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Posting Only Good Quality Escape Games? Walkthrough

Posting Only Good Quality Escape Games?

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Hi Escapers! Because of escape category games are not improving with time, and even they are getting less quality with so many daily bad and buggy games, we decided to post only good quality escape games which will have high ratings and good comments, developed by developers who have good reputation among players. Because otherwise, some developers develop daily bad quality or buggy games, and these games waste our time, harm escape games category, harm to our site and all other escape games sites and blogs. So, after now:

- We will only post games, which will get more than 4 stars 3-4 stars rating and enough good comments. But, if any games from any developers get less than 3 stars rating, we will remove this game from homepage and will not post this developer's one game as penalty. (Updated)

- We will not post games from same developer everyday. So, one developer cannot release and publish games daily. Then they can create longer and better quality games without any bugs. We can post daily games from same developers as long as they meet our requirements by making good quality games without bugs! (Updated)

- If any developer try to give fake ratings or post fake comments for increasing their reputation, we will stop posting games from this developer completely. If any developer try to give fake ratings or post fake comments for decreasing other developers' reputation, we will stop posting games from this developer completely. Giving fake ratings won't increase your games play numbers and won't decrease other developers' game play numbers. So, you should focus developing and improving your games quality instead of trying to cheat players with fake ratings. (We will not look only ratings to understand quality of games, we will also check players' comments).

- If any posted games get low ratings, many bad comments or have any bugs, we will remove these games from homepage anytime. One removed game will decrease its developer's reputation. Then we will learn and understand who are good developers with time.

- We will start applying this new rules starting from 20th July. We will continue posting games like before until that date. But we can change and update these rules according to our users' suggestions.

What do you think about this decision and are there any other suggestions? We made this decision, because we got many complaints about bad quality of escape games. Developers should start focusing to quality of their games, instead of quantity of their games. And they should stop competing eachother by creating so many amount of games. They should only compete about creating best quality games. Because, we can play all good quality games from any developer.

Edit 1: We started to show rating starts on homepage and updated rating star limit from 4 to 3-4 after our users' suggestions. We will also allow daily games from same developers, as long as they meet our requirements by making good quality games.

Edit 2: We will post new developer games or less quality games from older developer games under Other Escape Games category and if they get high ratings and good comments, we will bring them to homepage later.

Edit 3: We will list best quality games from known developers and older good quality replay games under Best Escape Games category. We used "Best Escape Games" name, because many people search on Google for finding best escape games. Then they can easily find this page via search engines.

Edit 4: We added "Rot13 Converter and Deconverter" tool link above comment writing form, for adding spoilers for hints. Unfortunately, Blogger platform doesn't allow any other methods of adding and showing spoilers.

Edit 5: And unfortunately, Blogger doesn't allow listing games according to their ratings, because we use third party rating stars from different site. And even it is possible, it will be list some bad games on top when they have only one or a few ratings as 4-5 stars.

Edit 6: After some of your suggestions, we disabled rating games on homepage. Now, players can see ratings on homepage but can only rate games on game description pages. Please never rate games without playing them, even they are games from developers you like or from developers you don't like.

If you find any broken link about this game, please report and let us know by contacting us. We will add working link if there is any alternative. You may also report any game bugs or problems about games directly to developers from their websites.
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149 comments:

Great idea! I look forward to seeing how this benefits Escape Games and all the gamers. I come to this site daily, but I only play the quality games. Lately, this has been one game out of every 10 or so that is posted. Thank you for this decision.

Fantastic news. Quite often days can go by without finding a decent quality game. Even some of the better developers are relying on templates that make every one of the games seem suspiciously familiar. Less quantity, more quality! Huzzah!

Great move. My only concern is sometimes the harder games get poor ratings from those that cannot finish them, even though they may be very good. As with Jorge I play very few of the games on here due to their poor quality

I play trusted developers who are consistent in making enjoyable and unique games. This new approach means I will get to play more. TY EG24 for thinking of us. @ enzed-Hopefully people will rate games accordingly to weed out the lesser quality, not according to their level of difficulty.

I think it's a great idea but I think you should also ban developers if it can be proven they are using someone else's work without permission. About a week ago Johannisart stated that WOW used his artwork in their Heaven Fantasy game without his permission. If this is true then Wow games should not be allowed on this site.

Great idea, high quality games are what we are looking for.

Thank you for that decision! I agree that the quality has gone down, so it's great that EG24 is making an incentive to make the problem better. I appreciate it! :)

Fantastic news

Good idea, I see that in the past you have removed games and developers that have continued issues (Games Bold to be one my previously favourite developers but their recent contributions have been glitched and unfinishable). Thank you for making this decision and making it a more enjoyable playing experience.

Good idea. I have been playing games on here for years and enjoy playing every day. I too play the better quality games and look forward to the new rules. Thanks.

Excellent initiative! I was kind of hoping this would happen one day. I used to come visit your site every day... and now it's more like once a week or even once every 2 weeks. And I already play only 4 stars games. Thanks anyway to developpers who already work hard for us to have great fun.

On the whole I welcome this idea, but I think 4 stars is a bit high. Quite often I see low ratings soon after a game is posted, which then gradually rise. I imagine this is because some people (e.g. those who object to games which can only be played with ads) automatically give a low rating to particular developers without necessarily playing the game at all. Personally I rarely give 5 stars, saving that for really exceptionally good games. And I quite often give 3 stars to a game that I have enjoyed, but was nothing special. Under this policy, I would have to shift my ratings upwards.

good decision.get rid of that spawn. Neutral,tesshi-E and all the other great developers are drowning inside the jam.
Good decision.!!!!!

Sounds good in theory but will in reality be very tough to do. These daily publishers, it's not like they have one development team working 24/7 to push a game out every day. I reckon they got like 10-14 dev teams all working hard to each finish a game per week or two weeks. I don't quite get the business strategy of how they can monetize these daily games enough to pay the 10-14 dev teams a salary, but it is what it is.

I think it's best to just keep posting the new games as they come and let the ratings tell the story for each one. Punish a dev team for constantly pushing out buggy unfinishable games or stealing others art work, that seems reasonable.

Thinking about it some more, not sure there will be many games to post any given day given the strict rules. I mean, it's debatable how 'good' any of these Games2Jolly or Games4King games are. Overall, how many of these daily games are realistically going to get 4 stars or even 3.5? I'd hate to see this site wither away because it only posts maybe 1-2 games each day or maybe zero some days.

What I'd like to see is a bit more detail for each posted game in terms of estimated length. Like put each game as short (5-10 minutes), medium (10-20 minutes), long (20-30 minutes), and very long (30+ minutes). I know it can be tough to nail down length as one person can get stuck on puzzle where another will not. But this could be a good thing to help those who only have a lunch break and want to try and complete a game (or two) versus somebody home from school or work and who has hours to spend.

This is good though that the webmasters for this site are trying to think of ways of improving things and asking the community to give input. This website has an A+ community, and I'd hate to see it wither away. Best to make it even stronger and stronger.

Ridiculous idea, because people frequently give the lowest possible rating because of technical problems starting the game or - even worse - because they get stuck early on (and the insta-spoilers have not completely spoiled every last detail yet). Everyone knows that Sniffmouse are the best games, but they are posted only once a fortnight. SelfDefiant used to be number 2, but there has been a major decline in quality over the past few months and nowadays only one game in 5 is worth playing. Wow and Games2Rule vie for second place now. Almost all their games are clever, challenging and fun (there are odd duff ones).

One more thought, since you asked for suggestions. A lot of the enjoyment in playing these games is in a bunch of people playing together. One way of making this possible would be to post games more promptly on this site. Often nowadays, by the time a game is posted here a lot of the regulars have already played it elsewhere.

There needs to be some amount of QC applied to the games because of the sheer volume of games being released now. I'll agree with the others that a 4 star rating is setting the bar a bit too high.

However it has become common lately to have a series of games released the same day, all with 2.5 stars or less. That's when I leave EG24 without opening any of them. I'm glad you are trying to hold the developers to a higher standard because I think most of us would rather see fewer, but higher caliber games here. I am sure a happy medium can be reached for all involved.

Posting only good quality is a great idea.

