BGA Meta

• Hit interview #50+--I'm currently at somewhere around #22
• I'd like to get in a solid theme onto the website--a mascot, a shopkeeper for avatar library, forum bot, error page, etc where it will be like a world-building process playing off the idea of Atlas, exploration, maybe even a Kingdom Hearts-like idea of an explorer of different board game universes? As long as it doesn't come off as obnoxious/cliche'd
• Catch up to Board Game Prices level of traffic by mid 2020 (organic traffic is basically the ones where people find you on google). We own BGP, so it's all good, but I'd like to see BGA catch up. BGP's organic numbers are currently about 10x BGA's
• Special events--could be a charity/support program where BGA will donate games to communities, or when our revenue has gone way up, maybe it could even be us purchasing and giving away 100 copies of a game to support a particular designer. Ever since I started my interviews, I've been getting more and more of the desire to promote industry professionals. We could even try something like providing an all-expenses paid trip to have a designer come join me and Trent and spend some time to do a live interview, game playthrough, etc. It'd be nice if we could do something like that with a forum user too

Over the last 2 weeks, I've been working on improving the look and feel of the website to feel more like the same brand with coloring and styling. What do you think? There's a new header, link colors, and button colors.

All feedback welcome :)

Got praises/complaints/wish features for our forum, game pages, content creation, etc? Let us know here.

For this week, I'd especially love to get your feedback on something that Trent and I have been thinking about. Although BGA has been growing consistently, time and money are our biggest limitations to growing faster and implementing all of our crazy ideas (full disclosure: Trent is on BGA full-time and receives minimum wage while I juggle a full-time job in addition to doing half-time on BGA with minimum wage--and we're hoping to continue as long as possible without going under lol). Because of this, we are thinking of setting up a way for us to receive donations that will directly shape the website and for us to continue to build something awesome together. Couple of thoughts/things to figure out are:

• To have complete transparency on what sort of items will get implemented when funding is reached (along with a realistic deadline and goal amount)
• What sort of goals should these be? It feels odd to set something like "BGA App Implementation" or "Revamping the Play Log Process" as goals when we'll eventually get to these anyway
• Should it be like Patreon style where you set one major item(s) per funding goal? Or displaying a list of items that will change in priority according to which receives the most amount of support from users?
• Maybe not just setting practical goals, but having rewards for donations? (allowing some level of profile or avatar customization?)

I'm sure there are way more things to think about but wanted to start getting everyone's inputs. Really appreciate everyone for making this community great and please know that we won't start strangling everyone for money xD

Edit: Oh and also, don't forget that the current round of giveaway will end 11/26! Good luck to everyone and let's see if there's an upset this time :)

I've just finished adding a feature where you can subscribe to a game. That means whenever someone makes a post with that game linked, you'll get a notification so you can join in to the conversation!

All feedback welcome :)

Got praises/complaints/wish features for our forum, game pages, content creation, etc? Let us know here.

The latest feature updates were for tagging users and subscribing to forum posts. Trent got the first versions in quickly and while he'll be working on improving these features, let us know if you experience an obvious bug.

Trent is also working on one of my requests for a profile preview that will come up when hovering over a username. It'll display the user's avatar (a little bigger than the usual) and other basic info. Here are couple of thoughts I had for this feature:

• Easily accessible snapshot of user's profile - things like avatar image, username, maybe the user's number of coins
• Display the title of your favorite game
• Something for content creators--link to your social or latest blog post or article post on BGA
• Maybe--show the title of the game you most recently play logged
• Maybe--show link to your most recent review that you gave on BGA's game page

It will probably be too much info at some point (although good use of icons might help to make it intuitive) but let me know what you think about this idea!

If you want to get notified when people comment on a forum post that interests you, just click subscribe!  It's right next to the # of comments | edit | delete | report section. Just above the top level reply text box.

I only got to spend about 30 minutes making the feature so far so it only works for comments but I wanted to share it so you can start using it! I'm planning on adding it to post descriptions as well and then upgrading the system to be smarter and better as time goes on if it gets used often.

Just say @username in a comment and replace "username" with whoever you want to mention!

Is there an "official" way to flag games as duplicate entries in the database?

All feedback welcome :)

Got praises/complaints/wish features for our forum, game pages, content creation, etc? Let us know here.

Oh and a recent item that was brought up is on trades/marketplace. First of all, thanks /u/Marshwiggle92 for taking the initiative to propose a suggestion! I think a bot will be perfect to provide structure/organization until Trent gets the Marketplace feature in. As you can probably see, we're still figuring out everything so it may lead to some issues at times, but I'm glad everyone's talking it out and providing great ideas for us :)

Enjoy your Friday!

I submitted a post asking what *your * gateway game was. Unfortunately there was a misspelling and it asks what *you * gateway game was. I tried to edit it after I posted it, but I was unable. Is that a bug or am I doing something incorrectly? 

All feedback welcome :)

Got praises/complaints/wish features for our forum, game pages, content creation, etc? Let us know here.

Also, what are your thoughts on the new "topics" feature? Like? Dislike? Meh? Intuitive to use?

While on the game page for horrified, I tried to view the other videos via the link under the thumbnails, while on a mobile browser. The link loads an error page. 

Would it be possible to get some local currency options? While I know I'm likely still going to need to order in USD and have it shipped to a mail box in Blaine in many cases, having the ability to see the approximate Canadian price would be nice. 

I'm curious about BGA app implementation. I have 2 apps: board game atlas, and BGA: pocket. However both seem to be somewhat limited in functionality. Specifically I haven't figured out how to access the forums on those apps. Am I missing something? Will there be increased app functionality? An I using the wrong apps? 

