"Crystal Ball" Personalized Game Recommendations

General IF Community Resources
1

Although the “similar games” experimental feature is available for testing, I’ve still been tinkering with various ideas for automated game recommendations using IFDB data.

The “Crystal Ball” for making personalized game recommendations has been getting better results with its most recent iteration, and I’d like to see how well it works for people other than me. If nothing on your to-play list looks compelling at the moment and/or you’d like to try your luck, then post here or PM me with the following details:

  1. the last game that you enjoyed that feels closest to the kind of game you’re after now
  2. your IFDB username, if it’s not obvious from your username and/or your real name shown here

Some caveats to note:

  • If you haven’t entered enough ratings for games on IFDB, the Crystal Ball won’t be able to provide a personalized result set for you and will go with generic recommendations.

  • If you have played games but not entered that information on IFDB, those games might be recommended to you; the Crystal Ball isn’t actually magical and can’t know that you’ve already played them without data.

  • The Crystal Ball uses the publicly-available backup data, which was last updated around the end of the first week of March. Games newly entered since then – as well as game ratings that you’ve entered since then – won’t be reflected in the results. I plan to update the model with the data update that should become available next month.

2 Likes
2

The database for automated game recommendations has been updated with the Jun 01 data from IFDB, and it’s working better than ever! Here are sample generic recommendations (i.e. Magic 8-Ball) for some recent games:

Gardening Simulator 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Gardening Simulator								|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Six												|
| Der Garten										|
| Sub Rosa											|
| Gardening for Beginners							|
| Eat Me											|
| the 500 rooms										|
| 'Steading of the Hill Giant Chief					|
| Bureau of Strange Happenings						|
| Towers of Hanoi									|
| Guilded Youth										|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Witch Hedwig and the Magic Berries Brew 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Witch Hedwig and the Magic Berries Brew			|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Mirror and Queen									|
| Oppositely Opal									|
| Fixing Time: A Hack & Makerspace Adventure		|
| Grandpa's Ranch									|
| Carpathian Vampire								|
| Tempus Fugit: The Past is Yet Unwritten			|
| Grandma's Flying Saucer							|
| The Mystery of Winchester High					|
| Charming											|
| Dessert Island Adventure							|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Mystic Sands: It’s All Greek To Me! 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:													|
| Mystic Sands: It’s All Greek To Me!						|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:												|
| The Xylophoniad											|
| Bitsy Orpheus												|
| Lysidice and the Minotaur									|
| Eurydice													|
| Lyreless													|
| Jason and Medea											|
| Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: The Text Adventure	|
| Sisyphus													|
| Hebe														|
| Plundered Hearts											|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Retool Looter 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:													|
| Retool Looter												|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:												|
| Counterfeit Monkey										|
| The Maze Gallery											|
| PARANOIA													|
| Red Door Yellow Door										|
| For a Place by the Putrid Sea								|
| It can't be true it mustn't be true						|
| The Princess of Vestria									|
| Sundown													|
| Studio													|
| He Knows That You Know and Now There's No Stopping Him	|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Mud Warriors 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Mud Warriors										|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Ryan Veeder's Mud Warriors						|
| Taco Fiction										|
| The Little Match Girl 2: Annus Evertens			|
| Ollie Ollie Oxen Free								|
| Give Me Your Lunch Money							|
| Lime Ergot										|
| Survival Horror									|
| 'Mid the Sagebrush and the Cactus					|
| Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom					|
| Kerkerkruip										|
+---------------------------------------------------+

As always, I’m looking for feedback and suggestions to improve these. Try your luck with generic recommendations, or get your virtual palm read and receive personalized recommendations from the Crystal Ball!

2 Likes
3

Following are some more examples of the current iteration of Magic 8-Ball, which I guess could be designated Mark IV. The second list is based on a game recommended from the first list, the third from the second, etc. (The idea is to simulate a particular player’s trajectory if they are actually using the recommendations.)

