Talk:Games

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Should we add here that there is now confirmed commercial support for the pandora? Magicman5421

If one of the indie game houses has an anouncement on their site that we can link to, then yes. Otherwise, wait for something to be available or at least officially announced. Though if you want to make up a template for game entries, by all means :) Chip 04:31, 3 September 2008 (CEST)

subdividing released games

at this point it may be worthwhile to further dividing the released games into lists which would allow someone who is looking for a game to find it on the list faster. Any ideas for how to split them up? The most obvious way would be type of game, shooter, strategy, platformer, etc.
--Cheese 22:58, 12 July 2010 (MEST)

Why would you want to do this? I am heavily against the proposal. You can already sort them by category. Note in the introduction: "Please click on the little squares to sort by different categories.". You can sort by genre, or by release date (useful, because you can see what's new since you last visited). Esn 13:27, 15 July 2010 (MEST)

Well, it's a long list that will only be getting longer. I suppose it really doesn't matter, though. Another way to split it up would be original games (made by members of the community) and ports. This could actually be more useful since you can't easily see that right now. I guess you could add another column for that and then be able to sort it though. --Cheese 20:20, 15 July 2010 (MEST)

I think that everything should be sorted by columns. As soon as you create separate lists, you break at least one of the things you can sort by. If you separate by genre, you can't sort by date anymore. Anyway, lists like this can become quite long before they get unmanageable. i.e. here's another project that I'm involved in. Esn 00:35, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Separating original games and ports could be useful. There's an easy way it could be done right now - either create a new column, as you said, or simply move the "port" to before the author's name. That way when you click "sort" on author, all the ports will be in one place. The only possibly bad thing about this is that original games and ports by the same author will be in two separate places (a third way that avoids this problem is putting "Port" as the first thing in the "notes" column if it's a port). Also, is it always clear what is original and what is a port, or can there be some confusion sometimes? (something in between?) Esn 00:44, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

After considering the options, I think it makes the most sense to create another column. I can see three possibilities for classing the game: Community made (port or otherwise), Port of Commercial game (eg. Doom, Quake, ROTT, Hexen, etc.), and port of free game (Supertux, Battle for Wesnoth, etc). But I don't know what the header for it would be called. --Cheese 03:02, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Why not just use the existing "notes" column for that? Making extra columns is a bit drastic, and I think we should avoid it if there's a simpler option. Also, the "port of commercial game" thing is already covered by having those asterisks. Also... I'm not entirely sure why this would be very useful. I can think of a few other things that might have more justification for columns. i.e. License. I didn't include it because I figured it would be better to not make too many columns that aren't directly useful to most users, because the more you add, the more complex it becomes for editors to add new content. Esn 04:23, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

I'm a user, and when I'm looking for a new game to try it's something I often take into consideration. I don't necessarily care about the license so much when I want to play a game, so long as it's free to be distributed (a thing which the asterisks do take care of). I agree it's a little drastic... however it's the only solution I can come up with that would let you sort the list in a way that would help you find, for example, games made by the Pandora community. Unless you were to split it into multiple lists, but then that adds complexity for editors as well. I'd like to also add that theres a similar, older, discussion already on the wiki, here. --Cheese 05:05, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

We could add the text to the existing "Notes" column, and it would be sortable that way. All other links/commentary that are currently in "Notes" can come after, since they don't need to be alphabetically sorted anyway. Is this okay?