Measuring quality by rating a very, very bad idea (see other comments above)

The same developer not being allowed to post games daily is a ridiculous idea.
Most of the games posted daily or almost daily are indeed crap, but it's not a general rule.
Games2Rule, Wow and Games2Jolly are not especially my favourites, but they deliver a certain kind of quality and more important almost never bugs in these games (a very populair maker, Selfdefiant has bugs in a lot of his games).
Especially Games2Jolly would be the victim of this policy, because they post daily. But, they always deliver!
- Very seldom bugs
- A good mixture of click/place (not pixely) and thinking challenges.
- A normal, not counterintuitive, inventory.
- And something I wish a lot of other games would have: hotspots not hotspots anymore when used.

So, yes please, only good quality games, but better think again about how to define quality.

i have been coming here to play games for a long time its good to hear that we will get quality games

3 star ratings is fine, new developers should also get the chance to post games

I agree with the above posters who feel a 4 star rating is a bit too much to require. I have played some remarkable games that only received 3 or even 2.5 stars. I do agree that buggy games should be eliminated as well as really, really bad "pixel hunt" types.

I agree with a lot of comments above: the intention is certainly welcome. I don't think anybody is coming here for the less enjoyable games. However, there are a couple of things that shouls IMHO be taken into consideration - things that may not be easy to navigate:
1.) what is a bad game?
Games that are buggy and developers known to release buggy games on a regular basis, are a no-brainer. Also, game that have a less-than-two-star rating with more than a handful people rating are almost guaranteed to be less-than-enjoyable. but beyond that, the picture gets murky IMHO. Where is the boundary between bad games and OK games? I've seen plenty of 3-star games which were perfectly OK in my opinion. (And, of course, a lot of ones that were terrible) Where should the limit be set?
Also: new developers may have some bad games before they get the hang of it an start making good or even great games. I think they should get some leeway in the beginning. All the more because the vast majority of the developers do it for free, in their own free time. I's only natural that many developers give it up over time - either they can no longer find the time or they simple get bored and developing games is no longer fun for them - or any other reasons. Therefore it's our own interest to allow new talent to enter the scene and be tolerant with their baby steps. I remember the first few games of Neat Escape, for example, weren't exactly great... they were promisin, but not great. But the guy kept coming back with new games, got the hang of it, and became one of the real good developers IMHO. Or I could mention Hottategoya, formerly the Shanty of Escape Games... his first games weren't nearly as good as many of his matured ones.

and one last note: I think it should be marked clearly if a game has language barrier (mostly Japanese). That is certainly not a "mistake" - simply the Games was meant for a Japanese audience. Quite several of us here like the challenge of interpreting japanese hints and texts, others - including me - are less so. The comment section almost always gives clues about the Japanese hints, so, at the end of the day language barrier is seldom a show-stopper. still, I guess it would be an improvement, if it was clearly marked. With some such games it is, with others it isn't.

I agree with the above comments that 4-stars is too high a mark. After all, three is "average". Generally, a game receiving less than three stars is bugged or the clues are too obscure for the average player to decipher. Some above have stated that they do not give any but the absolute best games a 5-star rating. Some will rate a game lower because they don't like the artwork or the inventory scrolling the "wrong" way.

As it is, I often go directly to the developer's site first because EG24 tends to post games a bit late. I mostly come here to find games I missed or if I need help from the comments.

I think all game players here need to be aware to rate the games they play, I've played games with many people but only one or two have rated the game, I admit I sometimes forget myself.

There is one great thing about EG24 (among others) - I can be sure that most of released escape games were posted here, even "weird" ones. Like 95% or more. Also, if there is a language barrier in a game, there is always some kind player who explains or delivers walkthrough.

As mentioned in previous comments, there are games with low rating which cannot be marked as bad - like the last Flatsan (2,5 star - combination of language barrier and difficult puzzles). But Flatsan is a good developer, not for everybody, but good, previous games are 3,5 star and 4 stars. And Neutral's game Wicked Room got 3 stars (language barrier)...this 4 stars rule would delete Neutral's game! Many players me included are happy to play any game from Neutral...simply I am not sure whether such rule strictly applied would help the page.

Few years ago was rating visible on the main page, next to game's name were stars. You just decided whether to try low rated game or not at a first glance. I found this system better than current and I am still sorry EG24 has changed it.

For better orientation would help better reconizable developer's name (bold letters?)

I don't pay attention to stars, just play the games by developers I like. (And I keep trying new ones!) A couple of my favourites have a new game every day, and I'd hate to lose that. I could go to their sites but it's more fun to play here where I know there's a friendly crowd to help out.

       Anonymous  7/16/17, 5:04 AM  

dear Escapist
I'm sorry for you that you received so many complaints about bad quality games, asking myself if all of these complaints are really justified - from experience I can say that most of the games posted on EG24 already are at least OK & mostly without bugs
it seems that there are ppl who just must complain about everything instead of appreciating your hard work & your good intention to provide us only good quality games ...!

your ambition to only post good quality games is praiseworthy, but I don't think it's a good idea to measure the quality of a game by the star rating
it isn't really informative, 'cause you can't figure out what was the true reason why a game was rated high or low - mayhaps the player even didn't play the (whole) game 'cause of technical probs or the level of difficulty & hence rated it low

also the same dev can have certain ups & downs - the rating of 1 game can only be 3 stars, but another game of the same dev can have 4 stars, therefore I find the 4 star mark also too high

not to post everyday games daily is not the way to educate the devs to create better quality games IMHO - it seems more to me that with this sanction you only want to have less work with searching & posting games... nevertheless, I appreciate your job ☺

also there are devs who have the permission to post their games on their own, how do you want to apply your rules on them?

to get your reputation back to be the best escape game site in the net, it would be good to post new games more promptly - esp. the Japan. games, that generally have a good quality, are posted (too) late, in order that EG24 players move to another sites where the games are posted earlier, i.e. as soon as they're released

the question remains, how to find a fair measurement of the game quality - you can't for sure play all the games by yourself ☻ - tastes are different & so the games are, hence you actually can't compare e.g. a Tesshi-e with a WOW...!
so why not just keep posting the new games as they come & let the players decide acc. to their particular preferences, if they want to play them or not (& take the ratings & constant complainers a bit less seriously) - I'm convinced that there are more players who are happy with EG24 than disgruntled ones...!

I agree with Alpha:
.. "tastes are different & so the games are, hence you actually can't compare e.g. a Tesshi-e with a WOW...!
so why not just keep posting the new games as they come & let the players decide acc. to their particular preferences, if they want to play them or not".
It really is a matter of preference. Someone has already mentioned SniffMouse in a positive light but I can't play them easily so I don't bother with them. Gamers' brains all work differently and which games are loved by one will leave another unsatisfied for many reasons, too hard, too easy, difficult maths, difficult navigation or logistics puzzles, many reasons. As someone said earlier I may have only 10 mins here or there for a quick game or I may have a whole evening and want more of a challenge so I will choose different games each time. I have played some great 2 and 3 star games too so I think 4 is too high. Alpha is also right for every complainer there are hundreds and hundreds of happy customers so we mustnt lose sight of that.

Good idea, but maybe also good to see the ratings without having to open the game-description, just like it was about 2 years ago? Easier to select a game.

Good initiative, but I would not agree the judging on the base of the ratings. Some games are just different and many players give bad ratings, if they don't get the game or don't like the style of the game. I love Japanese games, including TomoLaSiDo can games which I enjoy very much, but the newest TomoLaSiDo has only 3 stars. I'm not going to like if an unconventional game designer will get a penalty for that.

My simple proposal: just don't allow to post more than one game a week per a developer. The developers have their own websites where they can release a new game every 10 minutes, if they want. And no penalties for low rating, but maybe some awards for extra good rating, e.g. developers can post two games a week, if their rating has been over 4.5 stars for a while.

Oh and please skip all those games with too many adds where you can hardly find the chosen game?

I like the 4 star cutoff, that is exactly the place I filter which games to play. I rate games that have bug and unable to finish as 1 star, games with bad math precedent rules as one star, games with pixel hunts (trunk of a tree, one certain rock, etc) as 2 stars, average click-object/clue and place/enter as 3 stars (most games here fall into this category, unfortunately), games with something to figure out or a mini-game as 4 stars, and those with puzzles or mini-games plus particularly good artwork/mood/environment/humor/theme as 5 star. I find many games rated by others as 3 1/2 are only deserving of a 2 or 3 rating. 3 stars means "Average", simple click and place games can only be average and should be rated so.

