bit bucket. Old games which you can't find on CP or SS still get occasionally referenced, but might be sitting on someone's harddisk. I would only provide download links for games which aren't available anywhere else. Someone hosting your game/program without permission is really frustrating when you release an update.

However, a database of articles would be far far more useful to have than a games database. For a long time, I've been meaning to replicate THW's list of articles on the wik. Also, a reviews database! Reviews of OHR games are spread out across a dozen gamelists, webzines and forum threads, and there's currently zero cross-referencing. Terribly fragmented. So we're calling this effort OHR Arcade? OK, we already have a good name then.

Edit: Improvements to the SS gamelist are good too, of course, but the best selling point of a dedicated DB is that it could link to external reviews, retrospectives, etc. for all OHR games, not just those hosted here.

Regarding goal/scope: The reason I think we need a blog or some other replacement for HamsterSpeak is not to draw people in, but because I think there should be a place to publish the stuff that goes into those things and that would be produced anyway (such as contest wrapups) which otherwise would end up in a forum and lost (just try to find information about any contest help while there was no OHR webzine active: near impossible!). If you want to increase exposure of the engine, then I agree with Charbile's advice: make cool games and show them off outside the community (...or help with the engine...).

Regarding names: Well I'm also not 100% keen on slapping "Hamster" on everything, but either 'Hamster' or 'OHR' in the title is practically inevitable. Burrow is homely but I like the trend of Spoon's suggestions too. Don't have my own.

The journal system on Castle Paradox didn't have tagging nor searching capabilities. They were also mainly just cesspools of idiocy that held nothing useful due to them being un-moderated. And the development blogs on this site are just forum threads. There is no way to put searchable information in threads (I mean, I guess there is but that is just stupid.) I'm talking about having a main "article" with all the useful information in the initial post. There can be a comment section for users to discuss the post, but any useful, usable information would be right up top. And rateable. And searchable.

I also don't see how having a blog section on this site is a bad idea, but LINKING a separate, new blog site to this site is a good idea.

Well, how's about this idea:

Create a database of articles here on SS that's divided into different categories, e.g. general game design, artwork, sound and music, scripting, etc...

Those articles could then be searchable and consolidated in a single place (i.e. Slime Salad) that would be easily accessed by newcomers. An initial archive of articles could be built by getting articles (from Hamster Speak perhaps? Not sure if that's allowed.) from different OHR related venues with the permission of the original authors of course.

Current users could, whenever they feel like it, submit an article for publication on the site. The articles would not, however, be automatically added to the database, rather, they would go through an editor (Did theCube volunteer for editor duties? Or just directing the project?) or an editorial board of sorts. This ensures that the articles are of a certain level of quality.

Pros and Cons

Pro: This would remove the pressure of getting enough articles for a month's issue.
Con: Knowing that there's no deadline, people might not be inclined to write as much.


Pro: Everything is consolidated in a single place, making it easier for newcomers to find info. Also, as the forum is relatively active, after reading an article on the site, newcomers can discuss the article with community members, perhaps even the author.
Con: Putting all eggs in the single proverbial basket comes to mind. Also, newcomers might be more inclined to check the wiki for information rather than this site.



Pro: It seems like an easy way for community members to share experience and knowledge with one another whenever they feel like it.
Con: Some people might not feel like it.



There are probably a few others I haven't considered, but I'm typing this from my phone and my fingers are cramping up, hehe.

Anywho, that's all from me for now, feel free to shoot this idea down, just throwing it out there. Cheers!

---

Being from the third world, I reserve the right to speak in the third person.

Using Editor version wip 20170527 gfx_sdl+fb music_sdl