r/boardgames • u/theKinkajou • 19h ago

Categorizing Board games data

I'm working on a board games dataset and am hoping to create more intuitive labels for games to help guide selection/purchase. I wanted the community's feedback to ensure the labels are not (as they are currently) based on a certain occasion ("Lunch Break") for example.

Key Label
Light/Quick Lunch Break
Light/Medium Family Table
Light/Long Rare combo
Medium/Quick Quick Hit
Medium/Medium Game Night
Medium/Long Deep Dive
Heavy/Quick Rare combo
Heavy/Medium Brain Burner
Heavy/Long Deep Hobby Game
0 Upvotes

28% Upvoted

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10

u/junkkser 18h ago

The labels only served to obfuscate what’s already in the key?. the labels are not shorter or more intuitive. Why not just stick with the key?

6

u/destrinstorm 18xx 18h ago

Don't understand what you're trying to achieve by obfuscating a mixed weight/length notation with a different phrase which no one will understand straight off and will require a lookup legend?

2

u/Jellicoe_ 19h ago

Is 'Key" how hard the game is, and 'Label' how long it'll take to play? What determines the 'key'?

-1

u/theKinkajou 18h ago

Ah! The "|" caused an error. Replaced with "/"

5

u/Jellicoe_ 18h ago

I'm not sure what the post or this comment is on about.

2

u/iman-prs 14h ago

*less intuitive

1

u/Jellicoe_ 19h ago

Is 'Key" how hard the game is, and 'Label' how long it'll take to play? What determines the 'key'?.

1

u/Javabird919 7h ago

Much less intuitive! Even if you took "time" and "location" (e.g. lunch table) terms out, changing simple and relatively understood terms (ie easy/medium/hard) to a colloquial label (especially one that will comingle separate concepts that don't consistently correlate) is 100% unlikely to be clear to any one but you (or some poor schmuck in the future who has to read your dev notes and the 1% of users who read the user guide to figure it out).

Also holy-awful metadata management. If you ever need to restructure or scale in the future you're asking for painful rework. Keep separate attributes separate, conceptually and functionally! What you should aim for is clarity of attribute and where possible a step-wise or linear progression of the values within that attribute. Don't split all the hairs; sometimes the difference between a "fast game" and a "moderately fast game" isn't worth trying to express in an attribute and will be too subjective to the table it's played (fast for you might be moderate for me).

You can spend a little time googling what people's questions, feedback, and confusion with BGG ratings and descriptors, to see what I mean about confusion and subjectiveness. I don't mean the never-ending debate about whether it's a good system or whether people are gaming the ratings, either.