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More platform choices to cover console-based homebrew games

A topic by abraxas86 created 3 days ago Views: 240 Replies: 20

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abraxas863 days ago

There's a lot of NES, Gameboy, and even some Dreamcast and other stuff on here. I get that we probably don't want to plug up the categories with a plethora of different platforms, but at the same time it can be frustrating to try to find specific content.

As one example, there was a game jam a few years ago where the challenge was to create games that look like they could have been released on the NES, leading to a lot of "NES-Inspired" stuff that sometimes bleeds into hte NES stuff (to be clear, I'm not throwing shade at the jam in any way - it's a cool idea).

The NES ROMS tag exists and is pretty good, but not everybody is using it - I've never uploaded a game on here before so I'm not sure how the process works. If tags are viable, it might work if we have a "Console" platform option, and then a tag for the more common systems as well as an "other" to bucket the rest?

Itch has the potential to be a fantastic centralized hub for homebrew games, and something that I think would be well received by us retro gamers. There are some other places around the web to find homebrew, but nothing (that I know of) that offers the same sort of market experience that Itch offers.

User bbbbbr posted a similar suggestion 4 years ago, but it looks like it aged out before it got any real traction.

https://itch.io/t/890854/add-console-to-platform-list-to-differentiate-gamesroms...

No Time To PlayModerator3 days ago

As I explained in another topic just recently, this idea is cursed. Any attempt to suggest it starts a huge flamewar. Even trying to explain why causes people to start flaming. That's why previous attempts failed too.

abraxas863 days ago

It's wild that people would argue in favor of fewer methods to find content. Somebody in here just suggested searching tags for platform choices, so maybe the suggestion should be to just drop the platform options altogether.

No Time To PlayModerator moved this topic to Ideas & Feedback 3 days ago

redonihunter3 days ago

There could be an "other" option on the platforms. But then again, why bother. Seriously. Why bother.

If you search for dreamcast games you gonna use https://itch.io/games/tag-dreamcast . You decidedly do not select platform "other" and only then enter dreamcast.

So yeah, there will be some "dreamcast" games that actually do not run on a dreamast. But hopefully all the projects that do run on it will have that tag.

abraxas863 days ago

Why bother with any platform then? Just use tag-windows or tag-mac?

leafoAdmin3 days ago (1 edit)

Because the vast majority of users are looking for software for those platforms so the system was originally designed with those as special cases to ensure software is being tagged correctly and not ignored.

redonihunter3 days ago

From my viewpoint you either select browser or you select mac/linux/android/ios.

The first to find browser games to play without downloading. The other options to find games for your system, since most games are made for windows and may not have a port for your system. So ability to filter for them makes a lot of sense. Also you actually browse Itch with these systems. You do not browse Itch with a dreamcast.

Filtering for retro consoles and special hardware on that level is awkward. I estimate about 100-200 platforms there would be projects for. So you would have to use some kind of dropdown box anyways. And we already have that with the tag box. And that one has aliases. for example https://itch.io/games/tag-commodore-64 is also reachable under c64 and under commodore64 without the space.

So in my opinion the only "negative" points of doing it with tags is, that there are some games under a tag that actually do not provide a native file for a platform. And the games have one tag they would reserve for tagging the system. But they will use that tag anyway for all the people that will search for those games under tags.

abraxas862 days ago

So, based on most of the feedback then it makes absolutely no sense for the site to have a Platform option at all, and they should consider dropping it and pushing them into tags as well.

redonihunter2 days ago(+1)

Platform filters are tags. You just can't select them in the tag box as a user nor developer.

There is also https://itch.io/games/released which you will not find at the filter options if none are selected. At least you find that one under "Directory". But you will not find https://itch.io/games/made-with-unreal-engine there.

The way this is currently done when publishing is per file. You designate a downloadable file to be for one of 4 systems. I suspect getting the ios tag is dependent on having a link to the apple store. And getting the web game info is implicit by having a web game.