This is a weekly post to leave your suggestions and feedback for Board Game Atlas! Anything goes.

It would also be great to hear your thoughts on some of these items:

• How intuitive is it to use BGA in comparison to other websites? What's been the least intuitive?
• How useful are the game categories? (the ones rights below the search bar for desktop and within the "menu" dropdown on mobile). What would be most useful to have on there? (doesn't have be game categories either)
• Feedback on video content - how do you like the general style/approach that Trent is taking?
• I'll be interviewing a board game editor for rulebooks - do you have any questions related to this field?
• EDIT: How do you like the new dark mode? 

This is a weekly post to leave your suggestions and feedback for Board Game Atlas! Some things to think about are:

• Feature requests (be creative, think wild!)
• What sort of content would you like to see by Board Game Atlas? (we currently do interviews and news coverage. Anything else you'd be interested in?)
• How can we make your experience here even better?
• Mention your favorite/least favorite feature
• Suggestions for industry professionals to interview (designers/artists/publishers/content creators/etc.)
• Bugs/annoyances

Here are some updates on my end:

• I interviewed a board game cafe owner. You'll be able to see the article next week (prepare for the horrors of managing game inventory!)
• I am preparing interview questions for game designer Jonathan Ying. I've also been gathering questions from some of you for the "questions from our users" section, so feel free to post any additional questions you have for Jonathan here or you could always PM me
• We postponed our first podcast recording to prepare for a big announcement that will come soon! (brace yourselves because our community may get quite a bit bigger!)

This is a weekly post where you leave your suggestions and feedback for Board Game Atlas! Think feature requests, suggestions to make your experience here even better, people you'd like me to interview, etc.

Here are some updates my my end:

• Uploaded two interviews this week: (1) Justin Hillgrove, artist of Battle of the Bards and other games produced by his company Junk Spirit Games, and (2) Daniel Lieske, creator of The Wormworld Saga, an online graphic novel sensation that was also adapted into a board game (and was nominated for Kinderspiel des Jahres 2017)
• Received permission from Roxley for Dice Throne avatars (not live yet)
• Waiting on Alderac Entertainment Group to send me files for avatars of their games
• Currently have five more sets of interview questions to prepare (names you may recognize are Jonathan Ying, Vincent Dutrait, and Xavier Collette)

This is a weekly post where you leave your suggestions and feedback for Board Game Atlas! Some things to think about are:

• Feature requests (be creative, think wild!)
• What sort of content would you like to see by Board Game Atlas? (we currently do interviews and news coverage, and reviews. Anything else you'd be interested in?)
• How can we make your experience here even better?
• Mention your favorite/least favorite feature
• Suggestions for industry professionals to interview (designers/artists/publishers/content creators/etc.)
• Bugs/annoyances

This is a weekly post where you leave your suggestions and feedback for Board Game Atlas! Some things to think about are:

• Feature requests (be creative, think wild!)
• What sort of content would you like to see by Board Game Atlas? (we currently do interviews and news coverage. Anything else you'd be interested in?)
• How can we make your experience here even better?
• Mention your favorite/least favorite feature
• Suggestions for industry professionals to interview (designers/artists/publishers/content creators/etc.)
• Bugs/annoyances

Also, I have two questions for everyone:

• Home page - How should we change it to look less like a store? How can we make it look lively to indicate there's an active community?
• Profile page - What sort of features would you like to see that's useful? (customizable profile page, ability to combine different users' lists, helping you pick out a game from your list of owned games based on certain criteria, etc.)

One last thing--The giveaway ends on Sunday at 9 PM PST! Thanks for everyone participating and I will do my best to make the next one even more lively :) 

This will be a weekly post to leave your suggestions and feedback for Board Game Atlas! Some things to think about are:

• Feature requests (be creative, think wild!)
• What sort of content would you like to see by Board Game Atlas? (we currently do interviews and news coverage. Anything else you'd be interested in?)
• How can we make your experience here even better?
• Mention your favorite/least favorite feature
• Suggestions for industry professionals to interview (designers/artists/publishers/content creators/etc.)
• Bugs/annoyances

Also, a few updates since last week:

• Slight changes in formatting to show better previews of forum posts
• Youtube video uploads on the forum can now be viewed directly on Board Game Atlas
• You can now post images (previously, it was just a regular text-based forum post or a link post only)
• Upcoming feature (to be added within the next few days): creating polls for forum posts!

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

EDIT: The polls are up! Trent (u/trentellingsen) finished it much faster than I thought haha. We're starting with a basic poll structure first that gives up to (4) options. In the future, if everyone wants it, we can change it to accommodate more options and/or even allowing users to add additional options. Thanks Trent!

Yay or nay?

Adding reactions - I feel an upvote isn't adequate enough. Maybe having options for thumbs up, like, love, laughing, etc.? Any other types of reactions you can think of that's good for a board games forum?

Adding ability to do quick polls - doing quick polls for your top game, best worker placement, clash of two similar but different games, etc.

Feel free to pitch in any other ideas!

This will be a weekly post to leave your suggestions and feedback for Board Game Atlas! Some things to think about are:

• Feature requests (be creative, think wild!)
• How can we make your experience here even better?
• Mention your favorite/least favorite feature
• Suggestions for industry professionals to interview (designers/artists/publishers/content creators/etc.)
• Bugs/annoyances
• Any comments/feedback really? For example, can you think of a good name for this post? :)

Thanks in advance for any feedback!