IFWiki:Works (style guide)

Proposed layout for a game entry.

Page name

Whenever possible, use the game's title for the name of the page about it.

If the game's title is identical to another game's title, and both are equally well-known (or equally unknown), append "(by author's-surname)" to the page name. For example: Three Doors (by Løvborg) and Three Doors (by Berman). Also use this approach for the lesser of two games when one game of the pair is well-known and the other is not, e.g.: The Hobbit (by Makarov). The well-known game, The Hobbit, should not have to use a "(by surname)" phrase.
If the game's title is identical to another page (but the second page isn't about another game), then you can simply append "(game)" to the page name about the game. For example: Darkness (game).
If the game doesn't have a title, name the page "untitled (story-file-name)". For example, untitled (onion2.gam).

Row of Icons

Not a named section, but a row of icons that lets a reader see at a glance which genres the game belongs in, which competitions it was entered in, and which awards that the game has earned.

The entire row of icons probably needs to be enclosed in a html construct that'll reserve an entire horizontal slice of the page for the icons. This is a bit icky that we seem to need to do this, but you'd be surprised how easily page elements will fall into stupid arrangements if you're not careful. Try something like this:

<table style="width:100%;margin-bottom:1em;clear:both"><tr><td> icon templates go here </td></tr></table>

NOTE: Reports are coming in that the games pages looked horrible in Firefox, Mozilla, etc. Anything that isn't IE. One suggestion was to add clear:both to the div box. I hope (cross-fingers) that it stops the horror of overlapping boxes everywhere. -- David Welbourn 16:58, 13 February 2006 (EST)
NOTE 2: Grr. Divs just aren't working, for some reason. There's still overlap with them. Go with table tags. -- David Welbourn 17:48, 13 February 2006 (EST)

Genre Icons

Main page: IFWiki:Genre.

Each genre icon must be exactly 50 by 50 pixels in size so they'll group together nicely. (Or at least that's the theory; if the font size of the text underneath is too wide, they'll space out unevenly anyway.) Each icon must also have a text equivalent underneath.

Each icon is specified by a template, usually with the same name as the text we want displayed underneath. For example, to insert the Ship icon, you'd use {{ship}}. Two exceptions: the Porn/Erotica icon is {{porn}}, and the Science-Fiction icon is {{sci-fi}}.

These are the genre icons we have so far; we may add more later.

Literary Genres

Adventure

Comedy

Drama

Espionage

Fantasy

Horror

Mystery

Porn / Erotica

Religious

Romance

Science
Fiction

Superhero

Surreal

Western

Geography Genres

Building

City

Crazy quilt

Farm

Fort

Home

Island

Microspace

One-room

Outer space

Park

School

Ship

Underground

Virtual reality

Wilderness

Style Genres

Choice-based

Non-IF

RPG

Genre
wanted

Competition/Award Icons

Main page: IFWiki:Competition icons

IF Comp 1998
16th of 27

Partipication in competitions and awards are represented by various icons. The icons go in a box and are labelled within the box with the competition name and some comment of how the game placed at the comp or which prize it was awarded. These boxes go right after the genre icons in the row of icons.

There are various templates to make adding these finnicky boxes easier; see the IFWiki:Competition icons page for more details.

Opening paragraph

The opening paragraph, if any, should be short and sweet. It goes second on the page. If everything else goes where it's supposed to, the opening paragraph will appear under the row of icons, and above both the table of contents and the infobox.

Game infobox

There should be a table of standardized data about the game that floats on the right-hand side of the page. This is done with the template Game infobox. It should be specified after the row of icons and all opening paragraphs so that the top edge of the infobox will line up with the top edge of the table of contents to its left.

Currently, there's only this one form of the infobox, and it isn't flexible. (I haven't yet figured out how to make it flexible -- David Welbourn.) Every parameter of the infobox must be specified; you cannot nicely leave out parameters or assume that default values will go in. Sorry about that, but I just don't know how to get that to work.

