Additional Section?

This is an archive of a topic from NESdev BBS, taken in mid-October 2019 before a server upgrade.
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Additional Section?
by on (#174170)
I'd like to propose a subsection of the Homebrew Projects forum for Completed/Released titles. Many finished games or demos end up with their own thread, where there is feedback and discussion for the title, alongside screenshots, video, descriptions, and information about how to acquire it.

Furthermore, it would give us a sixth link for the front page, which has a bit of an odd five-tile layout at the moment. For new people discovering the website, it would be great to have achievements like completed games/demos well presented from the start, so the intent and capabilities of the community are more presentable to an outside public.
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174181)
I think this seems like a nice idea. Good promotion and incentive for completed projects.
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174182)
Different idea, same premise: sticky thread in Homebrew Projects forum that lists off such games, with links to whatever their websites are (could be a full-fledged website, Kickstarter, post on another board, whatever). Usually one of the links in question will have nearly all the data listed (discussion, screenshots, video, description, etc.).
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174190)
It sounds like a good idea.

The sticky thread idea is good too, the only problem with that is that one person has to maintain it. Which might not be too bad if people submit their own info by replying. That would be kinda like taking the place of the original NESdev mainpage (hard to believe that was every available project back at one time.. it would be massive now).

Actually this kind of reminds me of an idea I'd been kicking around in my head, which would be providing a kind of feedback system where people could try out projects and at a minimum, rate them, but ideally could give more detailed feedback. There would be an option the user could select if they want their feedback to be public or only viewable by the project's developer (and the system maintainer obviously). While this can of course be done privately in any event, making it into a kind of system for it I think has the advantages of maybe making it more fun/interesting somehow for the user, and for fun of the developers also we could aggregate the ratings and find out how your game stands in comparison to the others. I've used Google Forms a bit and I think that might work well, though I'm sure there could be something more suitable. But since lots of people have Google accounts they could come back to it and rate more stuff later, or just do it for a project or 2 at a time without creating any account (I think they can? haven't tried doing a form when I'm logged out). Just some random thoughts, seems pretty usual that one can release a game and basically get almost zero feedback on it. But then you can suddenly find a youtube video of it and realize that hey, people actually do have opinions on it. They'll just only write it down if it's convenient to do so, not by registering a forum account or firing off an email or whatever.
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174213)
NintendoAge has a very useful "currently available homebrew" thread.
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174214)
We also have a haphazard list at the Wiki: http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Projects

If you want something that can be collaboratively maintained, the Wiki is a pretty good medium for that. We could certainly do a lot better than that projects page, if people were interested in working on it.
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174215)
That's [NintendoAge link] for currently for sale homebrew games.

It omits freely distributed games.
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174225)
I like the subforum idea best as it's easier to maintain. People who post WIP threads can request for them to be moved to the additional section when the project is finished, and people who are interested on getting more exposure of their already finished projects could create new threads there.
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174229)
To quote 'Dances with Wolves'

"Before we take action we need to talk about this some more at another time. That is all I have to say."
Re: Additional Section?
by on (#174240)
If you want to see a good comprehensive list of homebrew releases, you can make one. There's a bunch of available options to make it already (stickied thread, wiki, etc.).

In reality very few (i.e. zero?) people are interested in maintaining this stuff, which is why a good list doesn't exist right now. A bunch of people seem to want this list, but nobody's here's done the legwork.

You can make a subforum if like, but the problem is a lack of interest in the effort, not a lack of available options. The subforum won't maintain itself. I think you might as well just make the list first. Don't worry about corralling the content into a subforum yet, create that content first.