Decisions, decisions - and when to make them

Let's assume that we compared a new R to one of its predecessors, and found the answers to all of the six criteria decisions above, what then?

As I wrote above, we will need to make two decisions based on the outcome: First decide if the new R deserves a new G entry, and if no, decide if a new RG under the existing G entry is needed. Both decisions shall be based on the W or S criteria the release has met, and on the primary criteria for its genre.

For the new G decision, I would suggest the following criteria combinations to have been met:

1. One primary criterion with S
2. Two primary criteria with W
3. One primary criterion with W and one non-primary criterion with S
4. Two non-primary criteria with S.

For the new RG decision, I would suggest the following criteria combinations to have been met:

1. One primary criterion with W
2. One non-primary criterion with S
3. Two non-primary criteria with W.

But comparing two R's takes quite some time, so we can't possibly require that for every new R that a contributor wants to put into Oregami's database, can we?

Of course we can't, but there will be certain occasions where we might do it. Let's outline some:

a) We know that two or more main versions of a game exist, and we want to settle once and for all their treatment inside the database. An example here would be The Witcher and its Enhanced Edition. We would compare the original R's of both main versions to decide, if different RG's might be enough to separate them or if separate G entries are needed.

b) A game features a confusing maze of R's on different platforms and by different companies with no sufficient information to be found elsewhere, and we feel the need to finally bite the bullet and clearly document and preserve its R history. This might apply to Tetris.

c) A contributor asks for it, or claims the data for a game to be erroneous.

d) We introduce the concept of finalized database entries to Oregami. A "finalized" G entry might mean that every R is contributed with its main data, and the distribution of all the R's among the different RG's is documented by comparison. Changes to such entries after their finalization will follow special supervision.

Looking at some examples

Let's just use three cases from video gaming release history to test the above theory. I chose three games from different genres, representing three standard cases where a comparison might be due:

1. The Witcher vs. The Witcher Enhanced Edition (RPG; enhanced re-release)
2. Doki Doki Panic vs. Super Mario Bros. 2 (Jump and Run; regionally different release)
3. Jewel Match for Windows vs. Jewel Match for Nintendo DS (Match 3 game, port to different platform)

These exampes have been researched through for this blog post. Within Oregami's final comparison system, the outcome might be different.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition

After the initial release of The Witcher, CD Projekt took another year to iron out all the problems of the game and give the players a flawless experience. The results of this work were released as The Witcher Enhanced Edition, and stand to this day as one of the best roleplaying games ever made.

The pattern of re-selling games in debugged / improved versions is something we've seen again and again throughout the years. Other examples of this are the Extended and the Relodad version of The Fall: Last Days of Gaia, or the re-releases of Dungeon Lords.

When reading the GameSpot review of the Enhanced Edition, we can identify the main differences to the initial version:

• English dialogue has been rewritten and expanded upon
• Engine performance has been dramatically improved
• Color palette, character models, animations have been enhanced
• 2 new stand-alone adventures have been added

Super Mario Bros. 2

The release history of Super Mario Bros. 2 is rather complicated, with the gory details described in this piece at Wired.com. Basically, the graphics of the Japanese NES game Dokidoki Panic were replaced with Super Mario content, with the game play getting some tweaks to make it feel more Mario-like, and it got released outside Japan as Super Mario Bros. 2.

Later on, the Japanese gamers also got an original Super Mario Bros. 2 which basically was a set of newly designed, much harder levels using the same game engine. And to add another lesson on how to make money, the above mentioned US release of SMB2 was re-released in Japan as Super Mario USA, and the above mentioned Japanese SMB2 release was re-released in the US as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.

How to press this release history into our data model might be subject of a following blog post, for now we want to focus on comparing the original Dokidoki Panic with the US release of Super Mario Bros. 2. Besides replacing the graphics, the following changes were made (quoting the Wired.com post):

Tanabe's team made many improvements to the original for its American debut, adding more enemy characters, throwing in some visual nods to the Mario games and greatly enhancing the animation and sound effects. Because one of Mario's most notable features at the time was his ability to grow and shrink when he ate magic mushrooms, this was added to the game.

Jewel Match

I already mentioned this case in the introduction to this blog post. We want to compare the PC release of Jewel Match with its Nintendo DS port. Again quoting from my own description on the DS port:

Due to the limited screen size of the handheld, the grid size of the levels had to be cut down from 14x14 to 12x12 tiles, thus forcing a complete redesign of all the levels. While at it the developers added some DS-only gameplay options like the new magical storm where the player can blow into the microphone to reshuffle the jewels.

Extro

Having outlined the basics of a possible different game concept for Oregami, we now need to actually compare some releases of known difficult cases as a next step, to see how such a system would behave in the real world.

While doing this, the concept needs to get much more thought and research. Are the six basic criteria relevant for all games out there? What are the primary criteria for the main genres? Are the criteria combinations given above suitable to find the "middle ground" between one game entry per genre and too many game entries? What happens if a successor to a game features the exact same game play as its predecessor?

Many interesting questions will need to be answered on the way, many interesting cases will need to be evaluated. And we will see if the concept outlined above will survive all this. And as always, if you wanna dive in just let us know.