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[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

The main problem with that is that Wikipedia requires "reliable sources" about a game in order for there to be an article about it. Reviews on blogs, even on TIGSource, don't count: reliable sources here means print magazines, IGN, and the like. So if a game isn't reviewed in any of these so-called reliable sources, it will be probably deleted off of Wikipedia.

A wiki specifically for indie games can go into much more detail without that restriction. There are tens of thousands of indie games, but only about a hundred of them have reliable sources talking about them.

One of my dislikes about the TIGdb is that it only has around 400 games on it. I personally have played way more indie games than that. Maybe the editors will fill in the other ten-thousand one day, but if it were a wiki format it'd be much easier for the community to collectively get in all those games than for a few editors to do it.

[Derek]

I think over time we'll open the db up to let certain members edit actual entries, and we'll see them expand a bit.  In general, I don't really want to see Wikipedia-level amount of info on the db, since, as agj's suggesting, it's redundant.  Also, the purpose of the db is a bit different from Wikipedia in that we're focusing on bringing the games to people, rather than necessarily describing them comprehensively.

An indie wiki would be nice, but ultimately you have to be kind of a nut to want to spend time working on these kinds of things. My main concern is whether you'd find enough people who would work on it enough that it would become a really useful resource.  I feel like if people were truly motivated to work on an indie wiki, there would already be one!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

It's true that the successful wikis are on those topics that people are somewhat fanatical about. There's no "scissors wiki". Probably. I'm not checking for fear that Google will prove me wrong.

I think a bigger problem than participation is getting the critical mass of articles required to make it useful to people. Once it's useful to people, those people will update it and it'll take care of itself.

One idea: perhaps Terry might be interested in expanding his indie faqs wiki to cover other aspects of indie games besides walkthroughs? Sort of how GameFAQs doesn't only have faqs, but also general information about a game, the kind of info you'd find on Wikipedia. I'll have to mention it to him.

[Terry]

I wouldn't have a problem with that at all - I've been pretty inactive with IndieFAQs recently though

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

Sounds good. I could probably fill in all the OHRRPGCE games when it's ready, since I've the most experience playing those, and used to run a magazine site about that engine. I could probably do a few GM games too.

[Valter]

I might mention that currently TIGdb is losing the Indie Game Database contest. There's a site called freeware.demakes.org that has an actually near complete list of indie games. Whoever maintains it also comes here, 'cause things featured on TIGS always end up on it later. :D

Anyway, it's already got hundreds of games on it. You better get to filling up TIGdb, 'cause you got serious competition!

Right, site link: http://freeware.remakes.org/

[Don Andy]

TIGdb is prettier.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

That's Tim W's site. It's only about freeware though, so no indie commercial games are found on it. I also wouldn't say it's complete. It's certainly the most complete. But I could offhand name 1000 games which are not on it, if pressed. (I'm not even joking, unfortunately -- I play indie games too much.) Of course, most of those 1000 are non-notable OHR and GM games...

[Valter]

Well, yeah. If you want to get obscure you could go into the tens of thousands. Still, we're not going into every single game created for every ten hour compo in all of indie creation.

You're right about the freeware part, though. The only commercial games he posts are in demo form. He only brings up free things on his site. In other words, the perfect site for me!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

I like obscure games, and I think they an be just as fun as the more well-known indie games, and often far better games. Popularity often has very little to do with quality, even in the indie scene.

[Valter]

Sorry, obscure was the wrong word 

I more meant "compo created". Most competition submissions that aren't continued after the compo tend to be not nearly as good as independent works, mostly because there's just not enough time to create enough content. That's why the procedurally generated compo was so good, actually. The engines used to create games in it could create a theoretically infinite number of levels.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

I agree, but many of the games that are not in either the TIGdb or TimW's db are far from compo entries, some of them have years of work put into them and are every bit as polished and finished as the games in those databases.

[Derek]

Well... what are these games, for crying out loud?!