I should add that I'm more lenient of pixel hunts in games with only one or two simple scenes. But those games with 20 scenes where you need to find just the rock to look behind? Or those games with small black objects on dark brown backgrounds? Instant 2 stars. And good riddance to the new SD games, play their games from 2-3 years ago!

Hmmmm. Not so sure.

Most of my comment is about Games Bold.
Before that I'd like to say that 4.5 stars is a very high bar to set. I wouldn't give any of the regular games devs I like 5 stars. No G2R, no WOW, perhaps occasionally for VitaminHana, not even for Amajeto as they are very repetitive. I save my high scores for Tomatea and Tesshi and their peers.

Despite their many and manifest faults I like GamesBold games. GASP.

I like them on the same level as I like WOW and G2R, and I have been going to their page to play the games, but missing discussion on the games which occurred when the games were posted here.

I know that many people don't like GB as they don't hesitate to say so every time a game is posted. (can't they just not play the games.)

On the other hand, there were several regulars who played, commented and helped each other while still acknowledging when the games had bugs.

There are games developers I avoid but I don't spend my time telling other people to avoid them.

I also manage to play GB without too many ads on my screen and I've never had a virus from them (or anyone else) either.

Anyway, a plea for games that are not universally appreciated to be posted.

While reading through the comments I see that several people have said "Good. We want more good quality games." I think this policy is unlikely to force developers to develop high quality games. It's just as likely to result in us seeing fewer games overall. Beware of unexpected consequences. Be careful of what you wish for.

Sorry for a third comment in a row, but I am having fragmented thoughts.

I have seen several times a comment giving a game 1* because "it is bugged", when in fact the user hasn't understood a clue and the game is playable and bug-free.

Don't know if it was the same person, or different people. Also not those times where the dev changed the game in response to bug reports.

See Marnie's post at 7/16/17, 4:51 AM. Could not have said it any better myslef. As with many other users, I think if you try to enforce the 4-star threshold, there will be very few games posted on EG24 in future and will ultimately lead to very little traffic to this site. Finally, as some other users have observed, I think "insta-spoilers" are more of a detriment to the EG24 community than anything else -- seems some users don't even play the games; they just watch the walkthrough videos and post a blow-by-blow.

EG24 is a wonderful resource for Flash games -- please leave it alone and let the users decide which developers to play and what to rate them.

I like this very much.

Sounds good, except for the part about not publishing ever day. Certain games, such as Wowescape, Games2Rule, Games2Jolly, and a few others publish almost every day and are consistently good.

Dear Escapist,

I appreciate your efforts. Lately you've been one of the first to post the quality Japanese games so I can come here again instead of different developer's websites.

But, like others, I agree that EG24 has many different levels of players. And that players who are new or not confident or frustrated will rate an excellent game low simply because they don't understand how to solve it.

I like the idea of having the rating visible before you open the game - as it was before. Gives a player a quick chance to see what others think.

Also agree that new developers need the opportunity to develop their craft and style so they should be given more leeway.

And, as far as buggy games, yes. Remember Gazzyboy? Delete them - especially repeat offenders. If developers don't bother to beta-test their games, why should we do it for them? And of course, any developer found to manipulate the ratings should be dealt with.

One thing I would dearly love is for EG24 to bring back the Spoiler option. You had it several years ago where an answer could be hidden and you had to "mouse over" the answer to read it.

Thanks Escapist - obviously you've thought long and hard about this. And it will mean a lot of extra work for you. Also thank you for asking us what we think. That's important.

You can always try your ideas - all or some of them. If they work fine, if not maybe a few changes will make them work better. Been playing here for @10 years and EG24 still has the best community of players. Appreciate you and all my fellow gamers.



Thank you EG24.........I come here everyday.

@William Teach. <-------------What he said. What is wrong with posting every day if the games are of a good quality. WOW and G2R are lovely games and I look forward to playing them daily. If you don't allow them to post daily, people will simply go direct to their sites to find the games.

That is a great move! I had been playing only games with 4 stars or more, and it takes quite some time for me to screen those games personally.

However, one concern is that there are some ingenious Japanese games that get low (~3.5 stars) rating due to language barrier... I will miss many such games that I enjoyed the puzzles very much.

Thank you. So tired of poor quality games.

I come here almost every day, although I don't have a screen name and post as anonymous. I love reading the posts of the "regulars"! I agree with Janet-"I like the idea of having the rating visible before you open the game - as it was before. Gives a player a quick chance to see what others think." and others have said the same.It seems like the spoiler option would be good. I also like WOW and G2R. I love games with great graphics. Other things that contribute to the maximum enjoyment for me: Maps!, hot spots gone after use, names for the items in inventory (sometimes not clear what they are), if not maps, at least numbers or letters on scenes, no difficult math problems - I'm here to play games not wrack my brain on maths!Thank you for asking our opinions! Mimi

EG24, I have been playing on your site almost from its beginnings way back when. People liked and still your site for several reasons:
1) a variety of games (Yes, some will be better than others based on personal opinions. I hate the hidden object/use the object games but I would never request these games be deleted as others really like them.) Continue to provide a variety of games. Those outstanding games that take much longer to develop are our "little gifts" that come to us unexpectedly and delight us.
2) a sense of community through posting comments, friendly banter, and friendships (I am glad to see the drama/negative personal comments from awhile back are gone). I don't post comments often since I don't play "live" and I don't use the comments unless I am stuck. But, those gamers who choose to always post helpful hints should be appreciated and recognized. Also, there may be gamers who enjoy feeling a sense of community; we don't know how many may live in "isolation" and without many friends nearby. Also, there are those who enjoy interactions with others as well as gaming.

The only main viable complaint with this game site was the posting later that other sites. I have noticed an improvement in that area.
I don't think you need to "monitor" the world of games. Those developers who put out weak games are not the ones who check on and/or use our comments and concerns. Let them be; we already know whether we want to play their games or not. The low scoring of games is NOT a reflection of you game site. The friendliness and kindness of the players IS a reflection of site and THE REASON that so many come here to play the games.
Thank you for the many, many years of enjoyable games for us to play!!!!

I think it's a good idea to select on quality instead of quantity.
But this also has the consequence that many new developers get no more chances to post their games. And I think they need a playground to experience and learn. Maybe it's an idea to put them in the sidebar (under Game Categories) under the title 'New Developers'. There are always escapers who like to give it a try.
And please put back the star rating at the homepage, so you immediately can choose on ratings and not have to go to the game-page first. Maybe it's even possible to put the amount of votes behind the ratings.
It's a pity that there are not as much comments any-more as was a while ago. (I know, this is because the walkthroughs are much faster to find on You Tube) but that was my way to select a game: I chose the games with the highest amount of comments (minimum was 70-80)

I am in agreement with Marnie
We can decide for ourselves which game we play
I think 4 stars is too high

It is 100% correct to get rid of rubbish. As usual, people haven't read your assertions properly before deciding to comment. The majority of games are predictable and rehashed. Not everyone can be Skutnik but the games are 'worse' than they were. Sniffmouse are ok now but would have been viewed as average 3 years ago. It isn't personal or overly critical but the standard has dropped quite considerably. In stead of just shouting about your favourite now, just do a little bit of research and go back to the days of submachine, covert front, daymare town etc. You had to use imagination rather than a purely analytical approach...much more entertaining

Rating is subjective. I do not bother rating. It should be player's decision to play or not. I suggest the game should be posted promptly once it is released. Especially the Japanese game, it is delayed for sometimes a week's time.

Good for you.

I like Ca3na's comment: "Maybe it's even possible to put the amount of votes behind the ratings."

I play on another site that includes the number of votes and give me insight to whether 5 vs 25+ like/dislike a game. Sometimes I use that number to make a decision to play or not. If it's a favorite developer with only a few rating it low, I will play the game anyway. A rating should not be considered if just a few like/dislike. In the future, I will take the time to rate each game that I play (I usually forget but now see that it's important). Great suggestion, Ca3na!

thats sounds great except for the fact i love playing wowescape games (they're my go to) so not having a game daily sucks

Very good idea! I suggest 3 stars for being allowed to stay for the beginning.

Good for you.

I see a lot of good feedback here, enough that I don't really need to give my own. I'll just say one thing that I haven't seen anyone else comment about.

Any game that doesn't cut the mustard here is bound to be posted on any number of other game sites, so I think the biggest impact will be that if something is passed by here, people who do want to play it will be forced to look for it elsewhere.

There is a core community here that has been close for years. I've been playing games on here since 2011 or earlier (it's been so long I can't remember). I don't post a lot, and I never really visited the chat when it was available, but I've still been a small part of what goes on here.