Winter-Over 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Winter-Over										|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| Miss Gosling's Last Case							|
| The Killings in Wasacona							|
| The Den											|
| Sundown											|
| Hauntless											|
| Underwall: An Arcane Mystery						|
| Type Help											|
| notes on the disappearance of a sister			|
| Murder at the Manor								|
| Erstwhile											|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Miss Gosling's Last Case 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Miss Gosling's Last Case							|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed				|
| Winter-Over										|
| Detective Osiris									|
| Erstwhile											|
| Dangerous Curves									|
| Forsaken Denizen									|
| [PYG]MALION*										|
| Christminster										|
| Curses											|
| The Killings in Wasacona							|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Christminster 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Christminster										|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| Curses											|
| Jigsaw											|
| Return to Ditch Day								|
| Trinity											|
| The Lurking Horror								|
| The King of Shreds and Patches					|
| Counterfeit Monkey								|
| Losing Your Grip									|
| The Mulldoon Legacy								|
| Eidolon											|
+---------------------------------------------------+
The King of Shreds and Patches 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| The King of Shreds and Patches					|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| Slouching Towards Bedlam							|
| Lydia's Heart										|
| Counterfeit Monkey								|
| Christminster										|
| Nightfall											|
| City of Secrets									|
| Alabaster											|
| Plundered Hearts									|
| Theatre											|
| Blue Lacuna										|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Slouching Towards Bedlam 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Slouching Towards Bedlam							|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| The King of Shreds and Patches					|
| Delusions											|
| Vespers											|
| Till Death Makes a Monk-Fish Out of Me			|
| Violet											|
| Varicella											|
| Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels			|
| Photopia											|
| Christminster										|
| Strange Geometries								|
+---------------------------------------------------+

Remember that these are the generic recommendations based on tag data and various stastical derivatives of player rating patterns and clustering. The goal is that any given person will find some good recommendations on the list, not that any given person will think all of the recommendations on the list are good. (Since people like games for different reasons, this is to be expected.) Popularity does affect placement significantly, but it’s not the only factor.

I think it’s working pretty decently, but that could be just because I built the model. What’s your opinion?

I think it’s…
  • working well
  • mostly working
  • half-working
  • working a little
  • not really working at all
0 voters
2 Likes
4

Another short walk through some new and improved Magic 8-Ball (i.e. generic) recommendations:

The Spectators 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| The Spectators									|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Little Glass Slipper								|
| Dark and Deep										|
| What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed				|
| Fairest											|
| Napier's Cache									|
| Intro to Jabberwocky								|
| In a minute there is time							|
| Nautilisia										|
| Something Blue									|
| A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things					|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Little Glass Slipper 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:																									|
| Little Glass Slipper																						|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:																								|
| The Spectators																							|
| Suspended in the air so that all of your weight is concentrated on a single point halfway down your spine	|
| Cinderella - happily ever after																			|
| Something Blue																							|
| hanging & wiving goes by destiny																			|
| He Knows That You Know and Now There's No Stopping Him													|
| The Withering Gaze of the Earth																			|
| Kingmaker																									|
| MARTYR ME																									|
| American Maniac																							|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Something Blue 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:													|
| Something Blue											|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:												|
| He Knows That You Know and Now There's No Stopping Him	|
| First Draft of the Revolution								|
| hanging & wiving goes by destiny							|
| Les lettres du Docteur Jeangille							|
| Letters													|
| Missive													|
| Concerto of Life 1st Mvt.									|
| Rites of a Mailmare										|
| Little Glass Slipper										|
| The Spectators											|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Missive 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Missive											|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Letters											|
| First Draft of the Revolution						|
| Les lettres du Docteur Jeangille					|
| Something Blue									|
| Birthday Simulator 2								|
| Jigsaw											|
| Six												|
| CC's Road to Stardom								|
| Grimnoir											|
| Shuffling Around									|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Grimnoir 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Grimnoir											|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| The Myothian Falcon								|
| Death Attends The Matinee							|
| 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds			|
| Detectiveland										|
| Sherlock Indomitable								|
| Redjackets										|
| Missive											|
| Detective Osiris									|
| Rite of Passage									|
| Meeting Robb Sherwin								|
+---------------------------------------------------+

[EDIT: Oops – copied wrong middle title for the chain. Now corrected.]

