When I want to buy a COG/Hosted game, I like to know some basic information about it first, and it’s actually surprisingly hard to find anything outside the game description for a lot of them. Things like game length, romances, and how linear a story is are important to me, but there’s often no way to find out these things without playing through the game yourself. I propose that we should have a community wiki for COGs. Yes, I know there’s the developers wiki, but that contains no information about the games themselves. This wiki could contain information like the length of the game (word count), the amount and quality of romances, amount and importance of choices/stats, plot summaries, and quality of writing and characters. It could even possibly contain more spoilery things like the endings and how to achieve them if there’s any interest in that.
I don’t think this would be a HUGE project considering there are only 118 COGs/Hosteds altogether, and we could start by just tackling the official COGs at first, but it would certainly require a group effort. Would there in any community interest in such a project? Has something like this been attempted before? I would certainly be willing to contribute, having read the majority of the games available.
Given the fact that people often ask for help on how to achieve certain things, I believe it might help them. People would be able to look the information up on a wiki and could provide further information on things that are missing.
It might also help the forum a bit, as people wouldn’t need to ask the question over and over again. Maybe they would rather look in a wiki than search through the forum threads?
I know that I would use a wiki more than the forum for it, as I wouldn’t need to manually search through the topics.
I could possibly (slowly, gradually) help, and I’ve read nearly all of the CoG/HG as well.
I know several times people have asked for romance-option character lists for various games, and a wiki would be a great way to let various people contribute and build up a master list. Same for those looking for stories in various genres, or certain types of character creation options.
I have a vague recollection of perhaps speaking to @LordIrish about it many years ago, for choiceofbox and putting a wiki up there. But I’m a major flake.
I’m also not a fan of wikia. Or text on black backgrounds. So I’d like something nice, clean, and light.
It shouldn’t be too difficult once you get a decent page template set up. It’s that whole page template thing that intimidates me though. What would you put in it?
I understand where you’re coming from, I think there’s better wiki software out there but wikia is the only one that’s free and easy to set up, where we don’t have to worry about the site going down or someone having to pay hosting fees. It’s also possible to theme wikia so I don’t think colours are too big of an issue. But if anyone has a better alternative, feel free to suggest it!
I think this idea is interesting as most readers would want to know more about the game that they are possibly about to purchase. What would the information for each game provide? How in-depth would it go in relation to plot description and possible character profiles per game?
If this project does decide to take off, i’d be happy to help write up a few game profiles.
Wikia is pretty user-friendly for the average editor too compared to other wiki platforms. And yes the theme is fully customizable so the colors won’t be a problem if that’s your only objection to Wikia, @FairyGodfeather.
Each game could have a spoiler-free main page with basic plot/character/features info, then subpages for more in-depth walkthroughs about endings, romances, characters, etc.
What would be particularly useful is pages that act like databases, listing games according to setting, romance option variety, gender locked protagonists or not etc… It’ll make it easier for people to find exactly the kind of game they are looking for.
Linking games with similar themes or settings with a footer at the bottom of their main pages would likewise be helpful in finding other games a player might be interested in.
I am currently waiting on the database for wips but I could add something to the site to that affect but would need others to add all the information as I barely have time to do anything.
I think this is a WONDERFUL idea. I think I suggested something like a game directory to CoG a while back, just to make customer browsing easier with pulldowns allowing searches by author, genre, even things like ratings (12+, 17+, etc)
I have problems with wikia’s adverts too, actually…Flash often causes both of my relatively new-ish computers to freeze, especially the Mac. I can’t leave a wikia page open in a browser for reference, or the silly moving adverts will stall my entire machine. I have to glance at instructions in the ChoiceScript wiki and close the page whilst I’m working, or everything will crash.
@Eric_Moser That is an excellent point about the ratings, too…or even games geared towards younger audiences, like Sixth Grade Detective. I hope there will be more of those kinds of games on CoG some day, and maybe it would help their sales if they were easy to find via a directory.
If ads are causing you that much trouble you should definitely be using an adblocker. (You can always turn off the adblocker on a per-site basis, if you can and want to support some sites but not others.)
I will be home in the wee hours today will upload the software and see about if it is is adware free if so will need a list of those that will be in charge and want to work on it.
I for one you love it (or something similar- I feel so stupid asking questions sometimes and often it’s already been asked and well answered) if those of you who know about these things think it could be done. I’d even pay a small subscription fee because anything to support artists, as I consider the author and coder one has to be to really make the most amazing experiences.
I’m hoping we can set things up with an easy to use template, or even a form for quick page generating.
What information are we going to need on each game’s page?
Name:
Author:
Date Published:
Game Links?
Forum thread link?
Walkthrough/Achievement Guide?
Romance options?
Brief story summary?
Detailed summary? (Like wikipedia does?)
Genre?
Hmm. We’ll be making pages for all the authors too, do you think? Including links to their social media if publicly available?
MC options? (LGBTQ+ orientation and gender possibilities for the MC? Gender locked? Especially pertinent for HG, but some options would be not necessarily a given for all I would think?)