Anyway, here are the parameters you need to fill out and what they mean:

title. This is the title of the game. If the game is known by more than one title, separate them with <br> tags and preface the 2nd through nth names with "a.k.a."
- On rethought, putting multiple titles in this location doesn't look too good, especially if one wants to comment about the translated name of a non-English title. Ideally, we just want the first or best known name of the game here. Commentary about a game title, if brief, can be put in the opening paragraph. If there's a lot to say about the game's title, then put the commentary in the Trivia and Comments section. Thanks.
image. This is reserved for games that have an associated image. Maybe it's a photo of the box cover that the game came in. Maybe it's a title screen graphic. Maybe it's a logo from the game's homepage. We probably need to discuss sizes and permissions and fair use and all that before we can insert them. For most games, however, just leave the image parameter empty, eg: image=
author. Name all the authors, separating with commas and "and" as appropriate. Don't use ampersands (&). Enclose names with double square brackets so they'll become links to the authors' pages.
publisher. Name the publishers. If there's no publisher, just use n/a as the publisher.
released. The release date. I prefer the dd-Mmm-yyyy format for the date.
authsystem. The authoring system used to write the game. If you don't know what it is, use TBD or unknown.
platform. The list of platforms that the game can be run on.
language. The human languages used in the game, eg: English, Italian, Spanish, etc.
license. The license(s) that the game was released under. Most amateur games are simply Freeware, but others might be Commercial, Former commercial, some form of the Creative Commons license, and so on.
color. Does the game change the text color or background color behind the text?
- none if the game uses default text colors, or sets the colors to non-default colors at the start of the game, but doesn't change them thereafter.
- optional if the game does change the colors in midgame but only for cosmetic reasons. A player unable to see the color change (eg: blind player or player using a black-and-white only 'terp) can still play and finish the game.
- required if the game does change the colors in midgame and the player must be able to see them in order to play and finish the game. Blind players would be unable to play a game with required color.
graphics. Does the game use graphics at all? Answers could include none, optional, or required. In the latter two cases, more info is wanted: what types or graphics and how are they used? (We'll probably want to standardize this.)
- none if the game does not include graphics.
- optional if the game does include graphics, but a player unable to see the graphics (eg: blind player or player using a text-only interpreter) can reasonably play and finish the game without missing anything essential.
- required if the game does include graphics, and the player must be able to see the graphics in order to play and finish the game. Blind players would be unable to play a game with required graphics.
sound. Does the game use sound or music at all?
- none if the game does not use sound or music.
- optional if the game does use sound or music, but a player unable to hear the sound (eg: deaf player or player using a computer without working speakers) can reasonably play and finish the game without missing anything essential.
- required if the game does use sound or music, and the player must be able to hear it in order to play and finish the game. Deaf people would be unable to play a game with required sounds.
cruelty. Where does the game rank on Andrew Plotkin's cruelty scale? If you don't know, use TBD. The Game info template will automagically turn the value into an appropriate link.

And here's an example of it all put together:

{{game infobox|title=Galatea|image=|author=[[Emily Short]]|publisher=n/a|released=2000|authsystem=[[Inform]]|platform=[[Z-code]]|language=English|license=[[Freeware]]|color=none|graphics=none|sound=none|cruelty=Merciful}}

In the future, we may have other infoboxes defined that specifies include different info or leaves some of the above info out; we'll let you know how that works when we figure it out.

How It Begins

In this section, we want to give a taste of the game by telling how it begins. One must not give spoilers or give away any obvious secrets of the game. Do not insert a screenshot or a text dump directly copied from the game's scrollback. Restrict your description to the following:

If the player is warned upfront about sexual content, violence, vulgarity, adult situations, interpreter requirements or display options, write a short paragraph that summarizes these warnings.
If the player is asked to fill out a questionnaire right at the beginning—for example, to choose the PC's name or gender—then write a short paragraph that summarizes the nature of the questionnaire.
The main paragraph should begin by stating who the initial PC is, or thinks he or she is. Include the PC's name if the player or PC knows it. Do not spoil games where the PC's identity is a puzzle or difficult to determine.
Continue the main paragaph stating where the PC thinks he or she is, who is nearby, and what the PC is carrying and wearing.
Conclude the main paragraph with what immediate goals that the PC is presented with, if any. If the PC has no obvious goal at first, but one presents itself within ten turns of play, then that goal may be stated.
Another very short paragraph may be added to describe the scope and general impressions of the rest of the game: will you be exploring worlds, a city, or just one building? Is the game silly or serious? Puzzle-filled or story-driven? Try to be very terse and objective.
If the game contains sexual content, violence, vulgarity, adult situations, or other potentially disagreeable elements, provide a terse warning where the paragraph begins with "WARNING:". Do this regardless if you've already said that the game warns you about any of it.

Notable Features

This optional section may be used to list ways in which this game does things differently from the normal IF game. Think about all the features of the game, including the game mechanics and game display.

Does the game do something innovative or clever?
Have IF standards or conventions been changed?
Does the game use any standard tropes?
Are there extra features of note?
Are there in-jokes that ought to be explained?
Is this game the first to do something? The only game to do something?

*** NOTE: Standard features are NOT notable ***

In particular, it is not notable that a game is written in Inform or Adrift. It is not notable that that game can be run on the Commodore-32. It is not notable that a game was in a competition. It is not notable that a game won an award.

