Online game journal/diary

[alastairadon]

Hi folks. Love the podcast and it has inspired me to go back and play quite a few games over the last few years which I either missed first time around or want to go back and re-play.

I keep an online diary of movies that I've watched on a fantastic site called letterboxd.com. I've got entries going back to 2006 and I'd love to have similar online diary of video games that I've played. Do any of you know of any good sites that offer this? I could create blog but I'm wondering if there is a purpose built site that is made specifically for keeping track of games played. With so many games coming out it would be nice to keep track of what i've played, when I played it and what I thought at the time.

[mikeleddy83]

Good question, wish I knew the answer. A little question of my own is when this forum started, I have a games completed list from the characterselect.net forums that I'd love to track down from the internet time machines out there (if possible). Might have to export them all at some point but I'd highly recommend joining the games completed thread on here, it's been the best home for my lists for the last few years and likely to be for years to come.

Welcome to the forums too

[alastairadon]

Thanks. Been meaning to sign up to the forums for a while! I'll definitely use the games completed thread here. Hopefully picking up a PS4 in the new year so will have a few new games to work through in the coming months

[Scrustle]

I've never used the site myself, but perhaps this is the kind of thing you're looking for?

http://www.backloggery.com/

There's another site which I think would be the kind of thing you're looking for, but I can't remember what it's called. I'm getting the feeling the name started with an N, or it had one in there somewhere. Every so often they put out infographics of all the stats of what people have been playing who signed up for their thing.

[James]

I've never used the site myself, but perhaps this is the kind of thing you're looking for?

http://www.backloggery.com/

There's another site which I think would be the kind of thing you're looking for, but I can't remember what it's called. I'm getting the feeling the name started with an N, or it had one in there somewhere. Every so often they put out infographics of all the stats of what people have been playing who signed up for their thing.

I've not heard of that one. I'll take a look. Cheers!

One that could work for you is Darkadia. It allows you to keep a digital shelf of all of your video game collection and to record your played status for each. I signed up years ago and it didn't really do what I needed, but they've added a lot of extra features to the site.

https://darkadia.com/

Personally, I've recently considered moving over to Darkadia, given how much they've added to it. The difficulty is that (in the meantime) I've put everything onto a spreadsheet with a few simple drop-down menus and formulas to allow me to track my collection, backlog and games played, etc. It's not ideal, but having it on Google Drive is handy, and adding everything to Darkadia would be a big task now.

I hope one of these is a suitable solution for you, Alastair.

[James]

I've just gone back into Darkadia for a look and started adding games. I've even subbed to the Pro version to allow me to add multiple copies where I have them. I'll keep you posted on how I find it, but it looks promising with all the options for distinguishing games played from those owned, etc.

[magicjoef]

That's definitely stirred up some latent OCD. I just keep a spreadsheet at the moment (mainly so I have somewhere I can check to see if I have a disc for something up in the loft!). Definitely let us know how it goes...

[James]

Well, I was steamrollering through my spreadsheet, getting it all onto Darkadia, until I noticed that the filters were causing me problems. A weird problem, but I can't find a satisfactory way to record platform for games I own and those I have played (but do not own). I want to be able to filter, for example, all games I own on Xbox 360, but not those I have played on 360 and now own on other platforms.

Between that issue and the inability to keep a play log, I've come to a bit of a halt. My spreadsheet is clunky and not exactly pleasant to look at, but it offers me incredible flexibility in filtering, searching and sorting data. Until I work out a way around these (admittedly niche) issues, perhaps using the quirky meta data and custom tags, I've stopped adding further games.

Again, I'll update as I progress.

[magicjoef]

Hmm, that does seem a shame, but if you can't pull out the information the way you want I can understand that being frustrating.