It’s pretty much guaranteed that some of the recommendations on the generic list will be ones that you think aren’t good matches – that’s the point of the personalized recommendations (Crystal Ball), to try to increase the ratio of good recommendations from your personal perspective.

Crystal Ball is still under development, so I need volunteers for testing. Step right up and get your fortune told – no waiting!

1 Like
5

Another short walk through a chain of generic recommendations, to help inform the “how is it working?” poll.

The Bible Retold: Following a Star 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| The Bible Retold: Following a Star				|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| The Bible Retold: The Lost Sheep					|
| Tenth Plague										|
| Cana According To Micah							|
| First Things First								|
| Christminster										|
| Perdition's Flames								|
| The Bible Retold: The Bread and the Fishes		|
| The Legend Lives!									|
| ADVENT											|
| Jesus of Nazareth									|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Perdition's Flames 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Perdition's Flames								|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| First Things First								|
| Beet the Devil									|
| Excuse Me, Do You Have The Time?					|
| All Hope Abandon									|
| Curses											|
| Once and Future									|
| The Legend Lives!									|
| The Bible Retold: Following a Star				|
| Ka												|
| Tapestry											|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Ka 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Ka												|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Detective Osiris									|
| Tapestry											|
| The Life (and Deaths) of Doctor M					|
| Perdition's Flames								|
| The 12:54 to Asgard								|
| Beyond											|
| Infidel											|
| In a Tomb with a Donkey							|
| Voices											|
| All Hope Abandon									|
+---------------------------------------------------+
In a Tomb with a Donkey 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| In a Tomb with a Donkey							|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Escape the Egyptian Tomb							|
| Detective Osiris									|
| Ka												|
| The Bones of Rosalinda							|
| The Queen's Footsteps								|
| Much Love, BJP									|
| Mirror and Queen									|
| Charming											|
| Tuuli												|
| Oppositely Opal									|
+---------------------------------------------------+
The Bones of Rosalinda 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| The Bones of Rosalinda							|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| The Trials of Rosalinda							|
| Flight of the Necrovoyager						|
| Dude, Where's My Scapula?							|
| Hallowmoor										|
| In a Tomb with a Donkey							|
| Barry Basic and the Quick Escape					|
| Plasmorphosis										|
| Chuk and the Arena								|
| 4 Little Mice										|
| Lux												|
+---------------------------------------------------+

The first volunteer for Crystal Ball testing has contacted me by PM and been given a list of ten games, and I’ll be very eager to hear back about how useful the recommendations were.

Who wants to be the second?

6

The poll average so far is in the vicinity of “mostly working,” which is encouraging!

You may wonder: Why am I working on this? The answer is that I’m thinking about browsability for IF. According to a recent poll of PCT Fans, the most popular methods of learning about new games are:

  • competitions and jams
  • recommended lists on IFDB
  • seeing discussions on this forum

There are over 14,000 games on IFDB, and the overwhelming majority of them will 1) not have been in a recent competition or jam, 2) not be on any recommended list and 3) never have been mentioned on this forum. The recommended lists are the most likely source of older, more obscure games, but, fun fact: They only cover about a sixth of games listed, and 60 popular games cover half of the total mentions across all reclists.

The feedback from last year helped a lot in getting Magic 8-Ball to this point. I think that similar levels of feedback could also help a lot with Crystal Ball, but, though I can compare generic recommendations to game blurbs to see whether they make any kind of sense, for personalized recommendations this is impossible – only the person for whom the output was customized can judge whether that output is better or worse.

In the meantime, here’s another short walk through generic recommendations to help you decide how to vote in the poll above. (Watch out for the cat game nexus in the second-to-last batch.)

