Shadowcat on 29/8/2011 at 11:30
A dedicated forum would have the advantage of enabling the game title to be the thread title (or in it), so you could sort of see at a glance which games had seen action recently, and which games people were interested in playing; and that information would then persist in a more useful way (as opposed to a single thread, where the last page might be dominated by one or two games, making it much harder to notice information about other games).
It probably has more chance of acquiring regular visitors than the current thread does. I say that because I think I'd look in regularly to see what games were being played, whereas I've never felt inclined to read the existing thread.
The idea definitely has some merit.
Briareos H on 29/8/2011 at 12:03
Or add a permanent SMS-like thread/chat column to the right of TTLG. It would allow people to organise MP games as well as filter out news posting to avoid creating useless threads, and more community interaction for various things. It would also solve the megathread problem.
Yakoob on 29/8/2011 at 12:11
Ive been playing lots of games lately, mainly on a "I got it cheap on steam to check out" type of a way rather than hardcorly getting into them and, much as I expected, I didnt enjoy most of them so only played for a wee bit. Popping in to air my grievances in the megathread was nice, and would get a few "you're right! / this is what you did wrong! / this game wasnt meant for pentium 2" responses that was nice. I always strayed from making a full thread thinking its just a sidecomment im making and admins would be all like "Y U MAKE THRED POST IN THE MEGATHRED LOLBANT!" But now seeing I have the green light I'll be flooding GenGam with my random-ass oldie game threads :D
Now going back to what this thread is actually about... personally I never found these small casual games too engaging. You know, Spy Mouse, bejeweled, farmville, plants vs. zombies, etc. They always feel I can play them for 5 mins and basically experience everything the game has to offer (maybe not in terms of unlockables or skills, but in terms of the "gameplay experience.") Not to mention I can usually experience that through about 10 identical but free Flash clones at any point in time. Particularily in the puzzle / platformer genre.
Without any complex and expanding gameplay or involving story and world I can either immerse myself in, these games feel more like "time-wasters" than proper entertainment. It's the difference between me having fun time, and me killing time. And from the more developed or story-heavy games at least I can feel I gleamed or even learned something, much as one would from watching a movie or a book (but I wouldn't quite go down the "games are art!" path, not yet at least).
Witch is kind of a bummer because it means my own personal game projects tend to be big and story/gameplay heavy RPGs that never get finished due to their sheer size and aspiration. Life would be so much easier if I was a big puzzle/platformer/shmup junkie being able to finish a complete project in just a few weekends :/
Vernon on 29/8/2011 at 14:58
Let's just move TTLG to twitter and be done with it
