What do you think about mood tags on IFDB?

General IF Community Resources
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Recent discussions about tags on IFDB and about improving automated game recommendations on IFDB (possibly using tags) got me wondering if it would be helpful to have more tags about the overall feel of the game. I’ve seen some tags like “cute” for cute games, but mostly I haven’t noticed many tags along these lines. Genre information can be helpful for this kind of thing, but many games don’t have genre information.

The main drawbacks of these kinds of tags (that I can think of) are that they’d be subjective, they could look like a negative judgment on the game (especially if the author doesn’t agree with them), they could be spoilery, and they could be difficult to standardize.

On the other hand, if there’s a game you really like, and you want to find more games like it, it would be nice to be able to get recommendations that have a similar vibe.

Thoughts? Would you find these kinds of tags helpful?

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More tags like that would definitely be helpful, in my view. They’re not any more spoilery than a preview for a movie.

They’re one of the things I would hope to see come out of the proposed IFDB Tagfest 2024.

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Sounds like it would be hard to get any appreciable number filled in. How about automated sentiment analysis on reviews and blurbs?

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I was thinking that, for a game that turns tragic (when it’s not apparent, going in, that it’s going to have a sad ending), labeling something “sad” or “tragic” could give away more than people want to know. But that wouldn’t apply to every game.

It could be interesting to figure out what kinds of descriptive words are already being used in reviews, to help figure out what “standard” tags might be useful.

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It’s a little hard. What kind of tags would others feel are useful? And would it be adjectives or nouns?

For instance, lets say I take the most-rated games of the last 10 years (which I assume would be among the games people are most familiar with). If someone said ‘put mood tags on these’ I would put:

Birdland–funny, dreamlike, romantic, awkward

The Wizard Sniffer–funny, heroic, silly

Superluminal Vagrant Twin–wonder, exciting, adventurous

Toby’s Nose–cynical, worldly

With Those We Love Alive–ennui, grotesque

the uncle who works for nintendo–dread, grim

Eat Me–grotesque, macabre, wry

Creatures Such As We–ennui, wonder, romantic

16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds–funny, dangerous

80 DAYS–adventurous, wonder

Midnight. Swordfight.–grotesque, funny, wonder, grim, urbane

Lime Ergot–grotesque, grim , wry

The Impossible Bottle–wonder, mundane

Bogeyman–grim, macabre, grotesque

Cactus Blue Motel–wonder, nostalgic, fantastical

Harmonia–academic, wonder, supsenseful

Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!–silly, funny, adventurous

Color the Truth–(??? not sure) mundane, grim,

And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One–nostalgic, wistful

Alias ‘The Magpie’–funny, urbane, silly

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6

Spoilers are overrated.

Let’s take a famous example: 9:05, which is tagged as “twist”. Are you surprised? Would the game have been spoiled for you had you observed that tag before playing it?

I get that the game’s original impact only exists because nobody expected the ending, but at this point I would think that most people who play the game do so because they know about this salient feature.

There is much more value gained in having the tag (which a user who enjoyed that feature can click on to see more games that share that feature) than there is lost by potentially “spoiling” the experience of playing it for someone who insists that they know nothing about the game beforehand. For people like that, the simple solution is for them to not look at tags. (And, yes, I see the irony of preceding statements in the context of my review of The Act of Misdirection. I didn’t look at the tags before playing, and if I had, I’m 99% confident that my overall enjoyment would have been comparable.)

The only reason I look at tags at all are either

  • to help make up my mind about whether or not to play it if the title, cover and blurb haven’t already convinced me, or
  • to specifically use them to look for games that are similar in some way.

To use your hypothetical example, people who like tragedies like tragedies. They seek them out because they are tragedies. I would think that the average user who finds themselves playing an unexpectedly tragic game would be surprised on the downside (i.e. confused, disappointed or even annoyed). The ones who would be delighted are… people who like tragedies!

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I’m guessing that wouldn’t have spoiled much for me, because that tag is pretty vague.

