ssTek

Nothing here is of course set in stone. I'm just posting some of my thoughts/brainstorming so far.

Since the categories are actually 'unlinked' from the startmenu catalog we can use more "descriptive" categories for the various game categories available (genres, perspectives, themes, etc.). For example:
<Category>

Code: Select all

    Action
    Adventure
    Educational
    Racing / Driving
    Role-Playing (RPG)
    Simulation
    Sports
    Strategy
    ---
    2D
    3D
    1st-Person Perspective
    3rd-Person Perspective
    Isometric
    Platform
    Side-Scrolling
    Top-Down
    ---
    Adult
    Anime / Manga
    Arcade
    BattleMech
    Board / Party
    Casino
    Chess
    Comics
    Cyberpunk / Dark Sci-Fi
    Detective / Mystery
    Fighting
    Flight
    Game Show
    Helicopter
    Historical Battle (specific/exact)
    Horror
    Interactive Fiction
    Interactive Movie
    Managerial
    Martial Arts
    Medieval / Fantasy
    Meditative / Zen
    Mental training
    Naval
    Paddle / Pong
    Persistent Universe
    Pinball
    Post-Apocalyptic
    Puzzle-Solving
    Real-Time
    Rhythm / Music / Dance
    Sci-Fi / Futuristic
    Shooter
    Spy / Espionage
    Stealth
    Survival Horror
    Tank
    Train
    Turn-based
    Video Backdrop
    ---
    Add-on
    Coin-Op Conversion
    Compilation / Shovelware
    Editor / Construction Set
    Emulator
    Licensed Title


For the StartMenu we can have a layout more suited towards organizing the sub-categories without getting into an insane hierarchy that either SetupS somehow has to construct on the fly or we have to manually define for every single permutation possible.

This way we'd still have a truer "Catalog" of sorts for our games. For the following example, I've used 42 "Catalog" entries which I think will be much more manageable (and believe it or not, RC1 used only 37 entries!)
<Catalog>

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Abstract
Adaptation
Adventure
Artificial Life
Board Games
Capturing
Card Games
Catching
Chase
Collecting
Combat
Demo
Diagnostic
Dodging
Driving
Educational
Escape
Fighting
Flying
Gambling
Interactive Movie
Management Simulation
Maze
Obstacle Course
Pencil-and-Paper Games
Pinball
Platform
Programming Games
Puzzle
Quiz
Racing
Role-Playing
Rhythm and Dance
Shoot ’Em Up
Simulation
Sports
Strategy
Table-Top Games
Target
Text Adventure
Training Simulation
Utility


Thought I'd post here to not get in the middle of any potential LFD discussion. Besides, as non-gamer my comments are little nits that might not even be right:

I notice that Racing / Driving: has a trailing ":" the only one to have one.

Some of the "xxx / yyy" combinations I don't think necessarily go together - not all of xxx are also yyy, or not all of yyy are also xxx. I can understand them so they are mostly fine. The only one I really question is "Medieval / Fantasy". For example, I would consider anything to do with My Little Pony or the Smurfs as Fantasy, but nothing at all to do with Medieval. But maybe that's just me.

Cheers and Regards

the ":" was a typo

I also don't intend to use the "/" character since that's already being used as a delimiter (for categories) and could also be confused with the path characters used with the startmenu catalog entries. Also, both the <Category> and <Catalog> sections were assumed to have "Games" in front of each item.

Yes, it's still a rough draft of course. I guess one could conceivably combine Fantasy with Sci-Fi -- for I once read somewhere to tell the difference between Fantasy and Sci-Fi is the question, "do I use a sword or blaster?" But I doubt you'll find many blasters in Medieval settings.

I have also seen distinctions made between Anime & Manga (even something called Hentai).

The point is, we can certain refine this anyway we want; but how far are we (should we) be willing to go? When do we provide too many categories (or not enough)?

Man, you were totally on the mark with that LFD comment.

Figured it was inevitable.

Cheers and Regards