TALES OF A QUEUE KEEPER

This is something that pops up on occasion, and it's something you have to consider when you are not only in charge of the picking of spotlights and/or the queue, but also have friends who are game developers on the site that you're in charge of.

Bias. More than a few times people have asked me if I have trouble when a friend's game comes through the queue, if I'm more likely to put one person above another. Frankly, I try my best not to be. There's always going to be a feeling of "I want them to do well" but I find it's easy to ignore and be picky. If anything, I'm a bit more picky with those who I know can do well when it comes to making games (and have games already on the site so already know the rules) than new faces.

That's not to say that there are times where I don't think about whether I'm being too lenient on someone I know vs someone I don't and in those cases I double-check my list of dos/don'ts and make sure I'm not being biased.

I also find it helpful just not to look at who made a game - if I don't know it was a friend who submitted the game page I'm checking over, I don't even think about whether or not I'm being too lenient. Then again, there are those people who do have a certain style that keeps cropping up no matter the game (Nessy pops to mind), and, well, they'll tell you that I don't have favourites. XD

Honestly, I think my track record speaks for itself - I try to treat everyone the same when they come through the queue and will continue to do so.

Let's talk about something outside of the Queue this time. Most of you probably know that I'm also in charge of a few other things outside of doing the queue - most notably the front page. It's a job that I enjoy doing (even if I am late on the updates sometimes >.<; ).

There is a dedicated schedule and I do try to stick to it. It can be hard, sometimes, due to lack of available 'resources'. By this I mean there will be times when the images/blogs/articles/games/etc for that week are a bit below average and I'll hold out on something better popping up over the next day or so. Of course, it's not always the case that something does, so then it's time to go trawling through history and see if something that hasn't been shown before but is cool/awesome/neat/sweet/pretty/etc can be found.

And it can be a ball-ache looking back through what we have spotlighted before because there isn't exactly a search system of any kind. There's a list of names and dates and you just gotta manually search through each page, looking for a hit (browser search bar is so useful!)

This is where being on both queue and front page duty comes in handy - I know what games have come through each week (which ones to keep an eye on for spotlights). I also know what media comes through, if any cool articles and tutorials get sent through. That helps a ton in knowing what is new for spotlight purposes, and having done spotlights for a while now, I know a fair part of the history of it, so that I don't pick things that have already been shown before.

A fair amount of people don't know what exactly goes into a spotlight and if you'd like to hear about the process I'm happy to share some of the details. It's not overly complicated, but it does require a little manual submitting. Like I said, I don't mind - I enjoy it.

So, we're pretty lenient when it comes to certain types of content in the games we host. We don't mind sexual, gory or violent content below a certain threshold. As explained in a few posts before, we've dealt with sexually explicit games in a no-holds-barred kind of way - either tone down that shit or go elsewhere.

And yet, we still get these kinds of games at times. It's quite easy (most of the time) to tell when one of these comes through the queue - there's certain key words that are used in descriptions, or images of a questionable nature are shown where things are a little... raunchy (or sexual enough to make me wonder if there's worse).

Also as explained, I tend to ask people in private about what kind of content goes into the games. I've learned to ask for particulars, detailed descriptions of scenes and the like, and I cringe every time I do so just in case what I'm going to get back is beyond what I ever want to read.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a bit of mindless sexy content to read sometimes, but that's usually at least competently written and I'm choosing to read it for enjoyment, not ...'work'?

So you can imagine how cringey it can be to have to push for details when someone doesn't want to give them (especially if they're being vague and mention certain... fetishes that might be explored in the game). Sometimes I have to write up my own examples of what kind of detail I want from the developers in question, which can be a bit beyond cringe because holy shit I'm writing smut to try and get people to actually give me details about the smut in their game what even is this fucking job?! XD

(Here have an example of something I had to write recently: Highlight below because there's cringe in them there hills.

Thanks for the reply, but there's still some details I need to know.

The erotica - I need to know how it is used. Please detail what you believe to be the most erotic scene for me. For example:
Scene fades in on sprite of girl in bra and panties in the bathroom. Steam fills room as shower is on, and she takes off her underwear (can't see much due to steam covering areas). She gets into shower (can't see her since there's a glass door, just see very blurry sprite behind). Guy sprite enters, dressed in just pants.
"Hey babe, gonna join you in there if you don't mind?"
"Sure thing, love~"
Guy sprite takes off pants - can't see very well since steam. Also gets in shower. Fades out.
CG image top-down of guy and girl in shower. Can see girls breasts and top of head, man's erect penis and top of head. His hands are on her breasts covering her nipples.
"Wanna fuck, babe?"
"Oooooh yeah~"
Scene fades out and you hear SE of sex (moans, groans and squelching noises).
Fades in, both in bed under blanket. End scene.

