Reddit
Suggestion Post
Posted by philhassey (twitter: @philhassey)
January 9th, 2012 7:15 pm
Hey, we’re always trying to make Ludum Dare way more fun, so if you’ve got any crazy ideas, post ‘em here!
-Phil & Mike & the rest of the LD Staff
What I’d like:
- UTF-8 support in the comments! (on each game’s page)
- A way to find all my comments (so I can check if someone replied to me)
Exactly! People replied someone’s comment on their own game page, which we rarely come back to check.
I’m going to suggest something radical: scrap ratings all together.
Maybe move to a system where players can favorite/’like’ an entry and comment instead. It would solve most of the problems mentioned above and fix the overall feeling of unfairness.
I think it would successfully move the focus away from scoring and more back to the original idea to ‘gift a game’.
I saw so much plagiarism this year, it made my stomach turn. I think that’s coming from an increasing competitive vibe. If this is really is a competition than rules need to be enforced – but I’d rather see this as an event where the community comes together to lift each other up, not as a way of using numbers or percentages to put people down.
I agree with the sentiment that “this should be an event where the community comes together to lift each other up, not as a way of using numbers or percentages to put people down.”
I’m wondering (a) how big this problem is, and (b) if scrapping ratings is necessary to solve it.
I’ve said before that I’d prefer to see percentage awards, where instead of ranking people from 1 to 1000, we select the top few percent (3% ?) and give them all gold awards. Then silver/bronze maybe to the top 25% mark. Then a large “no medal” category and an “unrated” category for those who haven’t received enough ratings for an average to be computed.
People would then get placed into one of five groups, which is much softer and friendlier than being given a number.
I know this wouldn’t be a perfect fix, but I don’t think there is a perfect fix.
I really like this idea. The bit of competition I think is necessary to help encourage lots of rating and feedback, which I think is one of the strongest aspects of LD, but having a softer system like this (but still equally good to strive for) would be great.
Also not in favour of ‘polish’ as a category. It’s kinda pointless. There’s a bunch more interesting categories to have before that like storytelling/’narrative’.
It would be good to see what you rated vs. what they got. It would help people judge if they are being overly harsh/kind, but also help you next time get an idea of what pleases the judges.
Or is there a system for this already?
Another thing that would be nice is to see the distribution curves on each category. Mostly because statistics are nice, and the shape of those graphs would be interesting.
Indeed, we need more graphs.
NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS and Graphs.
I think this was already suggested, but please make notifications on comment replies. And also, more links on game page. I ran out of links. I had to combine Timelapse and post portem link to “Timelapse | Post-Mortem” so it looked like they were different links. I would say that adding a “Timelapse” and “post-compo” link would probably be enough.
Oh, one more suggestion. Rate games on a scale of 1-10. There are an increasing number of entries. Therefore, more ties and crazier results (I got beat in graphics by a text-adventure, a text-adventure shouldn’t be rated on graphics!). Rating games on a scale of 1-10 allows for more accurate ratings, because then you don’t have to think “should I rate this 2 or 3 stars” Because sometimes it should be 2.5. It just makes it easier.
A (big) suggestion: a new skin for the website!!!
It is really ugly for such a cool website with thousand of participants!
And moreover why not thinking about a responsive website? (I was often looking news and comments on mobile)
I may take some time to work with you on this responsive website if you like the idea =)
Ludumgram – The ludum dare instagram where everyone can see a mosaic with food or game screenshots from developers.
I would like a new scoring category for “Polish”.
Agree ^^
I read that as Polish, the language. Me derp.
I TOO HAVE A SUGGESTION. *trumpets*
Now, I know that a lot of these suggestions are skimmed over quite fast and most of them have either been suggested a bunch of times or are too much to ask. But I really think I have something here. So please, hear me out.
So, there’s a lot of talk about ratings. What categories there should be and what categories there shouldn’t be is the debate I think I can solve. I’ve been mulling all this over, and I think that the best solution is to make a ton of optional categories and three mandatory categories.
Here’s how it works. Aside from the mandatory three categories, there are a ton of extra categories, such as Humor, Mood, Graphics, Theme, Audio, Technological Achievement, Level Design, Usability, Replayability, Best Potato/Kitten Game, and anything else that seems like something someone might want to be judged on. Why would this help us? Because the arguments against categories are almost always about how certain games shouldn’t be judged on them.
Argument Against Graphics: “A lot of entries are text-based!”
Argument Against Audio: “Some games are better without audio!”
Argument Against Humor: “This category is an injustice to emotional moody games!”
Argument Against Mood: “This category is an injustice to stupid funny games!”
If categories were optional and only entered by people who wanted to be ranked on them, then that might end a lot of debate. Furthermore, we could add even more controversial categories like some of the ones mentioned above, and it would be okay, because if you don’t like it, you don’t enter it.
Even cooler is that people rating the games can prepare to judge the game based on its strengths rather than its weak points just by glancing over the categories its in before playing.
Now, here’s the part where you might start to disagree with me. That’s okay! I’m going to explain my personal choices for the three mandatory categories. They are:
-QUALITY
-AESTHETIC
-ORIGINALITY
Quality is basically the replacement for the Overall category. I like the word Quality better because it’s a bit more broad and at the same time more specific as to what it means, just like all the mandatory categories.
Aesthetic is the mandatory replacement for Audio/Graphics. Those two categories are available separately in the optional list for those who worked hard on their graphics or their audio. The reason why this broader category exists is because Aesthetic is a very important part of the game, and everyone should see a rating of it whether they want to or not, but they might not have the courage to enter Audio or Graphics separately. If you think that seems redundant, then let me remind you that the word Aesthetic also describes the unity of the Audio and Graphics in the coherent experience, so it could be considered a quite different thing.
Finally, Originality is also something that everyone should see regardless of whether or not they desire it. It’s basically a broader Innovation, but without the strict technological connotations. It’s about whether your idea was good, and more importantly whether your game was worth looking at. People need to know if their originality is improving, because if it is, then they’re likely getting closer to standing out and becoming a better developer.
Alternatively, if you don’t agree with my three, we could always just make Overall the only mandatory category and all the rest optional. That would likely be easier. So tell me what you think!
I think that the rating system should be a like or dislike answer to the same questions. I would find it more useful than having a number in a range from 0-5. Just to see if people liked the overall game or disliked it.
Maybe an additional submission category (similar to the JAM entries) could be added for COMPO entries that would rather be rated on a like or dislike system