I’ve always done randomized order, but I realized last year that I was just ending up playing like twenty games I didn’t enjoy at all before I got to anything that I liked, and it was making me cranky and bitter about what was supposed to be a fun hobby, so this time I’m just going to go for whatever looks fun and interesting to me.
10 Likes
I try to go with randomized sorting, but if a game throws me for a loop, I have a list of stuff I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy, so I’m in a good mood to tackle works I might not really mesh well with. I don’t mind pushing an entry to the back of my list.
It took me a while to feel bad about sort of ignoring authors, but
- If it’s a choice between no judging/reviewing and cranky judging/reviewing I go with the first.
- as The_Xenographer already noted, you can wear yourself out quickly feeling forced to play games you aren’t in the mood for.
- it’s okay to note what other authors have to say about an entry that might confuse you, to help get your bearings.
So skip away if you need to. I say this as someone who writes stuff that many find skippable.
5 Likes
Ideally I play a horror game first out of genre loyalty. Otherwise I choose something short, easy and/or surprising (of any genre) that I feel will get my playing or reviewing ball rolling. And then I play what I’m in the mood for when I’m in the mood for it.
-Wade
3 Likes
About the “judge’s guilt”-complex, it really helps to look at the review spreadsheet and notice that different people are filling in reviews for all the different niches. Short/long, horror/slice-of-life, they all get played and reactions to them keep trickling in.
So I don’t feel worried about starting off with games I feel sure I’m going to like. I just engage the list from my side of preference and then later begin branching out.
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Between The Grown-Up Detective Agency, Headlights, Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency, Who Shot Gum E. Bear, and According to Cain, this is a great year to be a mystery lover. Outside of that, I’m very intrigued by One Final Pitbull Song. But first a few randomly sorted games.
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I am first working on January because @litrouke is my good friend and has provided endless support and advice for both me and my games. Plus he would not let me beta test as much as I hinted that I wanted to! His 10PM from a few Comps ago was extremely well written with a unique and novel interface.
I just started but had to put it down because my “what actually bothers me” stats have been recently re-rolled due to IRL issues and so far it’s extremely effective bleak apocalyptic plague survival horror.
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I jumped right in to Jim Aiken’s Sprawling puzzler, “Only Prom Dress”. Great game. I may be ready to write a review, but this post isn’t the review
After that I alternate between games by authors I know, games by new authors with great blurbs, games that look short enough to play in one sitting, and games that are fed to me by the randomized.
Doug Egan
4 Likes
That’s fantastic. If I remember right, that’s one of the few games without a review, so the author might really appreciate one.
1 Like