Huh, this looks it’s working quite well – is one element of it looking at games mentioned in reviews? Otherwise it’s kind of uncanny that an old game like Lock & Key would point first of all to a game from last year’s EctoComp, because I’m not sure what other data from IFDB would pick up on the fact that the premise and mechanics are actually very similar!
EDIT: oh duh, it’s the tags: “dungeon creation”, only two games listed, guess which they are!
EDIT 2: actually it’s looking like the tags are quite powerful – I was curious about Unscientific Fiction, since I’ve never heard of it and it showed up on a couple lists. Turns out it doesn’t have an especially high average or number of ratings, but does share the low-entry “slapstick” tag (only 7 games) with Alias ‘The Magpie’… Not saying that’s a bad approach at all, it’s just interesting to think about (especially since I personally never tag stuff on IFDB, but maybe that would be helpful!)