There could be another metainformation tab for projects that have files usable for retro consoles and the like. You could select those like you could select an engine.

But having those meta tags still does not give you a selector in the filter list on the left side of the page. And there are currently about 332 platforms. That filter list selectors are for the most used options and consoles are not most used search options.

Regular tags are the best choice at the moment. What exactly would be wrong with using tags? That is what I do not get. Yeah, there are technically like 300 more platforms than listed there, but are those 300 platforms used to actually browse games here? Can you browse Itch with a NES and download files that are native to your system? No. Having a prominent filter for webgames and the major platforms that allow installing files makes a lot of sense.

abraxas861 day ago

My issue with tags was that it didn't make sense using them to distinguish platforms. Like, if we're going to use tags for platform, why bother with the platform options at all? But I kinda get it through Leafo's resplies to me. I still think it would benefit to have an "other" choice for devs to explicitly say "this isn't meant to run natively on the main platforms".

Maybe some better consistency with the tags would have been better? For example we have "NES ROM" but we also have "NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)" and people are using that 2nd one for ROMs, but also for PC games that were inspired by the NES. From what I can see, we don't seem to have any tag for SNES ROMs.

To add to fragmentation, we have one called "Genesis" and one called 'Mega Drive" and neither of them explicitly state they are meant explicitly for ROM files, so they could be used for PC games inspired by those platforms.

Like, if I made a Windows game designed to look like MacOS, could I platform that under Mac because Mac users could run it in a virtual machine on their OS and play that way? The platforms make sense until you consider that the tags are set up in a way that my (albeit stupid) example is absolutely being used right now. "This Windows game looks like an NES game so we'll tag it with NES".

IMO the structure should be Platform (the program is designed to work in this environment) -> Tags (the program has these traits).

redonihunter1 day ago (1 edit) (+1)

I still think it would benefit to have an "other" choice for devs to explicitly say "this isn't meant to run natively on the main platforms".

This does not work the way you think it works.

Platform meta tags are not mutually exclusive. It is only the filter that makes it look like that, since you can only chose one of the options on the website. But you can have a game that is checked on all or multiple platforms, and that is rather the normal case. Most engines can export to multiple targets, so the projects typically have excecuteables for several platforms and often for web too.

You can create a filter by hand, to see this.

This is about 30000 games. https://itch.io/games/platform-linux/platform-web/platform-windows

If you search for a dreamcast game, you go for the dreamcast tag. Directly. Hence my statement above that one would not select "other" first and select "dreamcast" next. It makes no sense at all.

The only downside is, that some games will be in that list that might not have a natively runable rom file or only be "inspired" or whatever. So what. Tags on Itch are inherently inaccurate, no matter which tags. The developer choses them. Not a curator, not a majority popular vote. You will even find games here that check the box for android, even though the game only runs with a helper app. It is tags, not software specs. This goes for the platform tags as well. It does not even specify which windows or which android version. Will a game with platform android run on your old android tablet? You do not know by that info alone.

From what I can see, we don't seem to have any tag for SNES ROMs.

You mean that one? https://itch.io/games/tag-snes and this https://itch.io/games/tag-snes-rom ?

Itch has free tagging. There are just too many tags to put them all in the suggested tags box. You find the snes roms under snes. Including the three games that used the more complicated snes-rom tag.

why I think console-based platforms should be included

I think only the major systems that are actually used to browse on Itch should be included in that special treatment. Plus web games. You do not browse Itch on a dreamcast, nor on a snes. You might browse Itch on a current console, but you cannot easily sideload games on current consoles.

abraxas861 day ago

I thought the only tags available were the ones that showed up when you started to type search criteria in... sorry

redonihunter1 day ago

I thought so too ;-)

Itch has a lot of quirks. People new to the site might expect certain behaviour from certain features based on previous experience on other sites with similar features.

I remember a very heated discussion about the wording of (View all tags) . Literally one would expect to see, well, all tags there. But it ain't so. And the page itself says "top tags". But the link there is on all browse pages and worded misleadingly according to my non native understanding of English.