Why not? Because we noted these things elsewhere on the page. This section is for other stuff you probably want to say about the game. The things done well. The things done badly. The things done strangely. This is not the place for same-old same-old statistics. Tell us something new.

Trivia and Comments

Optional section for miscellaneous stuff we want to say about the game that doesn't easily fit into any of the other sections. In a bulleted list, please.

Author's Comments

Completely optional; this section should only be completed by (or at the request of) the game's author(s).

I'm not really sure what an author might want to put here, but I'm sure authors will think of something. Maybe thank testers or have a story about the crafting of the game. Maybe talk about plans for a sequel or upgrade or port. That's cool.

What I don't want here are game spoilers, exhibitions of bad sportsmanship, or extravagent ads with huge graphics. Please and thank you.

Versions

For every distinct version, craft a little section like this:

Version Name

Game Title (authors/porters/etc; release date; platform; language if not English).
- Notes: Optional line to help clarify the difference between this version and any other.
- Release 1 / Serial number 060718 / Inform 7 build 3T38 (I6/v6.31 lib 6/10N)
- {{babel|ifid=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}}
- Competition: Where it placed (out of X games), and which awards it received.
- Files: List of filenames (filesize; optional short description; download links).

The version name should be the most natural way to refer to the given version. Examples of version names: "Version 1", "Release 1.2", "Original version", "Competition version", "Spanish translation", "Hugo port".

Please use the "version" command to determine the release line from Inform games.

Determine the IFID by using the babel utility and use the appropriate babel template. Each version of a game might have a different IFID; include the babel template for each one. If in a rush, or if the IFID can't be easily determined, please use the {{babel wanted}} template instead so future editors know that the IFID still needs to be determined for this game.

The list of files may itself be a bulleted list, if that makes things clearer. Most files would have the short description "story file", which may be omitted. Other files should be marked as optional or required as appropriate, e.g.: "optional feelie map".

Links

At first, we probably aren't going to be too fussy about how game-related links are arranged in this section, since it's more important to document the URLs first, and make it look pretty second.

However, that said, we do have some preferences for this section.

First of all, all download links and play it online links should NOT be in the Links section, but in the Versions section instead. People will want to know if they're downloading version 1 or 3; that's best done by putting those links with the rest of the version info.

Second, we'll want to group links into related subcategories when we get a big handful of them. The subcategories are General Info, Reviews, and Spoilers.

General Info

Note: We won't need to label this subsection explicitly.

Homepage of the game. This link, if available, should go first.
Author's Notes page, if any, and if different from the homepage.
Baf's Guide listing of the game. Use a baf game template to insert the link, e.g.:
- {{baf game|Adventure|1}}
turns into
- Adventure (archived) - at Baf's Guide

IFDB listing of the game. Use an ifdb game template to insert the link, e.g.:
- {{ifdb game|Jigsaw|28uhmejlntcbccqm}}
turns into
- Jigsaw - at IFDB

If you don't know the game's TUID, you may use {{TUID wanted}} instead.

Home of the Underdogs listing of the game. Use a hotu game template to insert the link, e.g.:
- {{hotu game|Galatea|2262}}
turns into
- ~~Galatea~~ - at Home of the Underdogs. (Replace this line with the new hotud game template. Look up new hotud ID numbers at http://www.hotud.org/component/jreviews/search-results/?cat=45 .)

Wikipedia listing of the game
other similar links

Reviews

IF Ratings listing of the game. Suggestion: use the ifratings game template to insert the link to a game,
eg: {{ifratings game|Adventure|1}} will turn into:
- Adventure - at IF Ratings
Links to other reviews about this game. Don't include the Baf's Guide url again.
Links to r*if threads about this game.

Spoilers

The spoiler page for this game, if any.
Links to hints, solutions, and walkthroughs.

Series Box

Most games aren't part of a series or set. However, if a game does belong to a series, an appropriate series box template should be inserted after the Links section. A series box should be a table centered horizontally on the page, contain the name of the series, contain a link to each game in the series, and, y'know, look nice. Here's an example of a series box, specified via {{Earth and Sky series}}:

Earth and Sky series by Paul O'Brian
Earth and Sky (2001)	Another Earth, Another Sky (2002)	Luminous Horizon (2004)

Such templates should also belong to the Game series templates category; see that category for more examples.

Game Stub

When the page for a game is seriously incomplete, please add an instance of the game stub template at the bottom of the page, e.g.:

{{game stub|Genres, How It Begins, Notable Features, full version info}}

Use of the game stub template will automatically add the page to the Game stubs category.