Octopus's Garden 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:																	|
| Octopus's Garden															|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:																|
| An Account of Your Visit to the Enchanted House & What You Found There	|
| La fugue d'un homme-poulpe												|
| Ether																		|
| Fingertips: Fingertips													|
| The Life (and Deaths) of Doctor M											|
| Nine Lives																|
| The Blue Lettuce															|
| The Wizard Sniffer														|
| Beyond Division															|
| Toby's Nose																|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Ether 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:																	|
| Ether																		|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:																|
| Untold Riches																|
| Witch's Girl																|
| Bobby and Bonnie															|
| A Bear's Night Out														|
| Castle Doomstone															|
| Wishbringer																|
| Earth and Sky																|
| Forever Meow																|
| 年獸文字冒險遊戲 | The Beast, Nian: A Chinese Text Adventure					|
| Six																		|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Bobby and Bonnie 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Bobby and Bonnie									|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| Six												|
| Give Me Your Lunch Money							|
| Dragon Adventure									|
| Witch's Girl										|
| Recess At Last									|
| Snack Time!										|
| The Chasing										|
| The Lonely Troll									|
| A Bear's Night Out								|
| The Legend of the Missing Hat						|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Snack Time! 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Snack Time!										|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| The Bright Blue Ball								|
| Ralph												|
| A Bear's Night Out								|
| Best Gopher Ever									|
| Six												|
| The Lonely Troll									|
| A Day for Soft Food								|
| Adventures with Fido								|
| Bobby and Bonnie									|
| Baking with Lizzie								|
+---------------------------------------------------+
A Day for Soft Food 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| A Day for Soft Food								|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| MIGHT LIKE:										|
| New Cat											|
| Forever Meow										|
| Cat Simulator 2016								|
| Cat Simulator 3000								|
| Cat Petting Simulator 2014						|
| Ralph												|
| Snack Time!										|
| You've Got a Stew Going!							|
| Nyna Lives										|
| Nine Lives										|
+---------------------------------------------------+
Ralph 
+---------------------------------------------------+
| LIKED:											|
| Ralph												|
+---------------------------------------------------+
| Snack Time!										|
| Toby's Nose										|
| The Bright Blue Ball								|
| Space Adventure Laika								|
| You've Got a Stew Going!							|
| Adventures with Fido								|
| Custard & Mustard's Big Adventure					|
| Sunny's Summer Vacation							|
| A Day for Soft Food								|
| Glass												|
+---------------------------------------------------+
1 Like
7

While I wait for more volunteers for Crystal Ball, let’s make a game/demonstration out of testing Magic 8-Ball. We’ll start with… Limerick Heist, which I’ve never played.

Which of the following recommendations is the best choice for someone who liked Limerick Heist?
0 voters
8

OK. The simulated player chose Limerick Quest. The player then asks for more generic recommendations from that game and gets the following.

Which of the following recommendations is the best choice for someone who liked Limerick Qusst?
0 voters
9

The tricky thing about this for me is that the three games in the same series are unquestionably the most similar to each other, but if you liked one, you don’t actually need the 8-Ball to find the others, so I’m not sure they’re the best recommendations.

1 Like
10

OK. The imaginary player is big on limericks, it seems, and picked Limerick Night. Then the player looks for another game. (Since these are generic recommendations, previously-played games aren’t excluded, but for personalized recommendations they are.)

Which of the following recommendations is the best choice for someone who liked Limerick Night?
0 voters
11

I didn’t even know they were a series. As stated above: “The goal [for generic recommendations] is that any given person will find some good recommendations on the list, not that any given person will think all of the recommendations on the list are good.” How do the other eight on each list fare in your view?

12

I’m not blaming or criticizing you or saying that the tool is working badly, and I’m not saying games in the same series shouldn’t be there—we had that discussion already and most people seemed to feel that they should. I am just contemplating the question of how to select the best recommendation in this specific situation.

1 Like
13

This one is an interesting case. I thought at first that I didn’t recognize any of the non-Limerick games until I clicked on them and remembered playing them; they just weren’t that memorable.

Like EJ, I think you should exclude Limerick Quest and Limerick Heist from this most recent poll (unless I misunderstood their opinion) because they’re a set of three extremely similar games, far more similar to each other than the other games, so it’s kind of confusing, because it makes me think: “Does otis know? Is this a trick? I mean, obviously Limerick Night is much closer; is this a test to see if people will go for the obvious choice? Or are we meant to pick a different game because we already covered the other 2 limerick games in another poll?”

I voted for a non “Limerick” game because I took the interpretation that you just forget you already covered those two games.