You might find that if you cut people off from things they like due to different tastes or whatever causing lower ratings in their favorite games, they may just go elsewhere and stay there. Driving people AWAY from a site is typically not the outcome the site's owners/caretakers should want.

Oops! When I went to the top to rate this page, I do see the # of votes! Yep, I need to rate more often. :)

My two cents and a five dollar bill might get you a cup of coffee these days.

"- We will only post games, which will get more than 4 star ratings and good comments. But, if any games from any developers get less than 4 star ratings, we will remove this game and will not post this developers one game as penalty." <<< Bad idea!
Ratings are subjective, relative and easily abused. --- "One man's trash is another man's treasure"

"- We will not post games from same developer everyday. So, one developer cannot release and publish games daily. Then they can create longer and better quality games without any bugs." <<< This section is contradictory.

"- If any developer try to give fake ratings or post fake comments for increasing their reputation, we will stop posting games from this developer completely." <<< Good call. This rule should be spelled out for developers and/or game posters prior to posting a game.

"- If any developer try to give fake ratings or post fake comments for decreasing other developers' reputation, we will stop posting games from this developer completely." <<< Another good call. This rule should be spelled out for developers and/or game posters prior to posting a game.

"- If any posted games get low ratings, many bad comments or have any bugs, we will delete these games anytime. One deleted game will decrease its developer's reputation. Then we will learn and understand who are good developers with time." <<< Certainly delete games that have bugs that the developer fails to correct. However, deleting games with poor ratings and/or bad comments is a bit fascist.

If you want to return some of the power to the actual players of these escape games, might I make or repeat a couple of suggestions:

1. Implement a better search (sorting) method so that the end user has more options or filters. i.e by ratings, by number of comments, by date, by developer, by frequency of which games are posted, by total number of games published by developer and so on.

2. Return the visibility of a games rating to the list view.

3. Perhaps start to include a difficulty and length rating that the players could rate.

I will add a humble: "Thank you" to all developers for taking the time to create such entertaining games. "Thank you" to all posters of these games. "Thank you" to all of the players for your company, hints, walk through and laughs. Finally, "Thank you" escapegames24 for hosting this site and all of your hard work.

(mic drop)

I'm a long time EG24 player and agree that 4 stars are too high. Like many commenters, I like the idea of putting the ratings back on the homepage so I don't have to click through to see it.

What I would like to see the most is the spoilers option again. I used to love reading the comments and participating in the conversations. Now I avoid the comments unless I'm stuck because the insta-spoilers smack you in the face the minute you get into the comments. What ever happened to hints that helped figure out a puzzle rather than blurting out the answers right away? Or, for that matter, waiting until someone asks for help before starting the hints? I know some people like and defend the insta-spoilers but honestly, isn't that what the video walkthroughs are for?

As for the daily games, there are a few I look forward to and would miss them if they were taken off.

EG24 is still my favorite escape game site and I look forward to seeing what changes come along.

I just noticed that the ratings are back on the homepage! Thank you, EG24 for listening and responding so quickly!

I applaud the rededication to quality and the application of strict standards, however I think the reliance upon the rating system to guide this effort is problematic for many reasons.
First, as we have seen, it is too easy to rig, both by devs and by users. Second, even when used properly, the rating system is ultimately subjective. What one person considers to be good another person will consider to be bad.
More importantly, relying on the rating system ultimately places the job of quality control in the hands of the users, rather than in the hands of the site administration where it belongs.

I suggest eliminating the rating system entirely, replacing it with a flag system whereby users can flag a game for review and provide a short reason why. The flagged games would then be reviewed by a mod team, who would have to agree as a team (rather than as an individual) on what action to take. Mods would be appointed by Escapist, who would review the decisions to insure that the mods are doing their jobs appropriately.

The standards proposed are largely good ones, but if adhered to they will upset a lot of users because one of the most highly favored devs here (Selfdefiant) runs afoul of virtually every one of them. He usually publishes more than one game a day, and while they are short 5 minute games most of them are supposed to be because they are suited for children. These games are almost never buggy. His Asylum-type games are not suited for children, and are usually a little longer and not released as often, but are usually buggy at first. He is always there to fix them as soon as the bugs are made known, but the fact remains that as a dev the rules would have him out in pretty short order.
The thing is that bugs happen. You have to allow for that to some extent, but not to the extent that you use EG24 as beta testers. I am not just talking about Selfdefiant here, I mean everyone. If you implement code changes on your website that render your games unplayable on common browser platforms and with common browser configurations, you should not be allowed to post links here, no matter how good your games are. The point is that judgment calls are going to have to be made regarding when the line is crossed, so that you don't throw the good devs having an isolated problem out with the bad devs. You can't rely on the general user population to make those sorts of judgment calls in a consistent manner and with fairness, especially using the current rating system.

If this is a site geared for all audiences, you should also make sure that the games are suited for all audiences in terms of both difficulty and content. (A flag system would help with this as well.) Games should be labeled with an age suitability graphic so that you could include games which are not suitable for the elementary school set without having the kids (or sensitive adults) from clicking on things and getting rudely surprised. Again, the moderation team could be used to review and categorize these games appropriately much more efficiently than having the users do that through an arbitrary and skewable rating system.

Ultimately it is a job which is too big for one person to handle all by themselves. that too has been tried, and it didn't work out. If this is going to work at all well no matter what method is chosen, Escapist is going to have to have the help of people who are not just dedicated to the site and willing to spend the time necessary, but who are capable of impartiality and sound judgment. Those are not commonly held character traits, so relying on the general population of users to use an easily rigged ratings system seems like a bad idea to me.

support ! Only practice make perfect, i love to see this from a great site like escapegames24.com which put in a lot of effort to maintain. Cheers

You put the ratings back on the main page! I think that will work as a 'natural'selection. Thank you!

Thank you very much for returning ratings to the main page!

I've wanted nothing but to create fun, quality games and that is what I will continue to do. Nothing will change that. My fans know where to find my games.

       Anonymous  7/16/17, 9:44 AM  

I'm glad to see that there will be changes that will make eg24 a better place to play and comment,I wish your games will be posted here daily selfdefiant, even though mouse city ones are short they are still fun to play, thanks for your hard work guys

Oh my god finally! This website has always been my source and reference when it comes to escape games, and I got really sad and discouraged to play after seeing terrible games flooding the home page more and more everyday. Thank you for this decision! I'm sure everyone really appreciates it.

Thank you for for your thoughtful attempt to improve the game experience for all! Many of my opinions have already been posted, but I will add my support for the following:

- either make the cutoff rating score 2 stars, or better yet, forego the star rating system entirely and have a comment section devoted to the discussion of the quality of the game. This will provide qualitative data for evaluating what really amounts to people's subjective opinions.

- be patient with new game developers who will get low ratings at first, and give them time to improve.

- be patient with games that have a bug and give the developer time to respond with corrections

- many times people report a game as buggy when in fact, they just don't understand the clues or the interface, or the issue is a result of a technical issue with their computer or network. Sometimes people rate games low because of ads when developers rely on revenue from ads to develop the games. Allow for this.

- frequency of publication seems like an arbitrary requirement. I would let the quality and popularity of games speak for themselves.

- give developers a chance to come back if they improve. As an example, I am baffled by the fact the Ainars is not permitted to post games here. I would rather play the same beautiful, engaging Ainars games over and over than the brand new tedious pick-objects-up-and-put-them-down-somewhere-else games.

I don't get to post here much, but I have been playing games on this site for many years, and I always rate every game I play. I truly appreciate your efforts. This used to be my go-to site for games, but it has been difficult recently to find quality games here in a timely fashion. I welcome attempts at improvement. I encourage you to see improvement as a process and feel free to try well-thought-out ideas with the caveat that you can always try something else if it doesn't work. I also encourage you to apply those same standards to developers. The right standards can encourage all developers to improve, and provide a venue for new developers to flourish. I especially value the active user community here. I think there is a unique opportunity here for developers, users, and moderators to shape an exciting community of quality and collaboration.

Thank you to EG24 and all the developers for their hard work, and for providing us all with free, enjoyable entertainment!

