38
votes
Retro Video Game Club brainstorming and planning topic
There was a lot of interest in a Retro Video Game Club. I'm thinking it would be cool to get it off the ground!
Use this topic as brainstorming/planning for how we think it should run.
1. We need a facilitator/emcee.
- Is anyone interested in stepping up and running this?
2. We need to figure out logistics.
- Schedule
- Game selection process
- Parameters on what counts as "retro" (if necessary)
- Maybe a name for the club?
3. Anything else?
- Is there anything else we need to consider?
My personal thoughts:
1
I could run this if absolutely necessary. I already run Timasomo and co-run the Backlog Burner events, so it's in my wheelhouse. However, I'd really prefer if someone else would do it. I'm busy, am already very present on the site (I don't want people to get kfwyre'd out), and think it's ultimately healthier for our community to have different leaders running different events.
2
I'm honestly thinking we could just copy the great work that @boxer_dogs_dance has done with running the Book Club. She's got a good system down: nominations topic, voting topic, schedule out months in advance, then post a check-in topic and discussion topic each month.
I also think that having a voting system will sort of alleviate any need for drawing hard lines about what counts as "retro." If someone nominates a questionably retro game, but a lot of people vote for it, well, it means the group is interested in playing it and it's a good choice. I think clubs like this, especially smaller sized ones like we have on this site, do best when people want to participate, so I'd rather err on the side of what people want rather than what's technically correct.
With regards to a name, something like "Retro Video Game Club" is functional but generic. I've been trying to think of something with more panache, but haven't clicked on anything yet. I've been tossing around ideas dealing with "Respawn" or "Pixels" or "Cartridges."
EDIT: Retro Game Club = RGC. We could change the last word to make RGB, which feels retro. Or maybe “VGA” or something related to “Component/Composite Output?” Just spitballing here.
3
Many games are different from books in that they're able to be discussed AS you play, rather than waiting until after you're done. Maybe it makes sense to post a discussion topic at the beginning of the cycle rather than at the end?
That was my first thought too. In the end, it doesn’t really matter who really considers it retro, if it’s retro enough for the community as a whole.
I also like the discussion at the beginning of the cycle. As for the selection process, either we vote at the start, or during any given cycle there could be a running survey for the next one. This can also help to not set in stone what will be played in case we notice that people feel like they get too much of a genre at once
An additional point that I just thought of for having it at the beginning:
I imagine any given game is going to be played across a variety of systems/hardware setups. Furthermore, a lot of these games might be finicky to set up, especially by modern “just click play” standards.
Having a topic open at the beginning means we could have a place for tech support questions so people can get the game up and running like they want it (configuring emulators, changing Windows compatibility settings, getting a controller to work on a game only designed for M/KB, optional enhancements, etc.).
Very good.
I'd be happy to see about getting our entire playlist ready in a plug and play download package as well as I've likely legally dumped each of the ROMs we'll be playing.
This is depending on the size of our retro game choices of course.
Maybe the discussion at the beginning of the cycle could follow guidelines - something similar to retro game podcasts. Canned questions would allow everyone to preview first and review after.
Retro Gaming Bunch? Or VGA could be Video Game Archeology, "digging up" old classics.
In the spirit of "there are no stupid ideas", here's a name suggestion: the Colossal Game Adventure. Or CGA, for short.
The name would be a nod to the 1976 game Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the most influential titles of all time and one of the first text based interactive games. And hey, in our club, we will also be very interactive with each other through text. The game was also one of the first video games to spread online. And we, too, are online people.
The initials would spell CGA, just like the widely used 80s PC graphics standard. This would emphasise that our club is not just about text based things or brainy adventure games, but that we also love (retro-)graphics and all the action and excitement that they bring.
Finally, the name would communicate the enormous size of our undertaking and the huge amount of fun and excitement that we will be having with those retro games. And also that it's a shared journey: we'll be going on an adventure together.
Yes, I'm definitely overthinking this.
That's crazy, I too was thinking CGA, but standing for Classic Game Aficionados!
Two more name ideas:
retroexec.batfunfig.sysOkay, the second one is definitely a joke, but I'm kind of feeling the first one.
