Mar 21, 2007
The database has changed servers. I think all the php is working now. I've also updated the database. Please notify me if you encounter problems; I'm easiest to reach as dreamfarmer on GMail.
Jan 6, 2006
The IFComp games and other misc. games are now in the DB. Happy New Year!
Jan 5, 2005
The IFComp games and other misc. stuff is now in the DB. Also, an annoying and persistent bug that prevented everybody who hadn't claimed authorship of a game from using the 'For Me' feature has been fixed. I hope. It was rather hard for me to duplicate at first, and in testing it I found another bug that only affects people who haven't RATED any games who try to use that feature... but anyhow, should be working now. Thanks to everybody who reported it.
Oct 19, 2004
Updates, expansions, crashes and comps, oh my! As you may already know, I've expanded the functionality of the Statistics page, as well as adding the ability for authors to comment on their own work. In fact, I've done this twice, as the database mysteriously vanished shortly after that and the restore lacked the Author table. My very great apologies if any ratings or comments you've done have vanished.
I still haven't found time to play the Comp games, to my embarassment. And I was so excited about them, too. But I hope everybody involved is having fun!
July 16, 2004
I updated the DB today. Hey, looks like IFComp is rolling around again. Yay!
January 30, 2004
Hey, folks. I hope the new year has been going well for everybody. Make sure to check out the nominations for the Xyzzy Awards, the IF world's own version of the Academy Awards. The nomination phase ends February 10th, and there's a list of all the games of 2003 there, so this is a great opportunity to play some more games you may not have heard of. Many of them are quite short and silly, while of course some are longer, more serious works that were released early in 2003.
December 3, 2003
There's a movement on the rec.games.interative-fiction newsgroup to restart a book club of sorts. Zoe, the initiator of this project, has suggested Perdition's Flames as the first game to be played. If you're interested in playing and discussing the game with others, Google offers a relatively pain-free way of watching and participating in the newsgroup discussion.
November 17, 2003
Hi, all. 4,381 ratings currently, 2,125 games in the DB. 589 games have multiple opinions, 930 games rated total.
The Comp03 games have been entered; congratulations to Star Foster and Daniel Ravipinto for their winning game, Slouching Towards Bedlam. Also find within the SwashComp games, an anthology of swashbuckling games.
At some point when I find a weekend, the site will be moving to http://www.ifratings.com; I'll post more details when I have them.
September 16, 2003
Good afternoon, gentle visitors. We topped 4000 ratings a couple of days ago, with 910 games containing at least one rating and 564 with multiple opinions. We're at 2052 games in the DB as of this afternoon.
IFComp is coming up fast. I'd like to encourage people to pick up the games and take a look come October. In keeping with the rules of the Comp, the games won't be listed here until after the judging period has ended.
I'm still planning on updating the site's functionality as soon as some kind person pries my Comp entry out of my hands and uploads it. I'll try to keep the work in progress off the site until it's been tested but there may occasionally be glitches, so my apologies in advance.
Have a good September!
August 20, 2003
Howdy! The ratings database is up to 3700 ratings at this point, with 872 games with at least a single rating and 539 with more than one opinion. You can expect minor improvements in functionality in October-- a way for authors to attach comments to their games without having to input a ranking, and other miscellaneous suggestions. Something I've been pondering is a 'game of the week' feature, where I or a generous volunteer picks a game that hasn't yet been rated (or only has a few ratings), plays it, and writes a mini-review as a comment. I'd list the game on the front page for its week, and maybe it could garner some more comments. I've got this nifty poll here.
Total Votes:
July 26, 2003
Here we go: Because it's come up lately, I thought I'd outline a bit of my motives in creating this website.
While the good folks on the newsgroups rec.arts.interactive-fiction and rec.games.interactive-fiction (R*IF) and the chatspace ifMUD are an integral part of this site, I didn't create it for them. I created it for people like me-- people new to the world of IF, who wanted to know not only what was good, but how long the good stuff was, and a bit of what they could expect from the games they downloaded. Baf's Guide is my source database, and it's a wonderful site, but after spending a good long while perusing the R*IF archives on Google, and reading reviews of past Comps and discussions of games, it was clear to me that the great collective brain of the community had quite varied views.
So I made a website, where people could note how long they spent on a game, what genre they associated with it, and jot down a few comments for other potential players to see. The scores here are not official. They are a barometer of what some of the minds familiar with the IF world like and don't like. "Spider and Web" is not the winner. It's just currently the best game the most people can agree on. And you know what? I didn't know that from reading R*IF archives. I didn't know that from reading Baf's Guide. I also had no clue how long "Spider and Web" took to play, which matters a lot in setting my expectations going into a game. And now I know, and I'll enjoy "Spider and Web" more for the knowing.
One of these days, I'll implement cookies that allow you to specify the way you want games presented on the statistics page to be sorted. And I do plan on having the personalized recommendation section. Meanwhile, I have a variety of ways of finding games that might appeal to you, and if you have new categories for the genre listing, or other suggestions, please do let me know. The numbers are a convenience; they're not the final score.
July 13, 2003
Up to around 3000 ratings. I've added in an email confirmation system for new accounts; existing accounts can update their account information with an email address as well in the new Account Admin page.
July 1, 2003
The new layout is out. Hurrah! The site should work across browsers now. There are already over 1300 ratings in the system, wow. I figured now would be a good time to go over the basic rules of the game:- 1 rating per game per player, please. If I catch somebody cheating, I'll get grumpy and take steps to enforce this.
- Do not put blatant spoilers in the comments. I will exercise editorial powers if I (and only I) deem it necessary. Note: Comments are presented from most recent to oldest. If you feel like a comment might ruin somebody else's experience of the game, feel free to warn readers.
- Suggestions and bug reports go to exstarsis@msn.com.
- Don't forget your password; they're encrypted in the database.
That's all, for now. Have fun!
June 26th, 2003
Minor updates: you can search by any word in a title now, and searching by author returns results sorted by current rating (for the curious authors out there). Login cookies should work across the board now. A revised layout is available, along with some statistics I'm testing; you can poke at it now if you like but be aware the non-statistical links won't work and the page may break randomly as I test things. When I've gotten the layout to my satisfaction I'll apply it to the rest of the site, so if it looks terrible on your browser, please let me know how!
Welcome to IF Ratings. It's still a bit rough around the edges here, but I hope you'll take a moment to look around. The site works best under IE at the moment, although I'd like it to be functional for other browsers as well. If you have any suggestions or comments, please freely direct them to me. Also in the works: a collaborative recommendation tool based on the ratings provided here.
| |
|