As one of the new GarageGames interns, I’ve decided that it is time for me to step out into the light and start spreading the love. You may have noticed the recent addition of the “share” feature for nearly every aspect of GGE. This tool allows you to show off some of the coolest elements of the site. Post your favorite games, your badge or even the badges of your favorite gamers and developers with a simple copy and paste and instantly add serious flavor to your blog or personal website. The share tool is designed to help you express yourself. Tell others about which games you find the most interesting or fun, support your favorite Indie developer or just show off your own badge.

Sharing also enhances the gamelist function. For instance, if you have your gamelist posted on your website, but wanted to feature a particular game, the share tool would allow you to post a badge for a single game instantly, with all of its stats (views, rating, number of times rated, etc.). A pretty good example of how the share tool can be used to accentuate a website is The Gaming Realm’s blog. So, check out the share function and start sharing GGE with the world.

We are pleased to take down the old front page that we were utilizing for our closed beta period and toss up the new, feature-packed front page. First impressions are important, and for those coming to Great Games Experiment for the first time, we wanted them to realize that there’s a whole bunch going on inside!

Here’s the awesome design, with thanks to Nate Feyma for his awesome art! Be sure to give him kudos!

The new front page contains the following features:

• The most popular “Play Now” games! — These are games that have a playable flash file attached to the game submission
• Top Games — A frequently updating list of the top games as judged by our formulas
• Top Developers and Gamers — Awesome contributors to the community are rewarded with an appearance on the front page!
• Newest Reviews — See the latest game reviews easily
• Featured Gamelist — A regularly updated feature showing off a lucky community member and a gamelist of their choice!
• Blog Overview — View the latest blog posts with ease, a great way to keep in touch with the developers of the site

Enjoy and let us know what you think!

So I’ve been quiet for a little while… this is mainly because I’ve been working on revitalizing and amping up a major piece of the Great Games Experiment — the games! There are two main pieces to this puzzle– tagging and gamelists.

Much like how you can tag your personal network (friends) on GGE, you can do the same with games that you’ve played. The functionality is quite similar and will take you a long way with GGE features both current and on the way. Right now, this is awesome for the use of quickly creating a gamelist. You may recognize the concept of the gamelist as what was formerly the “Gamelist Module”. These modules were slick additions for your profile, which you, in the past, used to crank out a quick and dirty list of games. Well, the concept remains, but the interface has drastically changed.

Read more about Steppin’ It Up with Game Tagging and Gamelists!

We have heard your cries and now your prayers have finally been answered: the forums are now live!

The forums are tightly integrated with GGE and replace the old group discussion modules as well as provide a new place for general discussion and feedback. You can send messages, give kudos, and invite friends from inside a thread; no need to view the user’s profile first. Of course you can easily view their profile if you wish, check out all of their posts, or mute them if they are getting on your nerves!

Full GGE Code is supported in posts so you can easily link to games, groups, and users.You can also embed your XBOX Live gamertag, show YouTube videos and more. Another great feature of these forums is that they are tag-based, just like GGE. If you have spent any time browsing games on GGE, then you will already be familiar with tag-based browsing. The tags allow you to easily search up the topics you care to read about.

So, go ahead, have fun, and be sure to post bugs and suggestions in the Feedback category.

Introducing the Friday Round-Up. Every Friday we’re going to be showcasing blogs that people have written pertaining to the Great Games Experiment.
We’re looking for people that have posted blogs about GGE and trust us, we have ways of finding them. We aren’t looking for anything specific, just blogs expressing your thoughts and feelings about the site in general. What you like, what you don’t like, what you would like to see, how you are using the Great Games Experiment to promote your games. We want to hear everything.

The Friday Wrap-Up will also include new information on the site, including but not limited to: new site features, updates, cool people, etc.

Also wanted to throw out that we’re looking for dedicated people to run subsections in the game categories. We still need people to head the casual, core, educational, and indie sections. If you think you’ve got what it takes to run one of these sections, let me know and we’ll consider you. =) Send me a message from my profile page, Dr Wiley.

Finally, to kick it off, here’s the new cool stuff for this “Friday Round-Up”.

EgoAnt Productions has created a page on their site using game badges of games they have made for clients and EgoAnt.com exclusives. Check out their game page. Also found a nice little blog post from Michael Battle “footloosemoose”. You can read about his experiences at his blog site. Or better yet visit their profiles on GGE and tell them how awesome they are! EgoAnt - footloosemoose

As for the new site features and updates - You can now tag games and edit your gamer badge. Just head to your account page and click “my played games”. Here you can tag games as well as remove games that you may have “accidentally” marked as played, we know you’re just embarrassed. After tagging games you can customize your gamer badge through a tag and change the title of your gamer badge.

There has also been the addition of platform icons. Head over to the games page and you’ll notice the awesome little icons under each game. Easiest way to see which games are on which platform. In addition, clicking on one of those icons will show you other games that are tagged with the same platform. Very handy when building your collection of Amiga or Atari Lynx games.

Feel free to let us know what you would like to see in the Friday Round-Up and we’ll do our best to integrate it into the mix.

I guess that’s it for this “Round-Up”. We’ll be back next Friday with all new good stuff. Stay tuned.