That's the kind of detail I need to know about (sorry if that was a bit squicky but I think you get the idea a bit better now.)

As for the insults - frankly, will you be throwing around hate speech? Or making fun of races/disabilities/etc? This I need to know the context for, like "This is set in the 1940s and you play a black gangster who works for Calpone and due to attitudes at the time, there will be some cases of hate speech directed at him and other black/mixed people through-out the game" or "The story shines a light on the struggles of a bisexual man in society and how he has to deal with the interactions with others, both good and bad, so there'll be some cases of him being called x or y, but it's used to highlight his struggle and shown off in a negative light."


As you can see, sometimes I also have to check for people using certain derogatory words in a positive/joking light. It's one thing to have an asshole character who is racist say a few things and be shown as an asshole. It's another to have your main cool-guy character do the same but be shown as some kind of awesome guy for doing so. One we would allow, the other we wouldn't.

But yeah, so, we had something come in the other week that was tagged as having:


Now some of you might be thinking "well, I mean, it might be shown tamely?" but when asked to explain they told me about a vore* scene where the player character gets off to it... described in text in rather quite a bit of detail (masturbation included). That's... more than a bit much in my book, I'm afraid.

(*For those who don't know, Vore is a fetish where being swallowed occurs and is considered sexual - think being eaten alive minus the teeth munching. Or giant vaginas. Or both. Yum?)

The game was called nope. It had some decent maps, but... um? Okay??? o.O;


Because without those 500 letters we wouldn't get gems like this, that's why.


...why so much space? What isn't shown is another page-length or so of space added to the bottom. Why? o.O


I appreciate the heart at the end, but...

This one isn't a game page, but an article addition. I don't know why they used that as the title, it's not their name. But hey, it's an odd one out and figured I'd put it here:

Sometimes we'll get some super awesome seeming games in the queue that I'll be drooling over. Usually these have some kind of custom art attached. Unfortunately, usually these have some issues (like no screenshots of the game itself, or really poorly-written descriptions). The most frustrating thing about these games is that I deny them, make a note that they're cool and when fixed will probably be in the New and Notable section, but alack, alas, they don't return.

Now, some of you might be saying "But Liberty, if it's just small things you could let them pass, right?" Well, apart from being wrong because no bias, usually it's something very wrong with the game page. Very often there's only character art shown, and nothing of the game itself. In the case that there's actually images of the games themselves, the writing is so bad that I cry knowing that the script for the game will either be in another language entirely or English that cannot be read by any sane mind.

It's sad, but alas, it is what it is. Sometimes you miss out on the great things because you have some standards.

It doesn't happen too often, but sometimes a really neat looking game will come through that gets a New and Notable stamped on them... and then they are never seen again. Not because they get ignored, but because they get set to Private and thus miss their free chance at being on the front page.

See, the way New and Notable works is like this:
- I see a cool-looking game that is well-presented and looks polished for what it is.
- I go through the 'give this bitch an NnN, bitches love NnNs', which basically means I have to press a few buttons to get the page flagged as New and Notable.
- When it is accepted to the site, it shows up on the front page under the New and Notable section.

There is a caveat however - New and Notables are based on date... the date of the game page being added to the site. This means that if you put a game on the site and it is accepted a week after it is added, it will show up in the New and Notable section only as long as it doesn't get bumped off by newer additions. Usually this is fine and dandy bar when we get a bunch of awesome new games in at the same time. Now, imagine you put your game page in, then it got accepted within a week. It's looking bland so you decide to make it private until you work out some sweet CSS for it, and throw up some more kickin' images to make it look prettier. This takes another week, depending. By then three or more other New and Notables have popped up. Your game has been pushed down the list without even having seen the front page yet.

Now, a few times people have hidden their games because they want a demo up before they put it on public. This ends up screwing them over a bit - see New and Notable section lasts longer than the download section does (downloads has a high turnover rate in comparison) so it's better for your game to get a bit of hype from the New and Notables, give it a chance to gain subscribers who want to wait for a download of the game, than to hide it and wait until a download. By the time you get that download out, the New and Notable has already pushed your game off the front page, leaving it to not get the attention it should have.

I've had to explain this a few times to people who hid their games from the public because they were worried that people would be upset that there wasn't a download straight away for them to play. In a lot of communities that might be true, but we're more of a slow-burn community where we expect people to work on the games a bit before releasing (though of course putting up a full game or demo right away is appreciated). We definitely don't hate a developer for not showering us with demos the moment the game is put up on the site.

So, keep that in mind when you want to hide your game from the public. You might just be doing yourself a disservice!