I still think that the line between "port" and "original" may be too blurry to be useful... I think that it's more of a continuum rather than a straight line. For example, if someone makes a tetris clone, is that a "port" or is it "original"? Also, if someone makes a game for the Pandora but makes it cross-platform so that it runs on PCs and Macs as well (as many games do these days), does it cease being "original"? Or if the game is made simultaneously for Pandora and other platforms? Esn 07:08, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Sorry, one more thing... maybe a column for multiplayer options? Pandora can have different types of multiplayer. Some games have none, some have netplay (i.e. Ur-Quan Masters should have it, I think), some if you hook up an extra controller, some 2-player on 1 Pandora (either turn-based, or maybe one person simultaneously uses the right controls as the other uses the left). I think that would be a justified and easy-to-define use of a column... Esn 07:22, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Ah... you don't know the true definition of a port is then. From Wikipedia: In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e.g. different CPU, operating system, or third party library). The term is also used in a general way to refer to the changing of software/hardware to make them usable in different environments. So, by definition, a Tetris clone would not be port, while the engines which have been ported that play the commercial games would be. I've considered the issue of someone making a game for multiple platforms, basically if the game was made by someone in the Pandora community it should be classified as a community made game (regardless of the platform it was made for or who ported it, BattleJewels, for example). Games made by other open source communities which have not made the game with the Pandora in mind at all are deserving of a third category (which I had mentioned above).

As for the additional columns, see my post in the talk page for games. A multiplayer column would definitely be pretty useful. --Cheese 10:36, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Maybe I didn't know the exact definition, but maybe that definition isn't very useful... "port of commercial game" is already covered by the asterisks, so we're left with two options: "Community made (port or otherwise)" and "port of free game". Basically (correct me if I'm wrong), like a qualification of the "author" column: "one of ours" vs. "outsider", with an arbitrary line drawn in the sand marking where exactly the idea can be said to germinate. What about when someone ports a game that originated somewhere else, but then adds substantial features to it? Or what if the port is done by the same author who did the original game for other systems, but he just uploads it to the File Archive and doesn't actually sign up on the forums and become part of the community (I think there might've been some like this already)? Anyway, since the multiplayer is uncontroversial, I guess I'll go and add it... Esn 10:58, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Yeah, I see what you mean, there will be the occasional game that doesn't quite fit into either of those. I'd think it would be safer to put your two examples into the category of games which were made by other open source communities. Some of the less obvious ones would have to be discussed a bit, like, how much modification was done to the original game? The asterisks don't allow you to sort, so I still think there's some value in showing this. Adding it to another column still adds width to the whole table and limits the sorting options a bit. Can we agree that if I can reclaim some of the width by hiding the notes column that it should be added? --Cheese 19:09, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Just looked into the collapsing notes, it looks like an admin would have to add some javascript into MediaWiki:Common.js. Since that's the case it's actually more customizable than I thought. I'd like to have a template for the notes, so we could just do something like: {{Notes|note=Notes go here}} and that would be added to any notes cell with more than just something very brief, I count one entry like that, maybe 4 if you're picky. The result would be that a "more" link would be in the cell and you'd click it to see the notes. Not perfect, but simple enough not to be overly cumbersome and it means the notes can be as long as you like without messing up the table on page load. I've installed a copy of mediawiki on my local server to test this, and once I figure it out I can send EvilDragon the changes to be applied. --Cheese 05:18, 17 July 2010 (MEST)

Another thing... I just tried this page at 800x480, it's a tight fit. Hiding the notes would still be useful, but it wouldn't give enough room for another column. We can compress the Multiplayer column by calling it MP then either a symbol or a couple characters, we'd need a glossary at the bottom of the list, but I don't think that's really an issue. I'm going to make the change and let you revert it if you don't like it. If it works we can use the same style to get the community made/commercial column I want while hardly adding any width to it. --Cheese 05:58, 17 July 2010 (MEST)

The "more" hide feature sounds like a neat idea. I hope you get it to work. The MP column is nice as well, but I'm not sure about one thing. There are currently 3 MP categories: "SS" (single system), "Net" (networked play) and "Both". But it seems to me that "SS" currently would include both those games that only require a single system, and those that require a system + a separate USB controller plugged in. I'm also a bit unsure about Networked play - would any game under the "Net" category have both internet and non-internet (i.e. LAN) multiplayer? Esn 06:48, 17 July 2010 (MEST)

