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A neat search engine that finds similar games

Just found this, it seems quite functional and handy:
http://gamedipper.com/

Like you'd expect, you enter a title and it brings up a list of games that supposedly have at least a certain degree of similarity to your query.

Diablo, Doom, Jagged Alliance - nothing found

Whaaaa...?

I had the same problem.

If you don't activate JavaScript for this site it will act like there is absolutely nothing in the database to show you.

That's a big con for it right there I think. If they didn't want you to be able to use the search without JS then at least say so or prevent the search in the first place...

Legacy of Kain (Note this "cult top-down action-adventure game" in it's description)

Games like Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (first three recommendations):

Dungeon Siege III
Tomb Raider: Underworld
The Witcher Enhanced Edition

Ouch. Ok, another try:

X-COM: Terror From the Deep

Games like X-COM: Terror From the Deep:

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Sins of a Solar Empire
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance

Well, maybe it's a neat site, but I wouldn't be too happy with it's recommendations. :)

I never trust such recommendations, be they automatic (IMDb) or even added by reviewer. Even games within the same franchise/series can differ a lot, compare the latest Jagged Alliance, sans turns!

But thanks for the JavaScript tip, NoScript blocked it despite whitelisting the site, so I couldn't figure out what's wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle of Fire (Post 443576)

If you don't activate JavaScript for this site it will act like there is absolutely nothing in the database to show you.

That's a big con for it right there I think. If they didn't want you to be able to use the search without JS then at least say so or prevent the search in the first place...

The site uses the same naming conventions as MobyGames, so I simply type the titles in the address bar manually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling Spectre (Post 443587)

Well, maybe it's a neat site, but I wouldn't be too happy with it's recommendations. :)

According to the information page, the similarity of games is determined by automated statistical analysis of reviews obtained from gaming websites based on keyword relevance. Even though the results may be inaccurate (and some simply wrong), this is a rather promising and by all means interesting way of processing such information IMO.

Quote:

The site uses the same naming conventions as MobyGames, so I simply type the titles in the address bar manually.

Doing that really beat the whole point of having a search option...

This actually made me look up ways we could implement a tag-based similarity search in the next major revision of AB. Suffice to say, I now sport a huge grin on my face. :)

I suppose a combination of methods could work for a similarity search engine, perhaps it wasn't the best choice to base similarity ratings on review analysis. I guess so far it would be more effective to collect data from users and then statistically process it to get more or less reliable results. For example, the SimilarSiteSearch engine works based on a combination of sources, including user ratings as well as data obtained from the sites themselves.

Recently a member of the site's development team posted the following response in another forum in the thread about the engine:

Quote:

Originally Posted by yuppio

First of all thanks for finding out about our site and thanks for some feedback.

We started this project very recently and trying to improve in any possible way.

The main thing is: site is fully automatic, no manual entries (yet) are made to the similar game lists. All similar games are generated from keywords, which we extract from reviews. By now we only depend on keywords and gernes.
The results actually are way better than we expected in the first place. Of course they are far from "very good".

Also the description texts and screenshots are automatically generated from Wikipedia / Google image search. So errors are not a rare thing

So far the best feature in this project to me personally is keyword search. If I like zombie killing, I can search kill zombies. These results are even quite good, if compared to the similar game lists :) This is a approach to search by things you want to do in a game or what theme/time/whatever game is about, not so much thinking about gernes or something like that.

Next step is to add some user generated content, allow them to alter the game lists, so we can enliminate some crazy wrong results.

And indeed, the keyword search (you can type as many keywords as you want, just separate them with hyphens) does look promising:
http://gamedipper.com/keyword/greek-mythology
http://gamedipper.com/keyword/fantasy-strategy
etc.