I agree with AlphaOmega on his views. The star rating is misleading. I have read peoples comments where they "red x" a game and give it 1 star because of their own limited skills in a game. If they can't figure it out, it must be a bad game. Yet some of us can figure it out with a little effort.
Japanese games with no language barrier are tough and sometimes take an hour but that is why I have been here everyday for years. Selfdefiant Mouse City games can be quite quick but for people on a lunch break they are perfect so who is the judge and jury on here. Should it not be the fans and the players who are loyal to this site or to the ones who can figure it out. How do we judge who isn't good enough and should just get out. I just had a flash back of high school cliques there for a moment. hahaha
Good luck EG24, I hope it works out in our favor and your as well.

I like the idea of making developers accountable and penalizing them for consistently making poor games. I don't think you should automatically not post games from developers who produce new games every day. I think Wow, G2R, G4King and AVM produce playable, decent games most of the time and should be allowed to post every day. Also, I think only allowing games with 4 stars an up is a bit harsh. It should be 3 stars and up.

3 star ratings is good enough. Sometimes when I've finished my favorites, I go to others just because I want to keep playing. Also, sometimes 3 star games are very good, and rated low for other reasons. Thanks for being thoughtful and trying this out!

Post the rating stars on the first page, for all to see and the games will improve.

Lots of good suggestions in the comments. I'll say one more thing.

Instead of not posting all games, perhaps take a different tack in highlighting the best rated or most talked about games. Maybe do a 'sticky' for these games to where they always show up at top of webpage for a week or whatever (or at least a day) while the other games fall down with each newly posted entry.

Hi escapist,

I have been playing escape games since early 2000s (?). There used to be many blogs and sites that track these games, including Jayisgames, freegamenews, and Nordinho, but most are now inactive or closed so your site is pretty much the last one standing.

The escape game genre has been dying a slow death for a while. The flood of badly created games, (acting as click bait for ads and malware) is one factor, but it is not the only one.

Some of the best developers (who are mostly Japanese) have stopped making games. Terminal House hasn't been updated since early 2010s, neither has Akarika or Haretoki. Robamimi publishes about once a year now, if that. Tomatea seem to have stopped (unless Amajeto is the same person, but even then the games are now simpler and more formulaic). Neutral published one new game in the last couple of years (it was an EPIC game, but still.) Rabbit Tell disappeared. HILGREED has not publiched one in ages and he has pulled his old games (e.g. the Wizard Taro collection) offline.

Meanwhile, active publishers have moved from browser games to apps (Gotmail got there first, but now 58works, Kotorinosu, Gam.eBB, and Mild Escape are also pushing mobile apps), reducing the amount of good games that are purely browser-based.

If i have one suggestion, it is to include mobile escape game apps in the blog. It will include some of the better publishers out there, and reduce the reliance on poor quality browser based games. As for what to include, i am not convinced that the ranking system can be entirely trusted (this being the internet, home of trolls). Instead, stop listing some of the daily publishers of dubious quality as a once a week omnibus post (link to several games in a same post under "WOW escape games of the week" or something like that) and individual list the more challenging and worthy ones.

I thank you for your hard work and the joy this site brings.

"You get what you pay for" is a cliche phrase that comes to mind here. I would like to thank all the developers for allowing us to play their games for free. It is not reasonable to expect every free game to be awesome.

I am glad that EscapeGames24 cares about the quality of games posted here. I hope they do remove games that are not completable and games that use resources without permission.

However, I am concerned about the idea of removing games based on player ratings. Another cliche phrase comes to mind here: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." The player base here is highly diverse and we all have different tastes in games. Personally I like the longer games where I start out lost and confused, and gradually begin to make sense of things. But not everyone likes to be lost and confused for a while. The games I like may get lower player ratings and comments such as "too random, too obscure, I quit." I hope that EG24 will leave these games posted, along with their player ratings, and let me decide whether I want to play.

BuzzcutGtr at 6:02am today made a point: "EG24 is a wonderful resource for Flash games -- please leave it alone and let the users decide which developers to play and what to rate them." I agree. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

What devs' game styles some people like, I might not...and vice versa. I don't look at ratings or stars, I look for cleverness, creativity, diversity of challenges within each game, etc. I don't mind pixel hunts, since I started with hidden object games long before moving to escape games. Most of the ones I play are consistently good quality in those respects. If there are true bugs within a game, some of the devs monitor these forums more than others and are quick to fix them and post in the forum that they have been fixed. SelfDefiant, WOW, G2R and Nsr are good that way, and their bugs are few and far between. Other devs seem not to care one way or another, and those are the ones I drop out from playing.

Instead of your dropping devs by the number of stars their games receive, which might not be fair to new devs starting out and whose games could improve over time, drop them based on criteria that have nothing to do with style, for example
1. Are their games buggy because of consistently poor quality control before the games are released to the public, *consistently* being the operative word here? Not just an occasional bug because after all, the devs are human like the rest of us and can miss something once in a while. Do items disappear from inventory, do puzzles and open windows stick and not close, so that players have to keep reloading the games, often losing their places if the game doesn't have a feature to resume?
2. Is a dev using underhanded tactics within the gameplay itself, like using a hotspot to redirect players to an ad, another gaming site or other site which may contain malware? I dropped ZooZoo Games like a hot potato just for this reason.
3. Do the devs monitor these forums and care about what their players have to say, and take constructive suggestions into consideration to improve their quality (beyond the "game is too hard" or "this game sucks" category, of course)? We make these suggestions because we LIKE their games and don't want to see them fail.

To any devs who may not be doing this, a couple of suggestions, please, which may increase your rating:
1. Incorporate a resume feature in all your games, so players don't lose what they've done if it becomes necessary to reload a game.
2. Once a hotspot is used completely, whether it's a clue or a finished puzzle or an object taken and put into inventory, remove that area as a hotspot. Some devs already do this and it makes the play shorter and easier, especially in games with a lot of scenes.

EG24, thank you for hosting these games and offering forums for discussion and help per game. Do you have a feedback forum for topics or problems relating to your site or your forums or game developers, that aren't specific to a particular game? Unless I'm blind as a bat, I don't see a feedback feature here. Is there one?

And to the devs reading this, new or established, thank you for bringing these games free to play. Your hard work is more appreciated than not. Keep bringing us more brain food! :)

I agree with everything Chris said.

I've noticed you posting more replay games, which I really enjoy. A lot of the great games are fun to play again, and there are bunches of them. It's enough for most to have a few good games daily to play, new or replay, as opposed to sifting through many poor ones designed to gain clicks or other ad-driven behavior. I know Jay is Games and other sites have struggled in recent years as more people find game entertainment through their phones and tvs, but EG24's dynamic seems to work well to maximize good game postings and minimize bloat. Even frequent game developers like Amajeto still maintain good standards. The formula for the games doesn't take from their quality because the developers prioritize quality and debugging before publishing.

I rarely comment, but have enjoyed EG24 almost daily for years. But I think this is important to comment on. The policies may need to be tweaked as they are implemented, but the general idea is a good one imo, putting the emphasis on the audience as opposed to the developers and their ads. In the end it benefits everyone who truly enjoys escape games across the spectrum.

I applaud your efforts to improve the quality of games on your site and thus enhance the experience of those of us who visit here. I truly appreciate your concern for those of us who participate here.

I would make one suggestion, however, and that is not to implement your proposed policy of only allowing developers to post new material every other day. I understand that this is for the purpose of reducing the number of bugs found in games by providing more time for developers to vet their games out. Unfortunately, this is not going to result in a cause and effect situation.

Developers such as WOW, G2R , SD and others are still going to produce games on a daily or more frequent basis (except for Sunday in the case of WOW and G2R), and gamers such as I are still going to play them on a daily basis. This can easily be accomplished either by going to the developers’ sites or other sites which carry them. Thus the bugs, which are infrequent anyway, will remain at the same level.

The net result is that all that will be accomplished will be less traffic to EG24, which I suspect translates into less income for you. A secondary negative will be less of the community interaction which many of us undertake and enjoy as we engage in the various games. It adds a human value aspect to otherwise imaginary games.

So, I would again urge you to allow daily (or more frequent) posting of new games by those developers who choose to do so.

Thank you again for this wonderful site! It is a welcome relief from the many mundane requirements of daily life.

Mac Carter

I've read it all and I find it hard to decide for others what good games and what bad games are.
I know it for myself, and I agree with Nini here.
But liking and disliking is subjective.

Going by ratings has a problem.
Two examples : sometimes a player creates a riddle. Riddles are always rated low, but to those who want to play them they are gems and so enjoyable. Look at the number of comments on them.

