Plans for new OHR Gamelist

Great to hear! Django is super easy to pick and learn. Take a look at the code so far to get an idea on how the prototype was put together.


Those are some interesting ideas. Originally I was going to build it using 1, as that is how most things work. However, 2 does sound like an interesting idea, but can also lead to chaos if nobody is monitoring changes made.


I can make an API which can allow the importing of game data and the exporting of game data using standard JSON. This way, other game lists can push information out to this game list when a game is added. Keeping the centralized idea intact. The API will allow it to provide a URL for the Game's download and a URL for any screenshots. Of course this will need the co-operation of other game list managers. Once a week or so, all the game lists which are part of this collective can fetch the latest updates and update their game list data to keep everybody in sync and mirrored.

I would favour option 4, followed by 3. I like the idea of having one person in charge of it, preferably someone decent at writing. I think it would give it some consistency and a bit of professionalism.

I'm against option 3 and 4.

I'm against 4 mainly because of the fate of the hamster wheel. I also think that it's a major problem with all of the OHR's current sites. One person is ( or a few people are) in charge of making changes and eventually they lose interest. After all, it's basically a part time job with no pay.
As far as option 3, it's not that much different from option 4. And suffers from a lot of the same flaws.

Another reason I'm against those 2 choices is because of content censorship, which maybe we should address in any case. Is there a point at which we would not allow an OHR game? Would Fenrir's pornographic game be included? Or No Eat?


On a completely different topic, I disagree with the sidebar on the website. It's huge and there's already a topbar, you don't need both.

I'm seeing some disagreement in the community on how a game list should be built. I may opt for a mix of several options to please all parties. I see options 3 and 4 being praised as it means you don't need need to upload your game to several lists, someone else does the dirty work for you. Which I can understand your frustrations behind uploading to multiple lists. Since I am unaware of any APIs for the either SS and CPs game lists, which would allow me to remotely upload games, there's no easy way by this.

So... This is what I am proposing to do. There will be a mix of game entries on this list, I will mix up options 1, and 2 with a dash of 4. Here is how it will work:

All games will be referenced in this new list regardless where they are located. If they are located in a different list, then rather than rehosting the download without the authors permission, the actual download page will be referenced. This shouldn't cause anybody to scream. I will first link all games from Castle Paradox, then Slime Salad. In this order, as Slime Salad has more recent and active games which actual authors may wish to add themselves... Which brings me to the next part. For the games which I will add into the system, they will be classed as unclaimed, meaning they will be like a wiki page which anybody can edit the information for. If the author wishes to come forward and take over the page, they can. The page will then only be modifiable by that author afterwards. For newly added games which will be hosted by this new list, the author whom creates the entry will have sole access to it, nobody else can modify it.

This approach takes the best of both worlds, where older entries whom no longer have authors active in the community, are listed in the central list for anybody to modify. If you add your own game, nobody but yourself can edit the entry. All older entries will link to the download page, not the actual file. So when a user clicks Download, they are either brought to the CP page for the game, or the Slime Salad page for the game. The list merely acts as a central way to locate and find these games, where you can filter by genre and such. So, you can still upload your game to say Slime Salad, then add an entry to the central list to make it more easily searchable in the future. This new game list will essentially be a Search Engine for OHRRPGCE games. Problem solved. Let me know if this flows right for you, or if you'd prefer something else.

Another idea is to make it a search engine! Where I build a bot that I run manually once a week to fetch the latest games on SS and CP. It will use Python HTML parsing library to parse through the pages just like GoogleBot would, it will grab each title and description, and perhaps a screenshot. It will take this information and place it into the central lists database. All people will need to do afterwards is edit the entries and change what type of game it is and what genre it is, in order to make the filtering work correctly. Once all the current games are added, each newly added game when the bot runs would be really easy to update.

I agree about the sidebar.

I guess I think there should be some degree of scrutiny over entries. I don't think "demos" or joke games should be allowed. Those don't really have any appeal for anyone except the person making them.

I don't really like authors adding games mainly because they tend to oversell them. This is understandable because of the large time investment, but I'd rather see a brief description of the plot, and maybe a few main points that distinguish the title from others.

In this case we'll have a game list with about ten, maybe twelve games on it, so it shouldn't be hard to do.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Haha!

I don't think we need to worry too much about monitoring it for quality, thats what the like/dislike button is for.

Maybe an... encouragement to authors, to keep their demos on SlimeSalad for community critique, and only push it to this new gamelist when they have something that, while not necessarily complete, has some actual content and polish.

The dislike button would be a great way to filter out the unwanted games. I may add logic to the system where if a game gets a specific amount of dislikes with very little to no likes, then it will auto-delete it from the list. If anyone disagrees to that, please come forward.