Let's do an "SSC" (single system with external controller) category then. With the networked play, it's unlikely that a game for the Pandora would ever be totally online without LAN or LAN only. By supporting one you have to support the other, due to the way networks are set up. The only exception I can think of is if you're forced to connect to an external server (as in the case of an MMORPG). --Cheese 07:56, 17 July 2010 (MEST)

Oh yeah, there's no way to tell if "both" means Net and SSC or Net and SS. Maybe "N+C" (net + single system w/ controller), "N+S" (net+single system), and "all" or something? Though then it begins to get complicated. --Cheese 08:02, 17 July 2010 (MEST)

That sounds fine, and isn't too bad as long as the complexity stops there. :) I suspect that some combinations will never be used anyway. i.e. it's a bit hard to imagine a game that will use both SS and SS-C. Could happen, but seems unlikely. I guess if there is one, we could use "SS/C". Esn 19:00, 17 July 2010 (MEST)

Commercial games

I propose that any future commercial games can be separated from the rest simply by having the row be a certain colour. I think yellow (style="background: #ffff90") would do nicely. Esn 07:12, 16 July 2010 (MEST)

Hideable notes

I'm about to send a PM to ED to get him to apply the changes to Common.js that would allow for notes to be hideable. Once that happens, take a look at the GemBR entry to see it or for an example. It is done like this:

{{HideableNotes|text goes here}}

--Cheese 07:35, 18 July 2010 (MEST)

OK, he applied the changes but there was an error. I've found it though and hopefully it'll get updated quickly. --Cheese 07:08, 19 July 2010 (MEST)

It's working now. --Cheese 18:43, 19 July 2010 (MEST)

I made the template slightly simpler. I'm going to look into stopping it from having the page jump to the top on every click, it's bothering me. --Cheese 09:06, 20 July 2010 (MEST)

Yes, me as well. Esn 01:50, 21 July 2010 (MEST)

xRick

xRick needs original game files? That's odd, the GP32 version doesn't. Esn 10:52, 23 July 2010 (MEST)

OK, it doesn't but at the same time does. I misinterpreted what the XRick website said (I have written the xrick code. However, graphics and maps and sounds are by the authors of the original Rick Dangerous game, and "Rick Dangerous" remains a trademark of its owners) to mean that you had to get the data on your own but after looking again it seems that it's actually included. --Cheese 20:13, 23 July 2010 (MEST)

to be added

I don't have the time to add them myself right now, but here's a list of stuff that needs to be added right now:

• Mirror Magic
• CromoZone
• Pandora-OpenSonic
• Sqrxz
• Daimonin
• Pandora-ri-li
• Pandora X-pilot NG
• Nethack
• Super Mario War
• FreeSCI

I'm probably missing a couple of them, feel free to edit the list and I'll add them when I get a chance (probably on Sunday). --Cheese 05:28, 21 August 2010 (MEST)

I added FreeSCI to "emulators" on the rationale that ScummVM is also there. I'm not a technical guy, so I don't know if that's right. Esn 12:44, 6 September 2010 (MEST)

Screenshots

The major thing that this list lacks compared to the file archives, which makes it less usable for average people, is a way to easily, quickly see a screenshot of the game. I especially like how it's done on the File Archive, where mousing over the name of a program on one of the columns will make a screenshot show up in the middle of the screen, which goes away when you move your mouse cursor.

Is it possible to program something like this for the wiki, as well? Esn 22:54, 6 September 2010 (MEST)

No promises, but I should be able to add this. Maybe not exactly like how it's done on the File Archive, but similar. I'll try to come up with an elegant way of doing it. --Cheese 03:38, 9 December 2010 (MET)

I'm done this finally. Add it like this: {{ImgPreview | http://www.pandorawiki.org/images/PandoraFront.jpg}}

We just need to wait for ED to apply the changes.