The same with Darakeguma. Typing the name already makes me smile and even laugh out loud. 15 clicks and you're out, but my, fun in the comment section!

This shows how hard it is to decide what games to like.
Rewarding good games sounds like a better idea than 'punishing' bad games.

Escapist, I think the question is basicly : what kind of gamesite do you want it to be?
One that posts any game that is created on the Internet no matter what it is.
Or a site that posts games with good and interesting content (definition?), and then it doesn't matter that a developer comes up with one a day.

Perhaps both sides can be satisfied with a suggestion : adjust the blue bar on top of the page.
Perhaps a split in games can be shown there?
That would mean that every game needs an extra tag when posting it.

You're in for extra work Escapist, that's for sure! I have done it myself for a while and know it takes a lot of time to do it right.

Thank you for making direct contact with the players. That's appreciated.

Arrie.

I believe every thought - pro and con - have been mentioned.

Going by given rating is not always telling the truth about a game.

I believe in you guys playing a game and finding it good enough to be posted here would be a better measurement to go by.

Cheers :)

Oh ... and even more comments, I didn't read the last 10 or so ones :). Going to it now.

I would prefer 3 stars and up. I often enjoy 3 star games.

Thank you for stressing QUALITY over QUANTITY. Totally agree with you fair decision. Would rather go a day without playing, than waste time on a buggy game.

I don't appreciate having a handful of players deciding which games I can play here and which I cannot by the use of stars. I prefer to decide for myself what to play, not have someone decide for me.
Sounds like censorship to me.

Fortunately there are plenty of other sites I can go to for games I enjoy so I really don't care what happens here.

First off, THANK YOU to Escapist for trying to improve EG24 in a thoughtful manner and with input from players. I am in total agreement with karen, who wrote, "The friendliness and kindness of the players IS a reflection of site and THE REASON that so many come here to play the games." Without players who are so consistently kind as well as helpful (not to mention brilliant in some cases) I would have moved on years ago.

A few comments on your plans -
-- I'm in agreement with the overwhelming view that 4 stars is a bit high for a cutoff. Like ca3na, I usually look at the number of comments on a game as a hint to quality.
-- I don't play Wow, or Games2 Rule or a number of games for various reasons, yet they seem to be popular. You can't please all of the people all the time", so you'll have to settle for "all of the people some of the time".
-- I would love to see the hidden spoilers come back. I always try to post hints where needed and I really HATE seeing a game with comments where nothing helpful is posted. But it is difficult to search for help with a particular feature without seeing spoilers for things I may have been able, and would prefer, to work out on my own.
The spoiler system at, for example, JayIsGames is a good model.
-- Someone posted that it would be nice to see the most highly rated games singled out or highlighted somehow. I would point out that this is already done in the right margin where "Most Popular Games" are listed on a weekly, monthly or yearly category.

I'm sure there are many more excellent suggestions to come. You have always been receptive to players and ready to make improvements (and, in fact you've already responded to requests to post ratings where they're most easily seen. I commend you for that, and look forward to what comes next.

Thank you!

wow, LOTS of new comments while I was writing!
I'd like to add one request that may or may not be popular: would it be possible to bring back the practice of numbering the comments? I found this helpful in a variety of ways.

First off, thank you for hosting these games, it is my number one site for playing. I must make it known that I am at times forgetful and don't put in a rating at all (sorry!!). There are some very good comments above and I hope you'll take them all into consideration. Everyone has an opinion, only natural, and some are born to complain about anything and everything, hence some really good games are given a low rating. And, some in my opinion, are too high. Not sure if anyone else has commented on the rating scheme, but I'd like to say that if a game is poor, then it is awful and if a game is average then it is only good. Perhaps some consideration should be made to change this: 1 = poor/awful, 2 = fair, 3 = average/good, 4 = very good, and 5 = excellent. I agree with most that a 3 rating would be acceptable but I sure would like to see more 4 or 5 rated games on this site. It is also my opinion that EG24 should quality control all games before posting, limiting the number of glitches players encounter. Good Luck!!

A bit off topic, but it's come up a few times here, so I'll say this about spoilers.
Today or yesterday someone pointed out a very easy way to make spoilers with encoded text that is easy to use. See the thread in the latest Games2Jolly game for details.

Dear EG24,
I would love to have a more convenient way for searching games, such as number played, ratings, count of votes, number of comments etc. and (please) with the ability of multiple choises (games of several
developers within an given amount of days etc.). Based on these selections it seems more likely to me to track down that games, I'm is interested in, other than by the misleading ranking.

I think a good game is not only defined by its quality but by its popularity too. Therefore removing games may not be a solution for level increasing.

Btw. you're doing a great job, thank you very much for years of highly enjoyable content!

I agree with some of the people here saying that the suggested way of filtering out low quality games leaves no room for personal taste. There are developers who are loved by some, and hated by others.
I would be very happy if it would be possible to apply a personal filter, i.e. let all members decide for themselves which games they want to see and which they don't want to see. This personal filter could be stored in a cookie or in a personal profile on this site, so that users need only once set up their filter, and can maintain it themselves

I'd 100% support the idea of not letting a developer post a new game every single day. How much time could go into such games? Those games tend to be either recycled code from other games or games that are about as much "fun" as picking up your room as a kid.

Good decision! There are a lot of waste now in escape games... we have to make a great selection to keep the taste of the good games ;)

Dree's suggestion at 2:02pm today is an excellent one. Use a cookie or (better yet) a personal account with a password here and we can set up our own filter-ins/filter-outs of developers and/or types of game postings we want showing up as "new" when we click on EG24's home page. I might want to filter in Developer A as a favorite but filter out Developer B whose games I'm not interested in. For those familiar with Facebook, a filtering model similar to theirs for your Newsfeed page might be a good start. How about it, EG24/Escapist?

Thank you, Escapist, for considering what we want. I, too, look at the ratings before I play a game, but don't always open or reject a game based on the stars. After playing games on this site for many years, I've come to know what developers I like, so even if the stars are lower than 3, I will still play a game if I've liked one of their games before. I also think the cutoff should be 3 stars, not 4.

I also think that players' comments should be taken into consideration because there are, as has been mentioned above, some players that give only one star because they can't figure out a puzzle, or because their own computer gives them trouble and they blame EG24 for it.

Everyone has different likes and dislikes about certain developers. There are some fairly popular developers that I don't play because I simply don't like their style and/or puzzles, but that's just me. I don't rate those games one way or another - just don't play them.

Thanks, again, for "listening" to us and giving us the opportunity to express our ideas!

I like all the games without errors when there is time. Different games have their own style and task for players. Find a pixel (across the screen) is not interesting. And for someone who is not strong in puzzles, it just might be to your liking. For me, good games are also not enough. There is a game, you do not even know at first what to do .. And then you delve into a little and if you hit the wave (ideas) of the author, then it's so exciting. I do not look at the ratings. But the number of comments already shows that the game has something to think about. I noticed that games where interesting, complex codes very often put low marks.

Sometimes low scores can put off a grudge that it is impossible to pass a golovolk or solve a code. Thanks to EG for the games. And really good, rare games are very late. They have to play alone on other sites.

Иногда низкие оценки могут поставить от обиды,что не получается пройти головоломку или решить код.Спасибо ЕГ за игры. И действительно хорошие ,редкие игры очень запаздывают . Их приходится играть в одиночку на других сайтах.I give the original text. Google is lying

Nafanja - Why is Google lying?

Nafanja's problem is with Google Translate Zoe.

I've been looking at the comments here and at games in the archive, and I've shifted my position about using ratings, even with a threshhold of 3, say.

Two things generate lots of comments on games: bugs and difficult puzzles. These same two things generate low ratings: bugs always and difficult puzzles often (if someone doesn't come up with a solution early on).

Bugged games are annoying, obviously, though some developers respond quickly, and that is appreciated. However, I am sure that there are others like me who just love the challenge of difficult puzzles, and would not want them to be penalised by any change in policy.

I agreed with all comments as it relates to 4 star rating that is, how best to rate a developer's game?
I suggest that a pull down tab leave constructive and instructive response comments about a game. Of course, the box "others" where more in depth comments or observations about a game can be entered. Thereafter a player may click on "star" rating of game. In this way, players have a more informed ideal about a game, for example, the was buggy/and or why the game was an exceptional playing experience for the player or not.
In this way, the developer and player provides a more somewhat conclusive ideal about a game, wherein a 3 or 4 star rating tells nothing, I speak only for me.

