I don’t know whether this will help or not with the mysterious issue of browsers caching the games hosted on Dashingdon, even when the browsers are told not to do that, but here we are anyway:
When I’ve been testing my own game, I’ve noticed something curious. The first scene in my scenes list (and game) always auto-refreshes when I upload the latest version of my scenes, so I’m always seeing the latest version of the first page when I open up the game to have a look.
However, the next scene file does not auto-refresh.
I was curious, so I took a look directly at my scene files on Dashingdon. The first scene automatically reflected the changes, but the next scene was still the old version. Clearing the cache whilst looking at the text file of the later scene did solve the problem—but clearing the cache when I had the regular version of the game running did not solve it; it was only the first scene that refreshed to the latest version.
Anyway, I hope that’s helpful in resolving the issue with caching! And thanks again so much for the amazing hosting service. I wouldn’t be testing my game without it, definitely.
I’ve added two functions this morning that will hopefully resolve the cache issue. I have not enacted the changes on existing games but I will be going through later today and adding the update to the most active/updated games on the site.
I’m also looking into categorizing the content. Not sure what type of system to use - maybe tags? So if the genre is ‘fantasy’ but there are pirates and there is romance and battle, then maybe the tags could be ‘fantasy’ ‘pirate’ ‘romance’ and ‘warfare’ or something along those lines.
Any ideas or input on how to categorize the content to make it more user-friendly is welcome. Thanks!
I like the idea of tags for categorising. Depending on how comprehensive a system you’re wanting, maybe also consider including tags for gender/sexuality options? It would be nice to be able to search for ‘nonbinary MC’ or ‘nonbinary NPCs’ or ‘ace MC’, for instance.
I second @Fiogan 's endorsement of a tag system. It sounds great! Heck, months ago I was suggesting that CoG do something like that as its library expands.
And yeah, multiple tags would be optimal but I know that’s probably more work for you? Perhaps develop a system of tags and let the authors email you with the tags they’d like associated with their games?
That’s a good idea…or what if it were possible for authors to tag their own games, perhaps using a list of pre-determined tags? I know the occasional person might abuse it, then, but I think generally we would want our target audience to find our games (and not annoy other audiences by mistagging and thus ensuring our own work gets ignored).
You could also, perhaps, arrange the tag pages so that the games with the most recent updates or most views are displayed on the top of that tag list? Or maybe ordering the search with a few different options would be possible? I know that’s a lot more work and coding and such, though, so perhaps it’s impractical. I wonder if it might be fairly helpful in terms of long-term hosting maintenance, though.
Ok. Yes, the tag system seems to be the way to go here. I’ll likely just allow authors to set their own tags in the Edit Details area of their games. On the front page I’ll put in a system that allows readers to filter the content by selecting tags.
@Fiogan yes that sounds like a good idea. I would likely have number of games with that particular tag listed along with the tag itself - for instance:
Ninjas(51)
Non-Binary Protagonist(22)
Romance(19)
Et cetera et cetera. Selecting one tag would filter down to the games with that particular tag, then selecting another tag would filter down to the games with both tags, and therefore the more tags you select the more specialized your results. The results would still be listed in order of last update.
Asexual Romances
Aliens
Alternate History
Comedy
Crime
Explicit Content
Fantasy
Future
Genderlocked Female
Genderlocked Male
Genderlocked Nonbinary
Historical
Horror
Lighthearted
Magic
Medieval
Military
Monster
Mythology
Ninjas
Nonbinary Protagonist
Nonhuman Protagonist
Nonwestern Setting
Philosophical
Pirates
Politics
Preset Protganonist
Real Life
Romance
School
Science Fiction
Sequel
Series
Space Opera
Sports
Steampunk
Superheroes
Surreal
Transgender Protagonist
Vampire
War
Western
Young Adult
Zombies
Note: This post is a wiki! Feel free to add your suggestions by editing it directly.
