Thanks for the feedback everyone, I agree that the ranking algorithm could probably use some more tweaking as well. It is pretty much impossible as far as I know to sort by “best and most fun games first”, or I would for sure do that. I basically just choose a bunch of proxy values and weight them according to importance, in hopes to try and bubble up the games that people work on and favorite and play the most.
I think it’s a fair criticism that it seems like the sorting algorithm is ranking older games too highly, so I should probably find a way to give newer games a boost. I don’t want to necessarily push older games down, since games don’t get worse just because they aren’t getting updated. I’ll create a ticket in Trello to try and find a way to do this ( https://trello.com/c/tuOC6ZhG/414-improve-game-sorting )
@meburningslime - I’m the one who chooses which games are featured, and I feature games that I personally think feel polished and complete. I just checked, and as of today there are 1.4 million games created so far. I have only ever seen a small fraction of them, so there are probably lots that are really well done but I’m just not aware of them. Anyone is free to nominate a game to be featured, just post it here or email me or whatever. I prefer to feature games that:
Are complete - they have an intro or menu screen, some decent amount of playtime, and hopefully an end that you can get to
Look nice - the game looks like someone put some care into how the game looks, and didn’t slap a bunch of random looking or default sprites together
Is fun to play - the controls are obvious or intuitive, and behaves the way you would expect. It’s not easy to get stuck, it’s always obvious what the goal is at any given time, and it can be accomplished.
Sounds and music are nice too
Now not every game excels in every area, but those are the things I’m looking for when I add a featured game.
That being said - if anyone has a game in mind that they think should be featured, post it in here (maybe make a new thread for that though)
I do believe a balanced system might look like this:
Every play counts as one point.
Featured games get 1000 points.
Every favorite from a normal player is 100 points.
Every favorite from an indie player is 200 points.
Every favorite from a moderator/creator/major influencer is 300 points.
By no means is this necessary, but it’s how I see fit. You can change or completely discard this idea @grazer .
Some games I think should be featured are:
Tonight (No matter how it won the flowjam It’s still undeniably good.)
Old Super Mario Bros.
THE MENDING
Clash of the Devs (Maybe? Still in development)
A-Box
Apocalypse Arena
Nyctophobia
Graveyard 2
SCP: World’s End (Again, maybe not I might be biased :/)
Yep, that pretty much sums my opinion up. You can trash it or praise it, although I hope for the latter of course.
Tonight (This is up here for the game mexcanics alone - not just the fact it won the flowjam by @PixelPizza )
Stacy’s (Its not even pixel art… Is that legal?)
Nyctophobia (Chilling game with a quest and strange creatures with a journey through the darkness)
Apocalypse Arena (Nuff said Grazer. Nuff said.)
Starblast Finale (A beautiful end to the series with the epic Starblast finale leading to @CrimsonBlackGames Exit…)
Outpost Omnicron (Art on point, graphics and effects amazing, this game is a near masterpice by @todorrobot )
Amazing Legboy (this game was just O_O - is this possible?)
A Box ( heart warming stroy by @rcreger on a free account. One flowlab project for the ages!)
Pixel Sports by @Superstargames (fun and entertaining, this game is so developed and has so much to so it has comr a long way!)
A Tale of Light and Darkness (Me being biast)
Dead Rising (The art is fantastic and @GrimProductionZ has made this awesome game still in development)
That’s my list up to now. No offence to any games I did not mention, probably have not played so don’t know. @meburningslime this is my response. @grazer you agree with ones up here that are not featured
@“The Kodex”, I think there should also be a #Sports category as well.
Speaking of which, I think here on Flowlab, sports isn’t the most popular game theme being used. So far, I only found 49 games when I searched up “sports” (there may be more, there may be less, but that’s the amount I found), with Pixel Sports being the most favorite and a game called “Sports are litt” being the most played. I think adding a #Sports category will give more attention not just to my own game, but also to everyone else who has made a sports-themed game.
That’s just my own idea, the other tags/categories may just be more relevant, but still.