The end of summer is always slow going, spending time finishing projects and going out with friends before the weather turns (at least, here in the midwest!).
We finished one minor new feature this month but focused the majority of our effort on a major requested feature: more status and progress support!
First, the small feature you’ll probably see sometime in September:
This is a new filter match type that will ensure any games shown do not match the specified filters (Match None).
This feature should go out this or next week, so look for it soon.
More Status and Progress Support
This one is a tough feature and requires a lot of backend changes to support, hence why it’s taking long to finish. The first thing we had to decide was what exactly to implement.
Where we ended up was a system we think will address the majority of feedback about granular statuses but also stay flexible to future needs (and later, customization).
Essentially, what we’ve added is support for Groups within a list. They look and act just like a “normal” list, except for a few key differences:
Their stats can be rolled up to the parent
They inherit the same privacy as their parent
They are not required to have any games
In the future, you’ll be able to add your own
This design still lets us use the three main statuses: Want to Play, Playing, and Played for aggregate stats/categorization but now you’ll be able to specify a "sub-status” a game can belong to:
These should seem pretty familiar if you’ve used Backloggery--and that’s because the terms they use are really good and it makes sense to keep the same language in our case too. We did add a couple others, namely: Paused and Abandoned. There are plenty of games that we end up never playing again and we’d like a status for those. On the other hand, there are games we started playing and for whatever reason just aren’t actively playing and are “on hold” or Paused. Sometimes games like Destiny can be that way, where you play a lot certain times and then come back later after having a break.
Why not make them all separate lists/statuses?
Good question. We thought this design was flexible because:
It logically groups similar “sub statuses” into an overall status
Groups can apply to any list, technically, so they provide a mechanic to further organize a list (once you can add your own)
Ability to generalize stats and other analytics based on the 3 top-level statuses
Allows quick categorization without micro-managing
Flexibility to add new groupings later or let you add your own
You only need to manage the privacy for the parent list
There could be a way to provide a “roll up” view/summary on the parent list for all child groups
The first one was critical--the ability to divide a list into distinct groups is a nice feature. This let’s us do that while also “reserving” special groups and treating them special on the site.
For example, let’s say you like to attend PAX events and want to keep a list of your favorite games you saw. Right now, you’ll need to create a new list every time for every different event. Using groups, you’d be able to create one list (PAX) and then create a group for each event, only having to manage privacy in one place but still allowing all the filtering/sorting/etc. you can do in a list.
What are you playing next?
You may notice there’s no group under “Want to Play” and you’d be right. What we’ve noticed amongst users is that while the intent of “Want to Play” was to manage your prioritized backlog of games you’ll play next what ended up happening in reality was maybe you could plan the next 5-10 games but after that, “Want to Play” just became a dumping ground for games you’ll play eventually.
So with that in mind, a feature we plan to add after rolling out this change is what we are calling “Up Next” which will effectively be the same as “Want to Play” except it will be designed around having a limited set of games. It’ll still be a “list” but it will prevent you from adding a certain amount of games. We plan to let you specify how many games that is, but we’ll probably default it to 5.
We’re still thinking about what this means for potential features we add in the future. Some ideas are:
It may make sense to have a direct way to add games to “play next”
We can start detecting how long a game has been in your “Want to Play” and start to show “age” and possibly recommend what games to add in your empty Up Next slots
We might make a new UI for managing your Active Games and your Up Next together so you can easily record progress as you play
All of this is subject to change of course and we’re open to suggestions. If you have specific feedback, leave a note below, tweet @keeptrackgames or join in the conversation.
Oh, and one more thing...
On a personal note, my wife and I are expecting our first baby in February! I will be up front and say that time spent on KTOMG will, for a fact, be reduced--but to be honest the site usually runs itself and there’s very little upkeep I need to do on a day-to-day basis (except those nasty Steam games!). Yes, the pace of new features will slow but I’m hoping I can make time to work on the site while still making sure I attend to my new fatherly duties. That is why I’m trying to address some of the top feedback before February! Just, be patient--KTOMG members are already pretty awesome so just keep it up!