I don't know if I agree with the idea of posting a thread at the beginning of the cycle! Part of the point of this is to have a deadline, I feel. It's what's gonna motivate you to get through the game. If the discussion starts at the beginning of the week, it blurs that deadline somewhat.
Honestly, don't have a lot of suggestions, everything you mentioned sounds pretty good to me. As far as schedule, once a month, I'd say.
As for names, I'm going to throw out my own pet name (just because I'm big on old PC games, as previously mentioned:
Command Prompt
That's all I got.
Pinging all people who participated in the previous discussion topic about interest in a Retro Gaming Club:
List
@Akir
@ali
@atomicshoreline
@BeardyHat
@Boojum
@boxer_dogs_dance
@bushbear
@dotsforeyes
@dozens
@gingerbeardman
@Gummy
@hamstergeddon
@Indikon
@JCPhoenix
@jmpavlec
@joshbuddy
@Kawa
@kej
@kfwyre
@kingofsnake
@l_one
@Lapbunny
@mayonuki
@preposterous
@Reapy
@Rudism
@selib
@ShroudedScribe
@Sodliddesu
@SpruceWillis
@Sunbutt23
@text_garden
@ThatMartinFellow
@trim
@Trobador
@vili
@Weldawadyathink
Update
Emcee: Thus far no one has shown interest in facilitating, so unless there are any takers (seriously, please take it from me!), I’ll move forward with running this.
Schedule: Monthly rotation. Some months will be a single game, while others will be an “Arcade Special” (thanks @CannibalisticApple!) where we have a collection of smaller/shorter games to play.
Choosing Games: We’ll use @Akir’s method, and try to select the next six months at a time.
Name: I’m loving @vili’s Colossal Game Adventure (CGA) suggestion. It’s the perfect balance of meaningful and fun!
Remasters/Remakes: Explicitly allowed. Play whichever release of the game you like, however you like. Heck: watch a longplay. Use save states. Mod it. The point of this club is to appreciate old games and have interesting discussions, not gatekeep.
Definition of “Retro:” Vibes. It’ll get sorted out by the voting anyway.
Next Steps
Nominations and Voting: Unless someone takes the emcee position from me (pleeeeeease) I’ll post the first nominations topic tomorrow night (August 26) and leave it open for 48 hours. On August 29 I’ll post the voting topic, and leave it open for 48 hours. That will close on the 31st, which means we’ll be able to start our first game on September 1.
Regarding the emcee position, maybe we can find a way to split the duties somehow rather than leave it to one person? We could draw up templates that can be used by different emcee's for each month. That might alleviate some of the hesitation behind volunteering, since running monthly events is a bit of a commitment. It could also make hosting more fun, since people can emcee for games that they particularly like.
Also, I'm on vacation with family this week, or I'd volunteer to take emcee duties. You run so many events and make so many regular posts, so handling this one would be the least I could do! I wouldn't be able to really run the voting and nomination threads though.
I will be back home on Sunday though. So if no one else steps up by then, I'd be willing to post the threads for at least the first month!
I like the idea of a rotating emcee, and people running the club for games that they love. @kfwyre: could you perhaps lay out what in practice would be needed from the people running the show? How much work in your experience does it require?
Personally, I'm not in a place where I can really take more responsibilities at the moment. However, if it was just once or twice a year, I would be more willing to consider and make the time.
Also, I'm very flattered that you enjoyed my name suggestion!
I’m being unnecessarily dramatic about emceeing, by the way. It’s actually quite easy! CA has it right in that it’s mostly just posting templates at the right time, and adding some personal spin or flair if you like.
I’ll go ahead and do the nominations, voting, and draft the templates for the first month to get the ball rolling. I’ll then send the templates over to @CannibalisticApple to tweak as she sees fit. CA, if you’re still good for it, you can post the first “Insert Cartridge” topic on September 1st (though if that’s stepping on your vacation I don’t mind taking this month either).
I’ll also put together a turnkey “emcee package” that I can send to people who are choosing to host a month with all the stuff they need. I really like the idea of rotating hosts, especially if people choose games they’re passionate about or really interested in.
I like that idea. Maybe there's some games that particular people especially like and would love to moderate for that month.
