tl;dr version: How about a bunch of us periodically play through and discuss some older games at the same time - good/bad idea?
Proper version:
As may be apparent from some of my posts, I have a tendency to play quite a few older games, rather than purely ones that have been released in recent months. I know some other people like to sample titles from yesteryear too.
However, as the infamous 'the cake is a lie!' gif illustrates, one downside to playing older titles, is that there is less of a social element in terms of playing the games at the same time as others and discussing funny/interesting things, overall game experience, looking for help with a particular section etc.
Sure, you get people like me posting about their experiences with older games from time-to-time, sometimes resulting in 'HOLY THREAD REVIVAL!' type responses
But it can be a bit disjointed with different individuals playing random old games and doesn't have much of a community spirit.
With more and more of us building a big stockpile of quality, albeit somewhat jaded games from Steam sales etc that we haven't sampled yet, it seems to me that often all that is lacking is some sort of push or incentive to dive into some specific titles. I often read about the 'too many games, can't choose what to play!' decision paralysis that such an undertaking may help with.
So I got to thinking, what if there was more focus to this phenomenon - what if we had a bunch of people all playing and talking about the same (old) game at the same time? Inspired in part by a similar thread relating to books (whereby members all read the same book at the same time), it would work something like this:
-A 'classic' SP game (lets say at least 1 year old) is announced
-Forum users then play that game for a predefined period... I'm thinking perhaps a fortnight(?) to give serious gamers who enjoy the game enough time to complete it if applicable (of course there is nothing to stop people continuing to play beyond that period if they want!)
-We have a thread where we can all talk about the 'game of the moment' in question and hopefully get more of a shared experience compared to traditional random postings
-At the end of the period, a new game is announced
-Rinse and repeat
There are of course some questions arising from this:
-How does the game get chosen? Shortlist suggested by members and vote?
-Might a better variant be to have 2 or 3 games (preferably from different genres) 'on the go' at once to keep people interested (having only a single game could exclude a lot of members who have already played it)
-Is this just a stupid idea to start with and we should just stick to choosing our own games and focus on enjoying them rather than worrying about some wishy-washy 'community' poppycock?
Proper version:
As may be apparent from some of my posts, I have a tendency to play quite a few older games, rather than purely ones that have been released in recent months. I know some other people like to sample titles from yesteryear too.
However, as the infamous 'the cake is a lie!' gif illustrates, one downside to playing older titles, is that there is less of a social element in terms of playing the games at the same time as others and discussing funny/interesting things, overall game experience, looking for help with a particular section etc.
Sure, you get people like me posting about their experiences with older games from time-to-time, sometimes resulting in 'HOLY THREAD REVIVAL!' type responses
But it can be a bit disjointed with different individuals playing random old games and doesn't have much of a community spirit.With more and more of us building a big stockpile of quality, albeit somewhat jaded games from Steam sales etc that we haven't sampled yet, it seems to me that often all that is lacking is some sort of push or incentive to dive into some specific titles. I often read about the 'too many games, can't choose what to play!' decision paralysis that such an undertaking may help with.
So I got to thinking, what if there was more focus to this phenomenon - what if we had a bunch of people all playing and talking about the same (old) game at the same time? Inspired in part by a similar thread relating to books (whereby members all read the same book at the same time), it would work something like this:
-A 'classic' SP game (lets say at least 1 year old) is announced
-Forum users then play that game for a predefined period... I'm thinking perhaps a fortnight(?) to give serious gamers who enjoy the game enough time to complete it if applicable (of course there is nothing to stop people continuing to play beyond that period if they want!)
-We have a thread where we can all talk about the 'game of the moment' in question and hopefully get more of a shared experience compared to traditional random postings
-At the end of the period, a new game is announced
-Rinse and repeat
There are of course some questions arising from this:
-How does the game get chosen? Shortlist suggested by members and vote?
-Might a better variant be to have 2 or 3 games (preferably from different genres) 'on the go' at once to keep people interested (having only a single game could exclude a lot of members who have already played it)
-Is this just a stupid idea to start with and we should just stick to choosing our own games and focus on enjoying them rather than worrying about some wishy-washy 'community' poppycock?
. It would also be a game where people could help people past certain parts as it's a classic adventure game in the non-hand holding regard.