I'm not sure how you want to go about using this, I think either just putting it inside of the notes column or creating a column at the end would work fine. The "links" are just displayed as [ss] (as in, ScreenShot) right now, but that can always be changed or an icon or something later. --Cheese 04:06, 23 January 2011 (MET)

I think adding another column after "notes" would be best (as narrow as the MP one). Hey, what about if the images are hosted on the wiki? Do I still have to put in the full URL? Esn 04:51, 23 January 2011 (MET)

Also, I don't suppose it would be possible to simplify it at this point, for example by changing "ImgURL" to just "url" (lowercase)? It would save a lot of time when doing dozens of these. And it's pretty obvious that it's the URL of the image, because the tag is called ImgPreview after all. Esn 04:53, 23 January 2011 (MET)

It's now working, and simplified even more than you asked for, now you just need to do something like this:

{{ImgPreview | http://www.pandorawiki.org/images/thumb/PandoraFront.jpg/200px-PandoraFront.jpg}}

And it'll give you something that looks like this: http://www.pandorawiki.org/images/thumb/PandoraFront.jpg/200px-PandoraFront.jpg

It does look like you'll need to use the full URL, I tried a relative path (images/thumb/PandoraFront.jpg/200px-PandoraFront.jpg) and it didn't work. --Cheese 19:39, 25 January 2011 (MET)

Neat! Would you mind if I also simplified the name of the Template to simply "img" instead of "ImgPreview"? Esn 01:54, 26 January 2011 (MET)

Also, there's no way to make it resize any image to a certain width or height? It will be difficult to manually resize & reupload every single image, rather than just linking to them. Or is there an easier way? Where did you get that "thumb" image? Do all images uploaded to this wiki automatically get "thumb" versions made as well? That would speed things up, if that's the case. Is there a way to do it so that the image loaded when you mouse-over is the "thumb" image (this would load much quicker), but when you click on it, it takes you to the FULL image instead? If the paths in the wiki are consistent, maybe that could be added to the code - so that you would insert the address of an image uploaded to the Pandorawiki, but on mouseover, http://www.pandorawiki.org/images/PandoraFront.jpg would be changed to http://www.pandorawiki.org/images/thumb/PandoraFront.jpg (so a "thumb/" is added after "images/"). But when you click on it, it goes to the full image. Esn 02:07, 26 January 2011 (MET)

That would also mean that only images uploaded to the wiki could be used, but it's probably not a bad sacrifice (certainly easier to upload an image to the wiki than to resize & reupload each one somewhere else - we can't just use the fullscreen screenshots, as they would take too long to load and take up too much room). Please tell me if I'm not making something very clear... Esn 02:12, 26 January 2011 (MET)

You can simplify the template name if you want... or make an "img" template which references ImgPreview so that either way works.

I think I understand what your asking for. You specify an image and a size, the script will know what this means since the way the wiki stores images is consistent, then hovering over it shows the thumb version but clicking brings you to the real thing. Is that right? I can do part of that, but I don't have access to whatever creates the thumb versions of images for the wiki, so load times wont be any better.

Then there's a slightly less automated approach, specifying one URL for the preview image (thumb) and another for the full image. If only one gets specified the same URL for both gets used. I'd prefer something doing like this, and I could make it so you don't need to include the "http://www.pandorawiki.org/images" portion. Either way, I'm not going to be able to make these changes very quickly, so I'd suggest using what we have already. I'll make sure that what I do is backwards compatible or if not, I'll manually update the pages to make them work with the updated version. Remember that the maximum size is going to be 800x480, so I can't see the screenshots taking too long to load, making the only real benefit to this a bit more flexibility and the ability to see it a bit nicer on the Pandora itself.

The thumbnails get created whenever you use a tag like this (for example): [[Image:PandoraFront.jpg | left | 200px]] so all you should have to do to generate a thumb is put something like that in the page temporarily, preview the page, then find out the URL of the thumb (which will have just been generated by the server). That should work until the screenshot gets updated, and then that procedure will have to be done again.

--Cheese 02:47, 26 January 2011 (MET)

How do I make an {{img}} template "which references ImgPreview"? I was thinking of just copying the code in Template:ImgPreview into a new page (Template:img). Is there a better way?