Currently the system allows for a game entry to have multiple downloads and supports beta testing through private entries. So, if you need to beta test a game of yours, and can't find a good place to host it with god enough privacy, use this host and select which users can actually see and download the game. The backend logic is already there, I just need to tie it into the front-end and voila! Having the ability for a single game to have multiple downloads allows you to actually place a demo before the actual release. Titles are also not required to even have a download or an external link. The game's page can merely explain the game in development. I will be adding in a filter, so that potential players can filter out titles without downloads available, I may even have it as a separate section, aptly titled Games in Development. When your ready to release a demo or a full release, just go into your games page and upload it, it will automatically then be listed with the games which have downloads.

The idea behind the sidebar was to implement single click filtering, where you can click to see all Finished Games, Demos, or Games in Development. This could also be placed in the top navigation bar as well. None of these will ever be mixed up in a single list, so the game list in general, depending on which filters should be really easy to navigate and find actual finished games.

It's not that I don't agree with what you're saying. In fact, I understand you completely. However, we really have to think about the purpose of this new site. If the purpose was to host games for as many people to see them as possible, we'd be better served to put them on a site with 100x's the traffic instead of making a new site who's daily traffic will likely start out at around 2-3 hits.
Also, this would be ignoring the original purpose of the project. This new site's actually core purpose is to create a central game list for ALL ohr games. Limiting it in any way would be abandoning that goal and simply creating yet another scattered ohr gamelist.





I'm strongly against deleting games form the list for the same reasons listed above.







I really like this idea. However, how will you regulate who claims these currently unclaimed pages? With the goal of attracting more people to play ohr games, the potential for trolls claiming these pages (or editing them incorrectly) seems high. I wouldn't be opposed to you, or a few mods, controlling the unclaimed games until such a time as the rightful owner steps up and claims them.



Also, this set of filters wouldn't be that suited for OHR games. I understand the meaning behind games in development, but I think calling them unreleased games would better portray the filter's meaning.
As stated, there are not many finished ohr games and so making a filter for them might be a bad move.

There should obviously be a report button if anyone uploads a game with a virus in its package or illegal content or something but automatically deleting games just for being unpopular is a terrible, terrible idea.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

That put this whole thing in perspective for me actually. The effort of creating the site, tweaking the layout, adding the features, making the script that indexes all of the games, then adding screenshots, missing descriptions etc etc... is probably far beyond the effort that went into most of them in the first place.

I don't mean that that isn't worth doing if that's what you're into, Just... I'm gonna go work on my game now.

Good luck!

I agree with Spoonweaver, the original idea behind creating this project in the first place was for a Centralized Directory of ALL OHR Games. There are lots of lesser known Gems out there, like Monterey Penguin, it's barely mentioned in the community anymore. It was one of the really early games, and one of the first ones I actually played many years ago. Another gem I'd like to mention is one which unfortunately I am unable to locate, as I cannot remember the name, but recall enjoying it back in the early 2000s. It's games like this, is what drives me to create a new game list. I don't want to see games lots in memory, I want all games to be easily found and always remembered.



This will not be added after all, as it makes little sense. Rather games will be sorted by their Likes, the more likes a game has, the higher up it will be in the Popularity list. I am planning on having multiple sort methods, you can sort Alphabetically like CP, or by the amount of likes. I may even add it to sort by the amount of dislikes too, not sure yet. I don't really want to make people look bad, everybody has the odd bad game here and there, but also produce exceptional games as well.


On unclaimed games, there will be a button labeled I made this! It will not provide the user with immediate access to the game's page, but rather it will sent an email to the mods advising them of someone wanting to claim a game as their own. If the mods know them and know that they did indeed make the game, then access will be given, simple as that. If the user is overall unknown, and the game isn't really known. A mod will quickly look at the game in question looking for any credit information on either the title screen or the About text to see if the user's information matches. In the event that we are unable to determine if the game is theirs, and the game is password protected, the mod can place the .GEN file on the server, and an email will be sent to the possible owner. The page will prompt the owner to enter in the password for their game. If the password matches the one in .GEN, then the system will automatically give them access with no further mod assistance. The entire .GEN verification process will be mostly automated, all the mod needs to do is upload the file and tell the system which game it relates to and which user wants access all in a single easy to use form. The website will email the user with a special link to the password form. I hope for either James or TMC's assistance with a Python function which can be used to verify a password in a .GEN file. I may even automate this entire process for unclaimed games... Where when I add a game which is unclaimed, the website will automatically extract the .GEN file, and if a user clicks I made this!, the website will automatically email the user the form to confirm they did make it.