That definitely works for me! I'll be home on Sunday so that won't be a problem. I'm already looking forward to it, this club should be fun!
Perfect! I'll send over the drafts to you sometime before Sunday. Thank you for agreeing to be our first emcee!
My two questions in regards to logistics:
Other than that, I support the idea of a voting system like for the book club. As for the thread, I like the idea of it being posted at the start of the month since, like you said, people would likely be talking about it as they played. Could also be a good opportunity for people to discuss how to find the games. If not the very start, maybe the second week to give people time to start the game and make some progress while ensuring the thread doesn't get too buried in the meantime.
Personally speaking, for the second question I feel like that should be at the participant's discretion but the participant should be forthcoming about what version they played.
Absolutely. I think it would be interesting to compare all the various versions. Even outside of updated ports, it would be cool to hear about how experiences may differ if a game was made for multiple consoles.
I agree. In general I think casting a broad net is in the best interest of the club. No sense restricting how people want to participate when our group is already small in the first place!
I'm personally fine if people want to play different versions, some people want to mod the game, others simply want to watch a playthrough on YouTube, etc.
Plus, like you mentioned, I think differing versions could make for more interesting discussions.
I had a university class where we consumed various media, and classes consisted of group discussions. One movie we watched is Birth of a Nation. Most people in the class watched the 2016 version which was about a slave revolt, but one person watched the 1915 version by mistake which was a KKK propaganda piece. Having someone in the discussion who could bring input from the original (and very different) movie provided better conversation. So having the opportunity of people playing different versions of the game would be fantastic
The Internet Archive has built-in emulation for 16,000+ games:
Although... it only works on Chrome for me. Maybe one of my Firefox addons conflicts with it
If it's of any interest, they work on Firefox for me.
I didn't know about this. What an incredible resource!
For the game selection process, one option could be to use a list like Wikipedia's List of video games considered the best and proceed chronologically. It would be a longer undertaking of course, as I think there are a little under 200 games on that list that were made before the year 2000 (which is a totally random cutoff point from my part). But perhaps we are not in a hurry?
The list could also be condensed, if needed. As the introduction to the page mentions, the games on the list are picked from various publications' best of lists and must have been included on at least six separate best-of lists to qualify. The Notes at the bottom list which publications have included each game. If the requirement was raised from six to ten publications per game, or something else, the list would become shorter. If needed.
I think that would depend on the length of the cycles. Some games could be stretched out across a whole month or at least multiple sittings, but I don't know how long people could spend playing something as simple as Pong.
That said, this gave me an interesting thought: what about some cycles that are "arcade specials"? Instead of one game it would have a list of some of the simpler games like Pong, Space Invaders and Pac-Man, and people can play whichever ones they want.
Love the idea of “arcade special” months!
A lot of retro games don’t have month-long staying power, so having a collection playable within a month rather than just a single title is a great idea. We could even theme them (e.g. scrolling shooters) or focus on the games in a series/franchise (e.g. Pac-Man games).
An idea for a voting scheme. Feel free to poke holes in this idea.
Every cycle, members get a choice of nominating a game or voting for games.
Voters get three votes to use as they please - including multiple votes for the same game
The game with the most votes win and are removed from future consideration.
Votes and nominations are "evergreen"; nominated games and their corresponding votes are pushed forward to further elections.
I know this is a bit weird but this system has some advantages that I think make it worthwhile. Maintaining previous nominations and votes means that games that many people want to play but aren't popular enough for everyone to agree with will still get a chance eventually. Multiple votes give people a way to express how strongly they want to play a game; If you want to play one game over all else, you can spend all of your votes on it, or if you're conflicted you can spread your votes among other games. And sacrificing voting power to nominate games will (hopefully) prevent thousands of games from needing to be voted on.
This system probably won't work too well for the first round, so I think for the first round we should pick 5 people at random to nominate a game and everyone - maybe even including those who nominated - should just vote.
This is novel, and I like the spirit of it! If I’m being selfish, my hope is that the club will surface some lesser known titles and not just stick to the well-known hits (though I do hope we play some of those too). I think this is a good method for doing just that.