All the other games are combinations of poetry and gameplay. The Limerick games are puzzly games that use the Limericks just for fun. Many of the other games are very self-serious poetical games that are primarily poetry with little action. I clicked ‘Into Darkness’ because it seemed to be another ‘game first, poetry second’ type game.

1 Like
14

I’m not criticizing your preference for “something different, but not too different” recommendations, either! It’s supposed to be a useful tool for you, too, after all.

It’s just that it’s kind of the nature of how Magic 8-Ball works that games in the same series will tend to recommend each other, so I’m asking how well the items lower down on each list meet your preferences. (They do get farther afield, because there are only so many limerick-centric games on IFDB.)

1 Like
15

OK. The simulated user picked the tricky-for-the-forum-software ~~~ Into Darkness ~~~. There are now new recommendations:

Which of the following recommendations is the best choice for someone who liked ~~~ Into Darkness ~~~?
0 voters
16

No tricks! (Though I didn’t know those three were a series.) This is just a field test of the current iteration of the models. Those are the actual recommendations coming out for each game – I’m not editing the selections, just formatting them into polls.

Again, the idea of this game is to simulate someone using the generic recommendations to find new games. Any selection is valid! The implication of the choices so far is that the simulated user was enjoying the limerick action and so stuck to that series – something that seems like it could happen easily in real life. Now that group of games has been “mined out” and it’s necessary to pick a new direction.

(Also, anyone who wants to try out personalized recommendations for any of these games – or others – is welcome to submit a request.)

1 Like
17

I think Mathbrush’s choice of Into Darkness is the best one for the slightly spooky Limerick Night, for sure—they’re both short horror games in verse (that are not, like, too too scary), although I think the Limerick games are more humorous.

Forevermore is also a decent pull (it’s about poetry rather than being written in verse, but it has a similar “mostly silly, slightly spooky or at least Halloweeny” vibe), and while I haven’t played A Tale of the Cave it looks like that one might also be fitting—it’s certainly humorous and in verse, anyway. Phenomena and THROW. MARIA. OVERBOARD are definitely more serious and arty and not necessarily things I’d assume people who enjoy the Limerick games would like, and I’m not familiar with the rest but Kotodama and Étude Circulár look similar. Escape from the Wizard’s Castle I don’t think I can judge without looking into it further.

For Into Darkness, I get that anything in the horror genre is likely to come up with mostly Charm Cochran games because they tag their games so heavily, but I don’t think any of them are really terribly similar to Into Darkness at all. I don’t know the other three (Survival Horror, A Fire Darkly, Please Leave a Message), so I can’t comment on those.

1 Like
18

The simulated player picked A Fire Darkly: Chapter 1, so there’s a new set from which to choose (with some overlap of the previous set).

Which of the following recommendations is the best choice for someone who liked A Fire Darkly: Chapter 1?
0 voters
19

Charm Cochran games don’t get any special preference, though it is true that games with more tags tend to be mentioned more often in a model driven by tag matches. From what I can see, much of the weighting in this case is being driven by the relatively-rare creepy tag. About 40% of uses of that tag are for Charm Cochran games, and the overall correlation with that subset must be higher than for the rest.

The theoretical question that Magic 8-Ball is geared toward isn’t “Which games are most similar to Game X?”, it’s “If I enjoyed Game X, which other games am I most likely to enjoy?” In general, there is a correlation between the two, but they’re not the same. (For example, in your case, you prefer to disqualify games that are too similar to Game X, and I’m sure other people feel the same.) Of course, it’s limited by the data that is available.

20

Yes, that’s all I was saying! I did not intend to imply that the algorithm was designed to favor certain games or authors. It’s just a quirk of how the model works and I don’t think you can or necessarily should do anything about it (or any more than you have done by encouraging people to use IFDB tags more, anway!), just that in this case it happened to produce a lot of matches that I personally would not recommend to someone who said they liked Into Darkness.

I’m sorry if my comments in this thread have been coming across as overly harsh or critical. I really don’t mean them to, I’m just kind of musing on the subject of recommendations and what I would want out of them.