The Great Games Experiment has finally been released for public consumption today. What does the official release mean? No more promo codes, no more limited beta invites, and no more purposeful containment of the beast that is GGE. The front page has changed to allow direct access into the site, even if you’re not a member. We’re nearing 3,000 games, and it’s time to allow the world to have access to all that the Great Games Experiment has to offer.

New to the site? In a nutshell, GGE is a social networking site for games, gamers, and developers. By providing a free resource for developers to network and promote their own games, users have an opportunity to play games that can not be found on other aggregation sites. Along with indie games, GGE hosts games ranging from free Flash games to old classics and mainstream commercial titles.

Ratings, recommendations, and popularity statistics for each game ensures that the cream of the digital crop rises to the top in dynamic fashion. Tags, friendships, and comments supply a more personalized means of distinguishing the exact types of game a user wants to play. The games themselves can be downloaded from their individual game pages, and many are even available to play instantly in your browser. Personalized gamer badges let others know what games users are playing, and can be added to blogs, forums, and social networking sites by embedding the provided html code. All of these features add up to a centralized location for a large audience with a specific focus on the gaming industry.

That’s a pretty big nutshell, but then again, the Great Games Experiment is a pretty big nut.

Marek Bronstring has recently posted an interview on his blog with GarageGames co-founder Jeff Tunnell. This interview covers the current status of the Great Games Experiment as well as future goals of the site/community. Excellent read!

Read Jeff Tunnell on the Great Games Experiment here

The Big Three

$250 newegg.com Gift Certificate
Goes to Andrew Jobin “Echo”.

Nintendo Wii
Goes to dark54555.

XNA Creator’s Club Membership with Torque X Pro
Goes to Jiperly.

Other Categories

Most Popular (Gamer)
Goes to Jiujitsu.
Prize: $50 iTunes Gift Card

Most Popular (Developer)
Goes to AudioGames.
Prize: $50 Art Video from the Gnomon Workshop

Best Profile (Gamer/Developer)
Goes to Kevin James.
Prize: $50 ThinkGeek Gift Card

Highest Rated Game (Developer)
Goes to Data for the game Cortex Command.
Prize: Any Game on GGE (Winner’s Choice)

Most Flash Games Submitted
Goes to Exaggeration17A.
Prize: 2G USB Flash Drive

Best Game Review
Goes to Gfreaky for his review of Hitman: Blood Money.
Prize: Content Pack or 2 games from the GarageGames Game Store

Most Kudos Received (Gamer)
Goes to smila.
Prize: Personalized GGE Avatar from world renowned GarageGames artist

Most Kudos Received (Developer)
Goes to Garry Newman.
Prize: Func.net Customized Aluminum Mousepad

Best Game Page By a Developer
Goes to Krazy Kaution for the game Hellgate London: 16bit.
Prize: Featured Game/Developer on GGE and a Developer Snapshot on GarageGames

Game Developer’s Conference Ticket Raffle
Goes to Rick Mills.
Prize: Two GDC passes grant you and a friend to the GDC Expo

Don’t forget to sign up for the Best Game Page from a developer, Free passes to GDC, and submit your game reviews from your account page or the contest page.

Starting Monday February 19th we’ll be adding a new contest category based on Gamer Badges.

Basically, we’re interested in what people are using their gamer badges for. As mentioned in Sean’s earlier blog, people are doing some pretty cool stuff. Have you found a clever way to use the badges? Posted them on your personal blog site? Whatever it may be, we want to see them. We’ll be awarding the prizes to the most unique and original things we see.

If you missed Sean’s blog post “Awesome Great Games Badge Integration”. Check it out now!

Oh yeah, contests are supposed to have prizes. We’re going to be giving away a free game from the GarageGames gamestore every day for the entire duration of the contest until release. How do you compete? Send me a message letting me know what you have done with the badge and where you have posted it. Visit my profile page and let me know!

In the past week we’ve started getting featured editors to run different sections of GGE. Jay Barnson and one my of favorite game submitters Bjorn are among the first elite few who will run sections of the site.

Bjorn who is known around the site for putting up some of the coolest free games will **surprise surprise** be heading up the free games section. You can check out his featured game at the newly remodeled free games feature. The first game that he’s put up is GraviTron, since he recommends it I suggest everyone check it out because it’s gotta be good. Oh, and I’ve mentioned this before but he’s got a section in his profile titled, “My periodically changing game recommendation!”, which is updated hmmm, periodically, with awesome stuff I might add. Go look at it.

Next up we’ve got Jay Barnson. He’ll be heading up the RPG front. Jay Barnson is the self proclaimed (or maybe this nickname was given to him, I really don’t know) “Rampant Coyote”, dashing secret agent by day (so he says), but by evening pursues his dream of being an indie game developer. He’s worked on several hit mainstream games, such as Twisted Metal, Warhawk, Jet Moto, and some games that he’d rather forget about. Jay is the founder of Rampant Games.

As GGE gets bigger and bigger we’ll be getting in touch with people that are extremely active on the site. So keep it up and maybe we’ll hit you up with moderator abilities (you know you want them).

Bye duders,
Dr. Wiley