I do think the logistics of this could be hard to pull off though. Anything that involves cycles of input from certain users can end up dragging, especially if there are multiple cycles back-to-back. I run an IRL book club, and I’m constantly having to hound people for their nominations and votes, which makes me feel like a nag if I do or like a bad guy if I move forward without their input. It’s no fun. (And trust me, I have tried to change the process multiple times but the group is stubborn.)
I do think we could make it work with a few tweaks though. Open nominations (maybe limit to one or two per person so we’re not flooded), then do an open point allocation round. Both of these can be open for, say, three days each. This lets everyone participate but we won’t have to wait on any one individual to move forward.
With each nomination cycle, we can bring forward the previous games’ scores (I really love that idea by the way), as well as add new nominations.
Voting implementation question for you/anyone:
I really love the idea of voters getting a certain number of votes and allocating them as they see fit.
I also wasn't expecting to get as many nominations as we have (40+ currently).
At present, the proposed 3 votes per person feels too low for a list so large. But if we increase it, we run into a problem with vote-stacking becoming too powerful.
For example, let's say that everyone gets 10 votes.
30 people could all put one vote on a game, while 3 people could match that with all 10 of their votes. In my mind, this feels like it's giving 3 people too much say over the 30.
Is there a "sweet spot" we should shoot for where people feel like they get enough votes, but vote stacking isn't too powerful?
Should we give out something like 10 votes but put a lower per-game cap on them (say: max 5 per game)?
Or am I overthinking this and giving out any equal number of points to everyone will end up being fine because it's unlikely that so many people will put ALL of their points on single games?
I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this for the upcoming voting topic.
Why not just not allow multiple votes on the same game? You can vote for 10 games from among the 40ish nominations? It isn’t the best voting system, but it is far better than first past the post with a single vote each.
Of course you could always do ranked choice instant runoff, but that may be asking the voters too much for a simple game group.
Being able to show stronger/weaker preference by allocating votes accordingly is, I feel, a really cool part of @Akir’s plan.
To me, its main utility is in helping smaller games. Big, significant, well-known games are the ones most likely to be chosen, but with this method, a few passionate people can effectively lobby for a smaller name and have it be a legitimate contender.
I think the hard part is figuring out where the line is in giving those passionate people sway in a way that feels fair.
What about a separate limit on total votes vs per game votes? Something like 10 votes per person, but 4 votes max per game.
Like you say though, it’s hard to balance well with no historical data.
I was worried something like this might happen; that's why I suggested restrictions that discourage nominations. For this time, I think having more votes might work, but I think eliminating all but the top n (maybe dozen) after this round so we don't have so many games to comb through next time.
I thought I was limiting nominations! 😅
And yeah, there’s going to have to be some sort of culling, though I don’t want it to be too heavy handed because I also love your idea of ones getting to move forward from round to round. Maybe we only do it for things that have met a vote floor or something? Or games have to keep climbing to stay on?
Also, for future nomination rounds I feel like we can chop it down from 2 to 1 per person. I was honestly expecting maybe 10 people to nominate at maximum. The Backlog Burner and Timasomo generally get roughly that number of participants, so I was calibrating my expectations around those.
What if you carry over a small threshold of the old ones for voting each month, and randomly select them. Have it labelled as the archive section, and if one in the archive section gets zero votes, it gets permanently removed, if it is the runner up it automatically gets chosen for voting next round, and if it gets at least one vote, but not a substantial amount it gets added back to the backlog to be randomly chosen again another month
Can we at least merge some of those 40+ nominations into Arcade Specials? Or does that 40+ include Arcade Special sets?
Beyond that, I support allowing people to use multiple votes on the same game, since it can allow some games to go up. A limit per game seems like a good idea. Maybe make the per-game limit it to half the total votes? So if someone has 10 votes, they can use 5 on a single game...? Or just give people 5 votes? It seems like a decent balance between 3 and 10.
My bigger concern though is just tallying and counting all those votes. If we had 10 votes for 40+ games, that would be 400 votes to sort through—and the list is growing. How would the voting be carried out? Replies on the post? Google form? Some other method? I feel like replying directly to the posts (presumably each game gets its own reply similar to the book club, and people can reply to that) would be the best way to ensure people don't try to game the system... But counting the votes manually would be time consuming, especially if someone accidentally miscounts their available votes.