I applaud your efforts EG24, and I appreciate your site being among a few where I can find a pleasurable selections of game diversity.

I agree with much of what was already said here - the general wish to improve is a great one, but keeping in mind that some of the most brilliant games get downvoted because they are too hard for the *average* player, setting the ratings requirement too high will actually mean that your selections will be characterized by *mediocrity* rather than excellence! Think twice there. :)

I also love the suggestion of enabling personal filters, aka 'ignore lists' - both for developers and maybe even for posters! Some people just can't get along, why not let people just not see posts by somebody who only gets on their nerves?

Oh, and lastly yes, some developers like WOW and G2R do post very nice games daily. And also, while SelfDefiant's cartoon games have long since started boring me, I would hate to miss out on one of his Asylum or beautiful resort games just because he's on his "day off" from here when he releases one. So maybe think twice there too.

Thanks for this site! :)

I agree with zoz that numbering the comments is very helpful for referring people who are stuck for hints and spoilers that have already been posted (rather than the time of a posting which is a bit tedious, IMO)

I started using AdBlock on this site back when we had this conversation about the star rating system years ago, because I didn't want to be influenced by data that I knew to likely be inaccurate. AdBlock removes the ratings from the page entirely, so I don't see them. And that is really the big problem here. If the rating system actually worked as it is intended, bad developers and bad games would not get clicked on because the rating on them would consistently be low. The problem is that the rating system is RE-active and not PRO-active. It doesn't stop bad games from being posted, and it relies on people wasting their time trying to play them in order to find out whether they are crap or not. I like the suggestion of a mod panel, but would like to see them assigned to play the submitted games for initial vetting before they even get posted. It would only delay the posting of the games by half an hour or so depending on how many games are in the submission queue. And the idea of a flag system to indicate when something makes it by the initial vetting would make it so that games could be quickly pulled for review with no further wasting of users' time. The other thing is that if the goal is to have ALL the games here be high quality, then a rating system is irrelevant! The default assumption should be that if a game gets posted here it will be of good quality...that is the goal, right? If so, then you don't need a rating system. All you need is good pre-post vetting and a system for reporting issues with games that make it through the vetting process when they shouldn't.

As far as using cookies goes, that is not a very good idea either. People play on multiple devices, many devices at peoples' employers are configured to not accept cookies for security reasons, and most people with a lick of sense about privacy and security have their browsers configured to delete cookies at the end of each session anyway, if they accept them at all. If you are going to do individualized filters, the best way to do it would indeed be to implement a full login system and do it via account preferences.
That would address a bunch of issues, as well. Ratings tampering, commenting issues...it actually is not a bad idea at all. Require a log-in to post and rate (if you are going to keep ratings), as well as submit games. Someone gets out of line you just yank the account and block the IP.

BS posting to me and quite elitist. I would think these developers are your livelihood and you should back them.If there is a bug in their games, they most often fix the problem. I understand that you want players happy, but this is over the top.

I have been playing escape games from EG24 since 2006 and have noted throughout the years who what developers I love playing. I use these games as a relaxer and to me quality is very important because I am using my personal time (the only time I may get that day/week) to spend time playing a game~ it's nice to play the games that are of better quality as why would I waist my time on a poor one?
I appreciate Escapegames24 for looking out for us gamers and the developers, there are many who are incredibly talented!
Thank you always!

Methkhanvo, and godlessly. He does not understand my speech.

метханво,причем безбожно. Он не понимает моиобороты речи.methanwy ,It's you I see such a translation.

Definitely not a fan of this proposed change. Many devs that post everyday are consistently bug-free and good, such as WOW, Games2Jolly Games4King etc... We all hate the "doldrums" when we have to "replay this game while waiting for new games". Keep giving us everything out there and we'll pick and choose which dev's we play. Otherwise, this busy site will become just another one with no comments, hints etc... My two cents.

Also, as an every-now-again dev on here, if Codeman First Escape had been subjected to these rules (because I was just learning) then there never would have been a Codeman Second Escape...not that that would have been a tragedy :), but I think Codeman Fourth Escape and Codeman Prisoner Escape were half-decent, it just sometimes takes time to get there. Up to 4 cents now ;).

first eliminate all the hidden-object-games and the just pick-up-stuff-to-drop-it-elsewhere-games; next throw out pic-up-tons-of-stuff-before-you-can-do-anything-games. THAT WOULD INCREASE THE QUALITY AUTOMATICALLY.

Please let Selfdefiant Games and Games2jolly come everyday - these games are worth to be played!

Knee jerk.

The first and most important thing is to develop a method for spoilers and hints. Spoilers and hints can be given in such a way that the person doesn't have to see them unless they click on them.

Second, do not make this an exam for the developers, as though they have to achieve a rating by us to succeed. Most of the time, the developers know more about all this than we do.

Bad developers turn into good developers with practice. Nobody was born Einstein. Not even Einstein was born Einstein.

Buggy is bad. But saying someone is not up to the mark reeks of arrogance.

Hi all.
As I have my favourites developers, and I am playing all their games, I have also developers, which games I do not even open.
It is dangerous to removed developers just only because of players rating. Someone without experiences will give one star just because beeing stuff in first moment.
Let players make a choise themselves.

But, if any games from any developers get less than 3 stars rating, we will remove this game from homepage and will not post this developer's one game as penalty.

=====
please also consider some of japanaese games have language barriers, and in this site, this could mean low star ratings and i think it's quite unfair.

so please, just stick to bugs problem... :)

I'm late for the party as I've been quite busy the last days.

- First, thank you for your efforts. We all should keep in mind that we use this site for free, and I can deal with some ads. Same is for the games.

- There have been many comments here and we have seen that there are so many different opinions. It will be hard if not impossible to please everybody.

Good you have at least gone down to 3 stars, have made the ratings visible on the homepage, and I see about the Rot13 converter.

I still feel uncomfortable with deleting games with lower ratings.

I read in the earlier comments about sticking high-rated games to the top for a week or so. I think that's a great idea and would be a better motivation for developers as it's the best advertisement for their products.

And what about selecting some titles in the sidebar, e.g. "quality games" and "other games"? Those who only want to play outstanding games could focus on the better ones and everyone has still the opportunity to play games on their own opinion.

I know those gold days of escape games seem to be over (as mentioned above), developers like Tesshie, Robamimi, Neutral, etc. are rarely or not anymore seen. We have to deal with it. This gets me to my next suggestion:

Would it be possible to search for 5 star games or to filter by ratings? I wouldn't mind playing a great game I missed some years ago.

Thanks for taking care about us.

       Anonymous  7/17/17, 2:00 AM  

I just saw it (FYI):

there's a new category on top of this site named «Other Escape Games» for the games «which are not shown or removed from homepage because of less games quality...»

       Anonymous  7/17/17, 2:11 AM  

there's also a (new) link at bottom under «Post a Comment» that actually should lead to the ROT13 converter
unfortunately the converting d/w there
(or I didn't find the trick yet...)

Just seen some changes. Looks good, I have to get used to the new layout but that's no problem.

Just a little remark: Those good rated games are called "Best Escape Games" in the side bar. This could be mistaken as there is/was developer "BestEscapeGames", their site seems to be completely down since a few weeks.

Why not taking "Best Rated Games" instead?

Thanks EG24 for taking our comments into consideration and not instituting the more draconian measures against the game developers. Your changes look good and in the end, the choices are still up to the players.

Also, I agree with meritneith regarding the title change for the "Best Escape Games" category, to avoid confusion with the developer of the same name.

I thought of another "category". Maybe have one titled: General Hints for Solving Puzzles.
I know when you are new to games/puzzle solving, the frustrations get high and might result in lower ratings. For example, I was coached long ago about use of military time which I was never familiar with. People could add hints as they think of them. We learn to be good solvers when others teach us skills.

Regarding Rot13 and spoilers:
Nearly every who posts here includes an in-game link labeled "walkthrough", which links to the comments page here at EG24. Yalcin himself has stated that posting walkthroughs (which necessarily include spoiler elements) is the main intended purpose of having a comments section. I fully respect Escapist's decision on this matter either way he wants to make it, but if games are linking here under the claim of "walkthrough", a walkthrough is what should be expected, and there is therefore no need for Rot13 tools at all. If folks also want to engage in their own commentary in the comments threads, that is great, but nobody should enter the comments threads with the expectation that they will not be seeing spoilers because the primary purpose is for posting walkthroughs. If people want a walkthrough/spoiler-free communication venue, they should go to EG24's Facebook page. Otherwise, you should make it clear to everyone that the purpose of the comments section is NOT to post walkthroughs or spoilers but only to post casual conversation and non-spoiler hints, and start telling dev's to stop linking here for walkthroughs and tell them to link to YouTube for them instead.

