Looking Ahead to a 2026 Play Event [decided: Great Play Marathon]

I’m a little surprised to see The Great Play Marathon in the lead, but I’m game!

I haven’t done a lot of thinking about this one yet. It would be a relatively low-intensity event, with some of the action taking place on IFDB. I would probably be updating a map showing everyone’s positions on the field, and there would be a thread where each player could post (and keep updating) a record of the course taken so far.

A quick check of the top 3% of games (per the IFDB Top 100 ranking algorithm) shows that the list includes some games with as few as 3 actual ratings. An example random pick of 30 from the qualifying list would be:

IFDB ID				 TITLE
----------------	 ---------------------------------------------------
dkx1r6fivxc1j3u7 	 Ekphrasis                                                                      
f810fngvnv1zbxqg 	 Der Angstbaum                                                                  
7t6bcdrkbrs9r1de 	 Faute De Servo                                                                 
es0sfij74uu4barv 	 ♥Magical Makeover♥                                                             
ewqmndkzozvwfi7u 	 New Year's Eve, 2019                                                           
zqokrx6glbvfw1d  	 Draculaland                                                                    
pwyjp54iubdq70p0 	 Sunset Over Savannah                                                           
3wdf1dn5z6vcuyki 	 In the Pale Moonlight                                                          
kj2v3ajmxz136o9f 	 Kelly Unicornstrider and Friends (1982-1985)                                   
xf82b1nwypjiobko 	 Of Their Shadows Deep                                                          
ajf5z3ue5mtj948l 	 Known Unknowns                                                                 
m85rnpq6x77jyzc3 	 Delusions                                                                      
w5s3sv43s3p98v45 	 The Gostak                                                                     
61dstzf063sjkw93 	 The Book of Living Magic                                                       
urxrv27t7qtu52lb 	 Galatea                                                                        
01efmfsk4r79mtks 	 Floatpoint                                                                     
9bgglbug7g1fxlxe 	 CosmoServe: an Adventure Game for the BBS-Enslaved                             
10387w68qlwehbyq 	 The Moonlit Tower                                                              
u4u57v2ggfcqvll7 	 The Only Possible Prom Dress                                                   
l7jp0brwz4s1jdr  	 Castle, Forest, Island, Sea                                                    
6qp3g7te26h3rb5u 	 According to Cain                                                              
s9nuslkgsb436b1q 	 Secret Agent Cinder                                                            
itbz82mwebzqjfvm 	 El Archipiélago                                                                
c9ll6cr8zr1txtfe 	 A Bear's Night Out                                                             
jawdo36ohg0br4mx 	 Estado Profundo                                                                
1iqmpkn009h9gbug 	 Raising the Flag on Mount Yo Momma                                             
pw1rbjt1t4n4n87s 	 Junior Arithmancer                                                             
4bddum51nb6c568t 	 Tavern Crawler                                                                 
yghs5x72086bkewt 	 Ofrenda a la Pincoya                                                           
6gspor90p8s1s1b  	 The Eleusinian Miseries                                                        

Note that this is NOT the field that would be used, just a sample of the kind of field that might result from random picks among the top 3%.

In some sample sets I generated, some of the entries had no links to playable games and/or used dubious non-standard formats (such as Flash or custom websites), so I’d look for a way to screen those. Some are in languages other than English, but I’d be inclined to leave those in.

In this sample set, I’ve played about 1/3 of the entries, and 8 of them (27%) appeared in previous play events. It might be desirable to have a larger field (e.g. 48 or 54 entries).

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