I think naming it unreleased games does make sense. I would like players to know if the game they download is beatable or not. It's not very professional for a player to download a game thinking it's a final product complete with an ending. The player may wonder for hours(most likely less) trying to figure out what the heck they're suppose to be doing, only to later find out the games incomplete. This is not the image I want to convey about this community. If James ever does complete the Android port and word gets out that it's a viable platform for creating and playing Super Nintendo style RPG games, these are going to be traditional players, coming from a world where all the games they download on the App Store has an ending and is completable. Most people rarely play games which are in the middle of development, and thus if they ever did play a game like that, they may become confused and may not have a positive experience.

The games which are for the most part complete and have an ending, are actually awesome titles, and it's these titles we as a community should be touting to RPG Fans. By the wording of Finished Games, I mean games which a player can play from beginning to end, it doesn't need to have polished graphics or whatnot, it just needs an ending so that the story can be fully enjoyed. You don't borrow half a book from a local library, it really ruins the story if you can't find out how it ends. From this standpoint, there's lots of OHR titles which can be played from beginning to end, the first one I played and beat was Walthros. The game is far from polished, the graphics were very primitive, but I really enjoyed the story, dialog, and interaction between the various characters. I am sure there are like-minded people out there. Unless the graphics literally give me headaches, I could care less about how they look. To me the story and characters matter most. This game I would classify as a Finished Game.

Additional ideas I want to add
Okay, so now that I finished replying and don't feel like adding a new reply to this thread as that's just plain wrong and horrible forum etiquette. Here are some Community features I want to add which aren't currently available on SS or CP to all in the community, or hacks are required to make it work:

I am willing to host developer blogs and newsletters. None of which are to compete with the existing newsletter. However, the existing newsletter can feel articles developers write. This will allow anybody which is part of the OHR community to have a freely available and OHR themed blog and newsletter with no knowledge of hosting and providers. Once you create an account, you will immediately be-able to create a blog or your own newsletter. Each new entry will be featured on the home page in a aptly named Latest blog entries section, alongside the latest added games and such, giving everyone equal opportunity to express themselves. Tagging will be enabled on blogs as well, so we can keep similar ideas and stories together. For example, if someone wants to discuss a feature they really want added, it can be easily tagged and everybody can just view a features tag which will show all blog articles on just features. Mind you, you can use your blog for anything OHR related you can think. You can write up tutorials and link them into the official wiki, write up development diaries for your latest project, write a commentary on a game you just played. The entries themselves will use the popular TinyMCE JavaScript editor to make writing articles super simple for anyone, no HTML knowledge needed, you just need to know how to use MS Word or similar. If you have an existing blog on another website such as Wordpress and don't want to miss out having your latest posts displayed on the front page, there will be an RSS Feed aggregation service you can use. Just submit your blogs RSS feed, and all new posts will appear on the home page along with the latest games and other blog posts from the community.

As stated in many posts, the community is very sparse, where everything is spread out over multiple websites with no simple way to gather everything together into a nice unified view. Adding this will centralize all the articles into a single feed, much like how Facebook places everything into a single easy to view feed of what's new. I really want to centralize as much as I can, so people can easily search, cross-reference, and locate information within just a few clicks. The wiki does only some of this... The wiki doesn't feed in RSS feeds from existing blogs, so that searching the entire site can find something your looking for. Nor does the wiki tell you when a new blog post has been published. These days lots of people have less time to themselves, and going to each and every blog and newsletter to see if something new has been added, is time that could go to better use. Having the latest blog entries and newsletters on a central page makes it easier for your great articles to be read by the community. Oh and this website also natively works on all mobile devices. Which also increases the readability of your articles regardless if the person in at home or waiting for the subway. Something which may be interesting to implement for the newsletter portion, is to have newsletters directly emailed to subscribers, much like how Nintendo and other large companies email you about the latest games available for their console. This will be a subscription thing, so unless you subscript to a newsletter, you won't be spammed. It's super easy to implement all this too, so no worries. I just want to create something awesome here!

Although a python function to check a game's password is perfectly possible (and nohrio might already do it) passwords are *very* easy to crack, so knowing it is not sufficient proof of game-authorship.

I do like the idea of being able to mark incomplete games as such.

Regarding the "I made this" button, be aware that every link on the entire site will be clicked dozens of times a day by spam robots. That goes for any link that will be generating e-mail to the moderator.

Personally, the whole issue of having two different gamelist on different sites has never been a problem for me. I don't mind checking two different forums, it is just what I am used to.

That being said, your plan is shaping up to resemble something similar to Meatball Sub's thehamsterwheel, and I really liked that site, so I hope what you are working on succeeds :)

Shhh. -- I thought the password used a one way hash of some sort.


The button is naturally only available to users' whom are logged in, or the mods won't know who clicked it. The registration process will be protected by reCaptcha.


Thanks! There hasn't been any updates in recent days, but I have been a little busy this week. I plan on continuing development shortly.

This is true! ... but even as a one way hash, it is still super easy to crack! :)