I just did it for you, take a look. http://www.pandorawiki.org/images/Nub_inside.jpg --Cheese 05:08, 26 January 2011 (MET)

Regarding the rest: I'm thinking of A) ways to make editing quick and easy for other editors, who may not be as experienced, and B) make the experience pleasant/consistent for the end user. Sure, I would really like to be able to do the same thing as can currently be done for regular thumbnail images - specify a size, and the preview comes out in that size (even if it's not quicker to load it), while clicking on it takes you to the full image.

Maybe use both methods that you described (the best of both worlds)? Use the template {{img}} for an image/thumbnail from anywhere online, and {{imgwiki}} specifically for images already on the wiki, which could be made smaller in preview just by specifying "400px", for example.

I do think that the way this page looks on the Pandora is of paramount importance, so the image previews should not be as wide as the Pandora's resolution itself. I tentatively suggest a standard preview width of 400px - exactly half the width of the Pandora's resolution. Esn 03:41, 26 January 2011 (MET)

The only problem with doing both is that my time is limited and I find working with Javascript to be frustrating at times. Working within a wiki (particularly one which someone else hosts) is somewhat limiting for me since my experience lies in doing server side stuff with PHP rather than having the client do it through Javascript. If I did have access to the server (along with the code that powers the wiki) I'm sure could easily add in some very powerful tools for us (and in less time), but I don't see that happening. This situation highlights what I love about the Pandora - you're not limited by restrictions like these.

Anyways, I'll see what I can do. Though, as I've said, I'm limited by my free time, my lack of experience with client-side Javascript, and restrictions within MediaWiki itself for what I can do and how easily it can be done. --Cheese 05:08, 26 January 2011 (MET)

Could I add this to port request ? A picture is worth a 1000 words maplesugarlover 02:05, 26 January 2011 (MET)

It would certainly be very useful there, but wait a little while until we iron out the details, please. Esn 02:07, 26 January 2011 (MET)

Ok , I'll wait maplesugarlover 02:10, 26 January 2011 (MET)

More Categories

Do you think it would be useful to have a version number heading and column, as well as a last updated heading and column? Because at the moment sorting by date only shows release date. The other two would give a good indication of activity of a game.

Also, is it intended to have wiki pages for individual games too? That's potentially where we could include the screenshots, like on the old GP2X wiki. --jrpritchard 07:08, 3 November 2010 (MET)

I don't understand the argument for version numbers. How are those better than release dates? Also, many games don't have version numbers at all.

Sure, we should have as many articles as people find useful, including about individual games. Esn 00:48, 4 November 2010 (MET)

"Pandora originals"

Cheese recommended in an earlier discussion about having some way to distinguish "Pandora originals" made by people from the community, as opposed to ports. And we got hung up about what the exact definition of that would be. I think I have an idea... how about this: "a game that was on the Pandora first before being ported to any other platform". If that works out, maybe we can also add "or is ported to Pandora by the original creator".

There are a few like that right now. Reign of Brains was ported by the original author, PandoraPanic and Panjoust were made just for the Pandora and while "Sparks" I think was also made specifically for Pandora.

I think the simplest way to separate them would be to colour their rows, like on the emulator list. Nothing too blatant, maybe a soft shade of yellow. Esn 08:26, 29 December 2010 (MET)

I'm also thinking about making just the "author" box yellow if the port was done by the original creator. Esn 01:06, 3 January 2011 (MET)

Making Games easier to translate and to maintain up-to-date

I think it would be great if the lists could be independent from the Games page. That way, we translate the texts around the lists while keeping the list themselves in english. It would be far easier than making a copy/paste for each update. KodeIn 22:10, 23 January 2011 (MET)

I don't understand what you mean. Esn 22:38, 23 January 2011 (MET)

Sorry I'm a good reader but crappy writer. What I meant was to make templates out of the Released and Unreleased Games tables. So we could use the english tables on the translations, it would be easier. If I'm still not clear, just forget about that, anyway most of the french speaking people that got a Pandora are probably able to read english. KodeIn 02:29, 24 January 2011 (MET)