At this rate, I think we might honestly need some sort of preliminary round to whittle down the number further. And/or maybe a way for people to nominate games specifically for an Arcade Special, or even merge two game nominations as a "Double Pack" for games that are related.
Maybe we can buy time to figure out solutions by making the first month an Arcade Special with Tetris and a challenge/contest to report on the weirdest places to play DOOMI’m already planning on collapsing some of the individual nominations into Arcade Specials or Double Packs (another great idea!), but we’ll probably still have 40+ at the end of it.
I’ve already got a plan for voting. It’ll happen on Tildes, in comments, so it’s transparent. Unlike the book club where each entry has its own comment, people will be posting their full ballot. For example:
This lets us check to make sure each one is valid, and it also means I’ll be able to CTRL+F to tally each game. It’s be a bit of work to tally them all, but I’m good to do it. I made the “mess” so I get to clean it up! 😆
Also I’m thinking 10 votes total with a cutoff of 5 per game feels like a good “sweet spot” for giving people sway but not making it too powerful.
I really like your redacted DOOM challenge idea, by the way. I was also thinking of a “nested emulators” challenge inspired by @Sodliddesu’s proposed Arcade Special where people see how deep they can stack emulators (e.g. a game running on a compilation running on a PSX emulator running on a Wii emulator inside of a virtual machine, and so on…).
I wouldn’t want these to replace whole months, but maybe Colossal Game Adventure can have some Sidequests?
Would there be any interest here in multiplayer experiences? I think at least some emulators, like RetroArch, offer some kind of online capabilities that could allow us to have a game evening or two together for titles that benefit from multiple human players. I mean, something like Bubble Bobble is definitely fun, but Bubble Bobble with two players working together is the best thing ever!
For many arcade games, having friendly leader boards would be fun.
I haven't followed the emulator space at all, but I remember there were some ways of doing this already in the mid-2000s. Back then, we actually set up a retro league for the greatest soccer game ever created, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer (a C64 game released back in 1988), and we had players from pretty much all over the world compete together in an online league. The pings were terrible and we had wonderfully creative handicap rules to deal with that. It was so much fun for a while.
Lots of arcade games are available through Fightcade; it's a program that serves as a frontend for a lot of different emulators, and also offers net play. The player base is primarily fighting game players (is there interest here for retro fighters?), but it also has multiplayer shmups, beat em ups, and puzzle games. Simpsons, Raiden, etc.
Co-op might be a little exclusive for people who can't work out the time, or for us social anxiety-havers, lol. I would consider it, though! Certainly worth the discussion.
The first game suggestion to pop up in my head for the group was Ikaruga, which is great either solo or co-op. Games up to preference like that may be good to float for flexibility.
I'm glad this is happening and I will try my best to join in regularly!
I know that this month's game does not support it, but for future games that have multiplayer, it would be cool if we could create a virtual LAN party events. On the tech side of it, it is relatively straight forward to do, just use a VPN (I have had surprisingly smooth experience using Tailscale to do a Minecraft LAN game before). However, there is something different between a LAN party and online multiplayer (which just doing a VPN would be like). So the question becomes what could we add to get it closer to a retro LAN party, to help make it more immersive?
I'm too busy parenting to run anything but I'd be happy to help organize. Perhaps we assemble a bulk series of calendar invites for the year that everybody could agree to attend.
I'm fine with whatever system we use throughout the cycle. To me, having something that's consistent and available to those wanting to put forth maximum effort or minimal effort. As far as the name goes, cute acronyms are great!
I think that Pre-play discussions where we reflect on our experience with the title/time it was released followed by a review of our present experience (whether we finished it or not) is up my alley.
Commenting here to be updated on the progress. Thanks for volunteering @kfwyre
Cam I get my name in the mix for whenever this starts up
Of course! I’ve added you to the list.
In case you haven’t seen it already, there’s a nomination topic active right now.
I missed the previous discussions, but I'd be interested in taking part, but not hosting the club. I probably have the good amount of these games in some form already.