Category tags are in. Apologies for the delay, adding this feature was more complicated than I had hoped it would be. But it’s done (unless there’s bugs…? plz no)
You can filter games on the front page by selecting tags (it’s an AND relationship, so the more you select the more specific the results get). Authors may now add tags on the Edit Details page of their games.
I note that there are three “genderlocked” tags; would it make sense to have a “not genderlocked” tag, because I assume people will be more likely to be looking for games without genderlocking?
Also, is “explicit content” just sex, or is it any kind of non-child-friendly content?
I assume “Nonbinary protagonist” means that “nonbinary” is selectable (because it’s not “genderlocked nonbinary”), but it seems slightly confusing.
Also also, there’s a typo in the tag “Preset Protganonist”.
Yay!
A couple of thoughts about categories that could be interesting but I’m not quite sure how to name them…
Something along the lines of “lore-heavy” could be nice, to indicate settings that have a whole lot of backstory, worldbuilding, background info, that sort of thing. I’m just not sure “lore-heavy” is the best thing to call it, because it sounds… heavy. And I’m not sure if everyone would immediately read “lore” as meaning “setting background info.”
For tone, something marking the duality between “grim” and, say, “warm and human” could also be nice. (The latter isn’t quite the same as “lighthearted”!) (Granted, I’m trying to write something that’s both, so I have my work cut out for me…)
I noticed that “nonwestern setting” didn’t make it in? I do see that it’s sort of a non-category in that it’s defining something by what it’s not, but considering that so much fantasy and historical fiction are based around western culture, a lot of times I like to specifically seek out something that either has a different inspiration or is designed to be distinct.
I think it might be worth splitting this into different categories
Perhaps call it “nonbinary protagonist option”?
That one’s my fault it was one I added to the suggested category list and it looks like my typo got copied. Sorry, everybody
Edit: Is there a way to view the tags on a dashingdon game without just checking different filters and seeing if it’s still up? If not, I would consider that useful.
Apologies, I thought it was more like Western as in cowboys and saloons. So it was weird for a category in that sense! Is there another form of terminology we can use instead of that to mean the same thing? Or am I likely one of the rare people who might get confused by that?
Fixed.
Hmm there’s no ‘adult’ games on there right now that I can tell but as @ParrotWatcher and @TSSL said maybe I should break down ‘Explicit content’ into more detailed tags just in case.
‘Lore rich’ or ‘Detailed world-building’ maybe?
Grim, Serious, Uplifting, etc? Any suggestions, anyone?
Thanks for everyone who replied. I’ll take another look through this when I get back home.
Oh! Yeah, that would be a weird category
Would non-western culture be better? I can’t speak to how anyone else would read it, of course, since it’s out of my head.
I feel like world-building would be a more neutral terms, since lore kinda suggests more of a particular style of writing, but that could just be me
Those could be good. I think it could be nice to mark the sort of thing where there’s characters who care for one another and support each other but I’m not sure what to call that
Added more tags including Non-Western Cultture which hopefully works for stories outside those set in the western hemisphere. Getting to be a fair amount of tags so I may find another way to get them sorted, but for now they look like they’re working fine.
So come to think of it, I wonder if “warm-hearted” would cover what I was asking after. That’d give me a way to label my goal for a grim setting with warm-hearted tone, and to look for other similarly warm-hearted tone works
Ok added that tag as well. Thankfully the system I setup for this allows me to add and edit tags really easily!
Also added Child Friendly and Trigger Warnings for game stories that are suitable for children and those that list any potential triggering issues (as in on the initial page of the story) respectively.
EDIT: You can now view a game story’s tags via a View Category Tags link on each game card on the front page.
I do see that it’s sort of a non-category in that it’s defining something by what it’s not, but considering that so much fantasy and historical fiction are based around western culture, a lot of times I like to specifically seek out something that either has a different inspiration or is designed to be distinct.
it was one I added to the suggested category list and it looks like my typo got copied. Sorry, everybody 
