...but I'm not quite sold. Heart's Medicine is a series of "time management" games (one of my guilty pleasures, feel free to judge me 😜).

Life Is Strange? No.
Hellblade? Seriously?

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3 years ago

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I'm guessing what all these games have in common is a Female Protagonist. (I'm getting Slime Rancher, FTR).

I don't see that tag applied to the one Heart's Medicine that I'm looking at but it's so clearly the trait d'union there.

From a logical standpoint, it's weird that it's not recommending other time management games, Diner Dash and clones would seem obvious, but it may depend on the vagaries of how users tag (or do not tag) these games.

3 years ago
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Good point. Female Protagonist is indeed a tag for H's M, but it's ranked low in the list (if the order of the list has a meaning) and not visible unless the list is expanded. Time Management is even lower.
In addition to that, the game's "genres" (set by the publisher and not crowsourced like tags) are "Adventure, Casual, Indie, Simulation" and I am assuming "Time Management " is not a genre.
In any case, the system is broken. 😀

3 years ago
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There is an old saying in IT: "GIGO". That would be: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Which means, it doesn't matter how good the system is if the dataset it's deriving its results (in this case recommendations) from, is of questionable quality.

If you want to wrap your mind around the kind of tomfoolery that goes on with user tagging, take a gander at the IKEA software. Last time I checked it was an absolute gas.

Valve was way too optimistic thinking that people would produce useful data and only that (see e.g. the Funny tag for user reviews).

OTOH, picture this speculative scenario: imagine a Valve competitor of dubious ethics and deep pockets; what would stop them from spending a negligible sum to pay professional trolls to inject misleading data into Valve's database?

I'm not saying this actually happens because I have no proof (read: I haven't gone looking for it) - however, we do live in a day and age where manipulation of social media (views, upvotes and likes, favorites, and so on) is an industry in itself.

3 years ago
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You make valid and interesting points. My only remark is: Valve was definitely too optimistic, but shouldn't they intervene now on something that makes them... well, look stupid? Because all joking apart if I look at Heart's Medicine at you suggest me Hellblade I think you're stupid, doesn't really matter if the suggestion is based on crowdsourced user tags or Gabe Newell's manual curation.

3 years ago
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This can be summed up as "Valve Logic"

3 years ago
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I would call it a blind and misplaced trust in their smart machines, but... yeah. 😀

3 years ago
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Steam's suggestion algorithm prioritizes popularity above literally everything else. EDIT: The "similar to games you've played" thing is also pretty iffy, but that's a different thing.

3 years ago*
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Popularity is relevant in general terms, but like you said it shouldn't mattter much when making direct connection between individual games.

3 years ago
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Always interesting to see what games are like each other. Cook serve delicious 3 = keep talking and nobody explodes = octodad = portal

3 years ago
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There's a 3 coming?

Think main OP are because Hellblade is mental illness, and Valve thinks Lesbian is too?
That's very homophobic of you Valve! And that in 2020.

3 years ago
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Think main OP are because Hellblade is mental illness, and Valve thinks Lesbian is too? That's very homophobic of you Valve! And that in 2020.

You're reading way too much into this...

3 years ago
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I'm not sure if you're joking but that seems far-fetched.

3 years ago
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Yes, obviously.
Apparently not so obviously :/

Edit: Apparently it offers me Slime Ranger and LiS 1. First one makes sense.

3 years ago*
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I didnt know which one they did so I did all 3 of the games. which included slime rancher and lis1

lis + papers please
ffx + slime rancher
slime rancher + lis

3 years ago
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Says Docor's Oath in the screenshot. Tried Hospital Heat first and got Turmoil and Starsew Valley, which both seem kind of reasonable for a change.

Papers please though, ooooooooh...

3 years ago
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oh wow i totally ignored that. well the bottom one with slime rancher and lis was for that game
Maybe its like in papers please you get to decide who enters and who dies
In hearts medicine you get to decide who dies and lives. Maybe thats the connection!

3 years ago
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considering the only 3 there is for cook serve delicious then yes theres a 3rd but its been out for a while now but its still in ea

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000030/Cook_Serve_Delicious_3/

gives me plenty of time to get through number 2 which I still havent done yet. Apparently the 3rd one is even more crazier and bigger then before which I find insane to think of

3 years ago*
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And wishlisted, thanks.

3 years ago
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I see Hellblade as well, and also Beautiful Desolation (a recent sci-fi point-and-click adventure in a world built by CRPG rules, totally recommended). Just like in your case, it's two random awesome games from my library.

I also checked other games from this series, and Hellblade is always there. Steam algorithm may be malfunctioning, but there's one thing it's absolutely sure of: Hellblade is the best example of a time management game.

3 years ago
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I don't have Hellblade so Death and Taxes and Two point hospital are on the list of similar games I've played.

However.

Steam definitely thinks Hellblade should be suggested because it's on the "More like this" list underneath system requirements. Maybe it's "medical-related".

View attached image.
3 years ago
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