Let’s be honest: there are too many games these days.
With so much software to sift through, it’s getting harder and harder to find the titles you’ll actually like. That means great releases are falling through the cracks, and you may be missing out on an experience you’ll love.
Ludocene is a new platform that aims to solve that problem. Its creators describe it as a dating app for games; the idea is that once it learns your tastes, you’ll get matched with an experience you love.
The way it works is simple: you build a “deck” of games that you already like. You’ll then be able to pick an expert whose tastes you trust, with notable names like Simon Parkin (New Yorker) and Christian Donlan (Eurogamer) on hand.
The platform will then use your selections to pitch games at you, and you can choose whether you’re interested or not. As new titles release, and the system better learns your tastes, your recommendations will be refined.
One pretty neat wrinkle is that paying users will be able to tell the app which tier of PS Plus you’re subscribed to, and it’ll recommend some games available to you as part of your membership. With almost 1,000 games included in PS Plus Premium, this could be a godsend.
Ludocene is still in development and needs a small push to get over the finish line. The developer’s currently seeking £26k on Kickstarter to complete the project, with £9.3k already raised at the time of writing.
It should be noted that, once finished, the app is intended to eventually release freely for everyone, although backers of the £20 tier will get a one year’s subscription which grants the aforementioned PS Plus functionality alongside some other perks.
Is this something you’re personally interested in? Have you been waiting for an app like this to come along? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source kickstarter.com]
Comments 16
I wonder how useful this is for people with an infinite backlog
I've been thinking a lot about what makes a good game recently. While I likely quote meta/open critic as much as anyone I am increasingly concerned that review scores only tell a small part of the story. E.g. A 7/10 with great ideas that is a bit rough around the edges is often better or more interesting to ME than a 8 - 8.5 /10 that is just really polished but doing little new. It's why I love indies so much.
Obviously every game is different, so this rule doesn't always hold, but I feel it more and more often as time goes on.
Perhaps it's nice to have a different way to curate and recommend games, though I think Game Pass and PS+ already do that pretty well and few enough games are added at one time that it's easy enough to parse ones of interest.
I may be in the minority, but I just like sitting there perusing the ps plus library for games to play. Nothing better than finding a hidden gem and a future favourite. For me, this would just take the fun out of it.
A Letterboxed for video games would be a great idea
The concept is sound, but I have no intention of paying for an algorithm to pick my next game.
Don't get me wrong, if they can make it work and make money, then good luck to them, but I would rather go by word of mouth or watch gameplay, or as @jonnyAces said above, just looking for myself and do my own digging.
There are very few games that I would like that I'm unaware of I would say, I listen to too many podcasts! Feel like this is caught between a hardcore that don't need it and a casual market that knows what it likes and isn't looking for anything new
@charbtronic try the App Fuze. Works similar.
One of my eyebrows became firmly cocked when I saw the list of who they consider to be 'experts'. No one who's tastes I'd trust, and several who I know do not align with my own tastes.
But good luck to the project. I agree there's a big problem with game discovery so it's good to see someone trying to take that on.
The library is not THAT big. You can just scroll trough it in 5 mins.
I would understand that app more if it was about the whole PSN store.
Finally, a dating app that truly understands me.
If I’m reading this correctly, it sounds like an app that lets you date Christian Donlan. Sign me up, the man’s a poet.
I'd be interested in trying this. There's a lot of fun indie games that I am left with "I want more". And perusing the PSN store beyond the Cult of the Lambs, the Hollow Knights, the Dead Cells, and Dave the Divers of the world is tough. Once you get past that 1st or 2nd tier of big indies, it's tough to parse the good gems from the junk.
Can't wait to play the latest game recommended by Christian "looking out of the window desperately looking to pivot the discussion of a 2D metroidvania game into a laboured metaphor about air conditioning and the tropical Solero to remind you all I wrote a book once" Donlan.
A good idea but not worth paying for. ChatGPT will do this for free.
Ok but I found my solution it's called looking up developers on Metacritic, Wikipedia, GameFAQs, GameRankings or their company websites.
Or games themselves on Wikipedia or Youtube. XD I know my tastes, I know I want to seek games that aren't and branch out as well. XD Something that app can't do and Youtube goes why are you watching this and gets confused. So why would i need an algorithm to do it for me when I can be not lazy and work it out myself. Point made.
No subscription, no app, but smart internet usage and time management to browse eshops/the web for things. That and old games not on PS store for PS4/5 but PS1-3/PSP/Vita games or even other platforms, imagine me doing that using a web browser to browse more things.
It's also called having a quality look, if i can tell by cover art what type of genre or other details, the backs with generic descriptions/ok images and more then well that's on the marketing team and their bad design.
Otherwise I can look them up, have a quality assurance mindset and go I know this is shovelware, this is decent, great, my thing, etc. Just beacuse other people don't have that and collectors waste their time researching/paying for stuff or others that play games enough and understand the hobby enough.
For idiot casuals that's their problem if they can't tell quality and the resources are out there or someone they know with a better mentality for this sort of thing. XD
If many of us can smartly use the internet or spend our time it's not that hard. Others have time to do other things or play games/watch TV or other videos. The rest of us can look up stuff in our spare time and learn/tell the quality differences and things.
Or video makers/articles/lists by journalists or random people that know the hobby well, they are in their own way.
Same with publishers. Same with archives of games..... It's called effort and knowing how to use the internet.
Same with just browsing the web, or eshops if digital games, or this app might not have older games so is useless to collectors who can do their own research anyway. XD
@charbtronic there are few that already exist. I use Grouvee to catalogue my games.
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