I just feel like there are already so many venues where you could already be promoting these titles (if that's your intent)... why not start doing it?  Both Tim and I love hearing about and playing obscure games and we'd love to get the word out.  Even if you just post links on the forums hundreds of people will see them.

Also, yeah, I love Tim's database... I'm pretty sure I even linked to it on the front page at one time.  Still, it's also not quite what we're trying to go for with TIGdb, hehe.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

Many of them aren't anywhere: many of them were uploaded to sites which no longer exist, or were in some other way lost to time. Tim's db and the TIGSdb are both biased toward independent games made within the last three or four years, and both of them don't cover independent games made in the 90s or early 00s. For that reason, I can't simply link to them and promote them, because you can't get them anywhere anymore. But that doesn't mean that they aren't just as good as the ones on the database. Beyond Destiny and Tremor (both for the OHRRPGCE) are two examples, both are really excellent games which you can't download anymore anywhere on the internet.

I know it might not seem useful to have a wiki article about games which can no longer be had (except by being emailed by someone who has them), but they were still important to the history of independent games, and many of those games are just as great as the current games that you can get, and they have their own history and trivia, and I'd rather if that history not lost to Father Time; a big purpose of a wiki is to hold that kind of information.

Of the ones that you can still be downloaded, usually their authors have stopped developing games and are no longer around to maintain the game, so you can only get them on old archive sites like Game Maker Games or Operation: OHR, or some even on old abandoned geocities pages.

My intent is not to promote them exactly, because I have no problem with obscure games remaining obscure. It'd be nice if everyone could enjoy them, but it's not possible for everyone to enjoy every game, by necessity there have to be less-known and more-known games. My intent is just to document them. That documentation itself will probably remain obscure, but at least it'd exist, and at least the knowledge that those games existed would not totally vanish from the face of the internet.

In other words: I have the feeling that a lot of people feel that independent gaming began with Cave Story, because that's what got a lot of people into it. So a huge swatch of games made before then are generally unknown.

EDIT: Hilariously, I just by chance searched for Beyond Destiny (which was made by a girl who went by the screenname Katt) on Google, and the only reference I could find on the internet *at all* is me mentioning it once in my LiveJournal, and posting this screenshot of it:



See what I mean by obscure? I mean, there are probably only a few dozen or so people in the world who even remember that game, and yet I remember it as one of the best games I ever played.

[Derek]

Yeah, I know what you mean.  I used to love this old Klik n' Play game called Sword of Cobalt and now it's gone forever.

But I mentioned it on 4cr a few years ago and the author contacted me, which was cool.  He's a comic book artist in Japan now!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

I occasionally search for the names of the old people I knew in the Ohrrpgce community -- one guy I found is doing Flash games now (he did a game called Hustler, which is about selling drugs or candy, depending on the mode of play), though he didn't have an email up so I couldn't get into contact with him.

[Derek]

Btw, Paul, do you have copies of some of these old games on your hard drive still?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

Some, but not most -- funny story about Ohrrpgce games is: I used to collect them, and I once put them all on a CD and deleted them from my hdd to save space. This was back in the days of 480 MB hard drives, so there was a lot of space to be saved by storing them on CD. BUT! Then I lost the CD!! I haven't seen it in four years, so I'm assuming I accidentally threw it away.

And, even if I did still have them all, I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to upload them without the original creator's permission. I'm sure 99% of them wouldn't mind and would be thankful for it, but there are a few people I knew who I'm sure would hate to see their games revived, some people are just like Kafka, and want all their works burned, no matter how good they are.

[increpare]

And, even if I did still have them all, I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to upload them without the original creator's permission. I'm sure 99% of them wouldn't mind and would be thankful for it, but there are a few people I knew who I'm sure would hate to see their games revived, some people are just like Kafka, and want all their works burned, no matter how good they are.

Well you could just take them down if anyone made an individual request.  But yeah.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

Actually I kind of hate that system. But that's probably because I've had problems with people uploading my (full version) game onto sites (like rapidshare and megaupload) that say they'll take it down on request, but almost never do even after repeated requests.