And interestingly, that page (view all tags/top tags) has a section called Platforms. https://itch.io/tags/platforms Which lists 26 platforms, but Windows/Linux not among them...

Of course the "Find tag" box above will actually not find tags. It does not search the existing tags, it only searches and finds the tags listed in the tag box, that are called suggested tags in some places.

For my OCD, some of those quirks are ... quity itchy. (pun intended). Imho it should read "view top tags" instead of "view all tags", on the browse page. And "find popular tags" on that toptag page instead of "find tags". And it should read "select/write a tag" instead of "select a tag" in the browse tag box. Or any other wording wich carries the same meaning.

leafoAdmin3 days ago(+2)

Longer term we plan to expand how tagging individual files works for platforms, but in the meantime I recommend using a tag.

abraxas862 days ago

Thanks for the reply! From what I'm seeing in here, I think it might be even more beneficial to just drop the platforms altogether and push them into tags too.

leafoAdmin2 days ago(+1)

Platforms are a special case worth elevating above tags, since it’s more important that people correctly tag what platforms their files run on compared to adding a classification category used in browsing & discovery.

abraxas862 days ago (1 edit)

This is what I guess I don't understand, because what you're saying lines up with why I think console-based platforms should be included. That said, I'm not a game dev (or the guy who envisioned this site in the first place) so maybe at a dev or your level it makes more sense. I guess a best an "other" platform would be beneficial to have as a way for devs to explicitly state "this is not a program designed to run natively on the traditional modern platforms"? Not sure. I guess things have worked okay the way they are now, though.

[Edit] In replying to somebody else, I think I was able to properly put it into words:

if I made a Windows game designed to look like MacOS, could I platform that under Mac because Mac users could run it in a virtual machine on their OS and play that way? The platforms make sense until you consider that the tags are set up in a way that my (albeit stupid) example is absolutely being used right now. "This Windows game looks like an NES game so we'll tag it with NES". IMO the structure should be Platform (the program is designed to work in this environment) -> Tags (the program has these traits).

and also the inconsistency of tags - such as having "NES ROM" and also "NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)" and how we have "Genesis" and "Mega Drive" as separate categories, but nothing explicitly stating "This tag is meant for ROMs"

Thanks again for your time, Leafo - I don't expect another reply back, but I hope my comment helped explain where I was coming from.

leafoAdmin1 day ago(+1)

My response was to your suggestion of dropping platforms altogether and just treating them like tags. We will not do that.

I already agreed with your suggestion of adding more platforms in my initial post. It will require some internal refactoring and is low priority for us, hence my suggestion to use a tag in the meantime if you want anyone to have a chance of finding your ROM when browsing games.

redonihunter2 days ago(+1)

This discussion made me realize something that botherd me for a while.

The tag box with the suggested tags should include certain special tags as suggestions.

Including the platforms. It already includes the genres, even though they are listed as filters on the left side.

That ties in with this issue: the regular search box will actually display the existence of the https://itch.io/games/tag-unreal-engine , when searching https://itch.io/search?q=unreal , but there is https://itch.io/games/made-with-unreal-engine which is not displayed as a result (because it is not in the suggested tag box). It is not even listed in the footer directory - which is hard to reach with endless scroll enabled, btw.

leafoAdmin2 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

From the directory, you can go Tools & Engines > Game Engines to find all the “Made with…” links.

The “Made with…” pages are indexed in the auto-completer but are not currently indexed in the full page search results. The UI of that page needs to be redesigned before we start introducing new result types & filtering.

redonihunter2 days ago(+1)

Oh, there they are. Btw, the header link, https://itch.io/game-development is empty ("see all tools", on directory)

I had to think what auto completer meant. Yes, the results while typing do show the special tags and platforms. And the actual results will not.

I thought it might be a simple matter to just include the special tags in the list of the suggested tags, so they would also appear as search results and also be visible when using the suggested tag box. That one does not have an auto completer. It only searches the content of the drop down box.

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