I probably would not have wanted to see a “tragic” tag before playing Photopia, though. And I do look at tags when deciding whether or not to play a game. (The issue of spoilers in tags on IFDB has been brought up before, and I don’t think it’s a reason to avoid tagging things in general, but I do think it’s a reason to be careful what tags are applied, since right now there’s no way to mark specific tags as spoilers. So, to be clear, I’m not trying to say “No one should apply any mood tags on IFDB.”)

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When I think about mood tags, the first thing that comes to mind is The Storygraph, which has a mood tag category that uses the following:

  • adventurous
  • challenging
  • dark
  • emotional
  • funny
  • hopeful
  • informative
  • inspiring
  • lighthearted
  • mysterious
  • reflective
  • relaxing
  • sad
  • tense

I’m not suggesting copying this list exactly or anything, but if people are having trouble getting their minds around what mood tagging would look like, I thought it might be helpful to have an example of a set of tags from a database that seems to be using this type of tag pretty successfully.

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That seems like a helpful list.

I’m curious what “challenging” means for Storygraph. I could imagine it meaning that the vocabulary or structure makes a book take a greater-than-average effort to read. But I could also imagine someone using “challenging” to describe a story that deliberately makes the reader uncomfortable. (Is there a word for that?)

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Searching for books tagged as “challenging”, I’m seeing it used both of those ways (and the former has two distinct subcategories, “experimental” and “dense and complex”, though of course some books are both). Which is kind of an inherent problem with user-applied tags, I think: individual users are going to apply them according to their understanding of the meaning, and there might not be as much consensus on a narrow and specific definition as you would hope there would be when using them to search.

So it’s not a fully avoidable problem, IMO, but if we were to brainstorm a pool of mood tags to use on IFDB, I would certainly support having, say, “experimental”, “complex”, and “discomforting” in there separately.

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11

I know when tagging and content-warning my games, sometimes it starts to resemble that stern-voiced pre-warning on classic HBO for an R-rated movie:

“The following film includes adult language, adult situations, violence, and nudity. Parental discretion is advised.”

While all that may be true, I agree that there’s a big difference from hearing this before Schindler’s List as opposed to Porky’s Revenge.

I think it’s a good idea though. Like a “bummer scale” (it would need a better name of course). People could rate 1-5 and it could be cumulative.

For example:

  • Varicella, DeBaron, Warbler’s Nest, Taghairm, January would land at 4 or 5 on the bummer scale indicating the violence is not comical or slapstick, and the adult language and themes aren’t fun poop jokes.
  • Taco Fiction, Hunger Daemon, Brain Guzzlers from Beyond would be a 1-2 on the bummer scale indicating there are some adult themes but the presentation is more lighthearted and not intended to traumatize you.
  • Eat Me, Bogeyman, My Father’s Long, Long Legs would land around 3 - weird supernatural, non-realistic “fun” horror which is somewhat serious but stylized not to keep you awake at night.

The higher the bummer score, the more likely you won’t want to play this game if you’re seeking diversion from tragedy and seriousness. And it’s less spoiler-y than subjective adjectives.

It could be shown similar to the star-rating, but with lightning bolts :zap: :zap: or progressive emojis :smiley: :slightly_smiling_face: :no_mouth: :anguished: :disappointed_relieved:

Maybe “trauma scale” would be a better term?

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12

Looking at your list and mathbrush’s list, and thinking some more about what I might include or add, here are some possibilities I was thinking about. I’m not touching on content warning type stuff on this list–at least not much. Also, my list is not meant to be something that other people are obligated to use, and it’s also not a final draft or anything like that.