Regarding the new categories:
I am still at a loss to see how this is not going to cause even more confusion as games migrate up and down from one category to another. The issue of rate-rigging will become more pronounced as devs whose games drop onto the "bad" page vote them back up to the "good" page. And it doesn't keep users from giving 5 stars because they like the dev, even though the game itself is buggy. In short, unless the ratings system weaknesses are addressed, the current steps will only cause more confusion and exacerbate those weaknesses rather than make things better for the users. Good and honest developers will be alienated and refuse to have their games posted here, as has happened in the past when the ratings system abuse has gotten bad.

I am very happy to see such an enthusiastic site owner making such a fantastic effort at improving the site, and fully support this effort! I think that there is a great deal to be learned from past efforts however, and it would be a very good idea to pay attention to them so that you can avoid repeating mistakes.

That ROT13 coder has too many lines in it's textarea, so Convert / Deconvert button gets pushed off the frame. At least in FireFox.

The ROT13 tool from your link doesn't display the entire tool like it does on the rot13's website. Better to point your link directly to their website tool, if they allow it. As for me, I have their site saved as a bookmark in Chrome and keep it open while I'm in your forums.

Thanks.

To see the convert/deconvert button in the Rot13 Converter tool, enter the text then press tab.

Thanks for posting the stars on the first page again! It was very annoying to go into games just to find low ratings....

Thanks meth for the converter tip!

I for one am delighted with this decision, I have been playing escape games almost from the start and in the last few months have been quite shocked re: the bad quality of games recently. I appreciate the works of developers and thank them, but the amount of times I have scrolled down the front page looking for a decent quality of game and only finding one maybe two at times is disheartening. I don't even visit the page of ones who churn out rubbish day in and day out. By making this decision hopefully that will change. I like how they have been put on a different page for those who still play them. (Why though, I will never understand)?

thank you for wishing to promote higher quality games - I have nothing to add to the wealth of opinions and suggestions already posted, but I wanted to express my support nonetheless

I went over to an Android Emulator because the games here are just dreadful now (been on here for the past five-ish years). I'm already playing the latest Tesshie.

What I really miss is the date for when the game is published. So if I am away for a week or two it will be easier for me to what I have missed.
I also think that more stars (1 or 2) will help us to give more accurat rating.
Maybe you should change the content for each star?

Hurray! glad to see the return of ratings on the homepage.... saves a lot of time and energy :)

Hi, Teshhi-e or Neutral Games is missing on the list of publishers. Their games are brillant.

best example for mis-rating is the GAMES4ESCAPE Abandoned Treasure Room - just because people gave up too fast this game got just 2.5 stars, but is worth 4 stars (see my comment under this game)

This comment has been removed by the author.

and here is one of the games i think should be banned because of low quality (no brains needed, just pick-up-and-drop): 8b Grandpa Escape (wonder who gave here more than 2 stars)

The idea to filter out the daily low quality games is good, but the way to implement it is flawed, and doesn't seem to account for when bugged games are fixed. To begin with how "bugged" does a game have to be to warrant deletion? What counts as a "bad" game? Are short but otherwise well made games bad?

And unfortunately I don't think the star rating is a good method for ranking quality as it is frequently abused by those who for one reason or other do not like the game even if it's not that bad. For example language barrier issues, plenty of games from Japanese developers will have them, does that automatically make them "bad" games? Sure they may be unsolvable at first, but eventually most of all the games posted on this site which have language barriers are eventually solved by users who will post in the comments.

Okay, this new system seems fairly complicated but will keep my fingers crossed it will work out.

It's great that ratings are shown on the main page, but it should not be possible to vote on the main page, without clicking on the game. Some people apparently have a vendetta against certain developers and vote without even trying the game.

Escapist wrote: "Developers should start focusing to quality of their games, instead of quantity of their games. And they should stop competing eachother by creating so many amount of games. They should only compete about creating best quality games."

The problem is that the reason people make these games is to make money. And the way they have chosen to do that (ads) forces them into a model where the only thing that matters is quantity, not quality. To put the focus on quality means that they don't make money. They don't care whether the games are playable or not because by the time users figure that out they have already seen the ads and gotten paid. What you are doing here is telling developers that this is an unacceptable business model, and that unless they focus on quality (which to them means "make less money"), they will be dropped.

Most won't care. The hits they lose by being dropped from EG24 are relatively few compared to the total they get. This site used to be a major source of hits 10 years ago, but not anymore.
Many will resent being told how to run their business, especially by a site which uses the same business model itself. EG24 posts a large quantity of games, most of low quality, all accompanied by ads which the site relies on for income. That will seem pretty hypocritical to many developers.
If the business model is to blame here, why is EG24 still using it? If it is the business model to blame, why not encourage the use of ad blockers instead of discouraging it?

Currently, to play a single game through this site a typical user has to view between 10-20 ads of various sorts, *per game*. The main EG24 page has half a dozen ads on it, as does the page of the game they want to play, then they click on that and either go to the developers page or to the EG24 hosted game page, each of which has another 5-6 ads on it. Then the video ads before the game, 2-3 of them. For a 5 minute game, viewing 10-20 ads is simply unreasonable, even if the game is great. You don't see that many ads per minute on television. You don't get that many on YouTube either.

If the business model is to blame, address the business model. Using an arbitrary ratings system to do that makes no sense. Ratings systems measure personal opinions, they don't affect business models.

I am THRILLED that Escapist wants to improve the quality of the games here, and am grateful that he is willing to take action! But so far the actions taken are not only ineffectual, but counter-productive because they don't address the actual problem which he very clearly and accurately identified.

I would love the ability to filter the list of games by developer. Some people clearly really like Games4King/Games2Rule, but I think they create repetitive, uninspired games I have no interest in. If I could come to the page and just not have to see them, navigating to what I do like would be much easier.

Escapist,

I applaud your enthusiasm to bring EG24 back to where it was in the past. I do not envy the task. I can only imagine how difficult it can be try to appease the masses.

I too have been coming here for a long time and have seen things change over the years. I still do like the community here and this site is my go to for games, but when I can't find any good ones, I will look around.

I have a few comments. I agree with meritneith about being able to search for 5 star games so I really like the category you have added at the top.

As others have stated, I look for games with high stars AND lot's of comments. So I am happy to see the star rating come back to the homepage rather than having to open the page first.

I also agree with Huw (It's great that ratings are shown on the main page, but it should not be possible to vote on the main page, without clicking on the game. Some people apparently have a vendetta against certain developers and vote without even trying the game.)

I remember when the ratings were taken off the main page and I think it did solve the original problem but I have missed it. If it was at all possible to make Huw's suggestion work, I would be all for it.

Also, another feature I miss is being able to contact you to submit a game. I think that helped a lot with having more games here to play. As many have said, games come on here late and that means many have already played it meaning no one comments.

Looking forward to the changes!

Good idea, but maybe also good to see the ratings without having to open the game-description, just like it was about 2 years ago

Hi, Teshhi-e or Neutral Games is missing on the list of publishers. Their games are brillant.
===
don't forget funky land too... ;)
cube escape series also among best games i have ever played :)

Very pleased to see that you are weeding out some of the poorer quality games, this has become a problem as the genre became more popular, wading through the generic stuff to get to the well crafted and challenging games. This has always been my favourite site to visit and I think this approach will improve things

I don't think that sorting out good and bad games by using ratings is working. Some people seem to be regularly giving certain developers 1 star, often so soon after a game is posted that it is unlikely they have played the game. What would be really useful would be a star system where one could see how many people gave what rating, like on shopping sites. A game that rated some 4 and 5 stars and some 1 stars is more likely to be interesting than one that got almost all 2s and 3s. On shopping sites I often look at top rated reviews and bottom rated reviews. If the bottom rated reviews are just complaining that they bought the wrong thing or that it was damaged during delivery, I can decide to ignore those reviews. I don't suppose anything like this is possible with your contracted out stars system. But really it is unfair if a few players can saboutage the ratings for certain deveopers whos games are well rated by other players.

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