Agreement too? The only further thing I can think of right now would be joking games or games about fools for April (for obvious reasons).

Lacking further input, I have completed the list in the first post with the existing suggestions. Protest welcome.

I put what we have so far in the first post. If we go for a WW1 theme, we should do it in the months the war actually began. So I'd say we scrap 'summer' (which is not so imaginative anyway).

I left out Red Baron, because it's already on the site – like History Line as well.


Totally agree.

WWI is mostly forgotten due to the second war, so I don't think it is such a touchy matter. And also a great idea for a theme.

And Red Baron of course! I just want to avoid gloryifing it too much… which might on the other hand be an interesting point for the reviews. Especially the ones about dogfights and their romanticism about chivalry and such.

That's actually a great idea, I think! Wings, Dogfight, Scenario, Dreadnoughts, Dawn Patrol, Wings of Glory…

It might be a slightly delicate matter, but next year sees the 100th aniversary of the First World War, so how about doing a WWI game theme?

Well, they have a weird mix of 2D and 3D pre-rendered, along some cheap graphical tricks for some animations. But I mean they look like very generic and bland games at first.

And Ok with the "first games" theme. The first games I played were from an old Atari when I was kid, so I'll take a look at them.

Actually I think they look great, but maybe that's just my preference for 2D comic style for adventure games. I am surprised how power hungry these game are, considering the simple graphics. Still Deponia is quite entertaining.

Please, no Christmas games in January – that would make no sense at all! 2014, I also thought about, but I can't think of any games which mention the year specifically. "First games we played" sounds good. Could even be extended to something like "First games": First game bought, first game on this new computer etc. So I'd say let's go for that one for January.

I think it is hard to get games which fit on the "2014-related" theme, but winter games is a good fit, we have the Christmass-variant games, like Lemmings did several times (we already have a review of one in the site), but also other games such as Jetpack or Jazz Jackrabbit tried it, but we can extend it not only to winter games, but also to games which have some relation to cold.

And Deponia is from Daedalic, just as "A new beginning", and the "Dark Eye" graphical adventures, which are better than they look.

I got Deponia, a somewhat recent adventure game I heard a lot of good things about, for christmas and consider adding it to the site some time next year (that is if it is at least a half decent game, which I have good reasons to believe). Since it is a trilogy, it would be cool if someone joined in and did one of the other games of the series. Any of you guys interested? Btw: Doing the one or the other game series could also be a nice mini-theme and would certainly make for some strongly connected reviews.

Those sound good so far. As for january, how about one of the following: Games that mention 2014 somehow (in the title, time frame, etc.), New Years games, Winter sports or the first games we ever played?

OK, so it seems to be smaller themes. In general, I believe two months per theme is a good amount of time in general (there are a couple of exceptions). As noted in another thread, we need to announce the themes beforehand if we want to give others the chance to join in.

What should the themes be?

• Jan: First Games
• Feb: The Beginnings of TGOD
• Mar-Apr: Promotional Games
• May-Jun: WW1
• Jul-Aug: Something summer related?
• Sep: ?
• Oct-Nov: IF Comp?
• Dec: Winter/Christmas?

56 games new game entries this year. This includes a couple of stubs (alternate versions without review), but it's still pretty good on the whole, agreed. 55 new reviews.


But that's exactly it: Where you had the impression that the theme might have constrained you in some situations, because you'd rather do a specific other game, for me, it's exactly the opposite: If I have the choice of every game out there, I end up doing none, because I can't really choose. I would like to cover pretty much everything, but nothing is standing out. So the more restrictive a theme, the better for me, because it eliminates the impossible selection process.

More collaborations could be the way to go, and I agree on the gimmicky part: It should be games that are special or draw some attention, like the IF games (at least we got some feedback for them).

But I think 'micro'-themes might help already too, especially if the games are a bit more connected, which will lead to more interactivty (e.g. discussing which games to do or thinking about cross references/comparisons).

As for the quantity: Considering that we had an update almost every weekend (I think there were only two or three in which there was none), we must have added something around 50 games. Sounds like a lot to me.



Granted, you have quite a head start, but I can't imagine that you don't feel like you have something to say about some games, or at least that there should be something to be said about them, elswise I can't see how you can keep writing them. Admitetly the selection process on which games to do might be a completely different story.

The best way to increase collaboration would be taking interesting games, maybe ones with a gimmick such as Black Dahlia's FMV. But these collaborative reviews would have to be once a month, as they require more time and work than the usual, or at least I try to pay more attention to these games than the ones I review alone.

Still, we could try to make one of these reviews once a month for three to six months as a test. Of course this could go along any other thematic updates, it would be just giving more effort to the collaborative part.

So, apart from the selection of more or less closely tied themes, one thing where I see a major conflict is form vs. frequency.

This year, we only had very few interactions. By that, I mean not just collaborative reviews, but also reviews in "each other's" niche. Herr M. did Escape from Mount Drash for 1983 and Border Zone for 1988, Wandrell collaborated on Quest for Glory for 1998, I did Die Fugger and Vindicators for 1988 and helped with Grim Fandango for 1998 and finally, we have Black Dahlia, of course. Other than that, everybody pretty much did his own thing side by side. For me, this is not very satisfying, because it is too close to everybody just working on their own websites without interaction. Different reviews by different people, even done individually, are much more fun for me if they form sort of a discussion back and forth. This was not really the case with everybody having "his" year to cover. It could probably be better with the idea of micro-themes and everybody always contributing to each of them.

The other thing is quantity, of course. As usual. I do believe we are pushing our own limits hard. Yet what is the outcome? At the end, I'm counting a whole 13 games for 1983 added this year. It will be even less for the other years. This is not about comparing "who did more"; I'm well aware that writing a couple of short paragraphs about a simplistic arcade game cannot be compared to the effort of covering a much more complex game in detail. Even though I know it's virtually impossible to improve, I'm still not satisfied with this number.

Now, the thing is – anything implying tighter interaction will inevitably lead to an even smaller output. I seriously don't know what to do. But maybe I'm driving too hard in the direction of more interaction anyway; just understand that I'm more than a decade ahead of you, Herr M., for example, when it comes to working on this site My personal drive to just cover specific games because I feel I have something to say about them has greatly reduced over time. If I'm going too far to fit you guys into a corset, just say so.

Hm, true. Probably won't work.


I fear we will have to write that one ourselves, too


I see you're beginning to understand the advantages of 'freeform' updates Though if we also throw in others like Arnie goes 4 Gold (Bank Austria promotional game), Die Enviro-Kids greifen ein (environmental propaganda game) or Time Trouble (promotional game of the chemical industry) we might have a theme.