  • adventurous
  • acerbic
  • bittersweet
  • bleak
  • cheerful
  • child-friendly
  • creepy
  • cute
  • dark
  • disturbing
  • dramatic
  • emotional
  • farce
  • funny
  • goofy/silly (or something like that–not sure of the best word)
  • something like gross/squicky/nauseating but I don’t know a good word for it
  • gory (or gore? mild gore? intense gore?)
  • horror (mild horror, intense horror, body horror…)
  • hopeful/optimistic
  • imaginative
  • lighthearted
  • macabre
  • mysterious
  • peaceful
  • pessimistic (does this sound too much like a judgment?)
  • reflective/thoughtful
  • relaxing
  • sad
  • satirical
  • sense of wonder (I know what I mean by this, but I wonder if there’s a better word for it?)
  • serious
  • surreal
  • suspenseful
  • sweet
  • whimsical
  • wordplay (I know this isn’t a mood, but it’s a distinct category in my mind, and I think people who like one wordplay game would probably be inclined to like other wordplay games, so I’m including it anyway. Alternatively, can we add “wordplay” as a genre to wordplay games if we are not the author?)
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This seems like a good start!

I do see what you’re getting at here, but I’m not sure it’s worth splitting “viscerally icky” (as it were) off from the more general “disturbing” given the difficulty of finding a word for it that doesn’t sound too judgemental.

You can! IFDB is functionally a wiki; you can edit any part of any entry.

There also is a “wordplay” tag on IFDB already with 50 uses, so regardless of whether it falls under the “mood” heading or not, it might be worth spending some time during TagFest finding games that don’t have it but could use it.

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A lot of these make sense to me. There are some words, though, (like “awkward” and “mundane”) that could be ambiguous–like, people might interpret that as saying the game is awkwardly/badly written, or that it’s an ordinary, boring game, when I don’t think that’s what you mean.

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15

Some words? :smile:

I’ve been holding my tongue on this topic, as I don’t want to be censorious. For me, almost all mood tags are too subjective. I guess if you use them, you just have to accept their range going in.

Someone’s dark is my black humour. My version of Melancholy seems to be 75% of things I like, not placing me in any kind of down mood but an excited one incompatible with common use of the word. I’ve been punching at melancholy like it was some kind of blancmange ever since they tried to make me understand Keats’s ode to melancholy in high school. Bummer will always be a judgment.

In reviews, I can articulate what I mean by any of these words. I’ll just keep my own moods there, but good luck to others on the mood drive.

-Wade

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Maybe a bummer/trauma scale would be a little more objective if, instead of a number, each point on the scale was named after a really well-known book/movie/game that was similar. :slight_smile: (I’m mostly joking. It might look a little odd to have tags that said “Trauma Rating: Lord of the Flies” or whatever.)

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The content of this game was:

  1. Fun - anyone can enjoy this
  2. Interesting - most people will enjoy this
  3. Thought-provoking - some people might like this
  4. Challenging - this is not for everyone
  5. Disturbing - this might traumatize certain people

:zap: :zap: :zap: :zap: :zap:
:full_moon: :waxing_gibbous_moon: :last_quarter_moon: :waning_crescent_moon: :new_moon:

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I like that! So 1 could be Six, 2 could be Dr Ludwig And The Devil, 3 maybe Repeat The Ending? (Maybe something a little less heavy? …), 4 probably Bogeyman, and 5 probably De Baron. That sound about right?

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I’m not saying I have a great solution, but most of these words have other meanings beyond the way they are being used here. A game can be innocuous but not necessarily fun, for example (it might be boring). Or it can have some disturbing elements without being particularly thought-provoking. Scales are hard.

Edited to add:

This is kind of fun, though:

I am basically interpreting this as
:full_moon: Mood: very light (is there a better word for this?)
:waning_gibbous_moon: Mood: light
:last_quarter_moon: Mood: mixed? medium? (I don’t know what to call this)
:waning_crescent_moon: Mood: dark
:new_moon: Mood: very dark

or maybe

:full_moon: Mood: light
:waning_gibbous_moon: Mood: mostly light
:last_quarter_moon: Mood: mixed? medium? (I don’t know what to call this)
:waning_crescent_moon: Mood: mostly dark
:new_moon: Mood: dark

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Look, the five kinds of IF are obviously ahroun, galliard, philodox, theurge, and ragabash, I don’t know what other tags we’d need.

(Any World of Darkness heads in the house? No?)

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