Video games have always been my favorite form of entertainment, and I eventually became interested in their history. At some point, I thought it would be fun to experience their evolution firsthand instead of merely reading about it. My approach is to go through the MobyGames database in chronological order and take a look at each unique title to see whether I want to play it to some extent.

The major genres ranked in order of how much I tend to enjoy their gameplay: RPG, Action, Strategy, Adventure, Sports, Simulation. The setting also matters a lot. Fantasy and Sci-Fi appeal to me the most while games set in the real world are on the opposite end of the spectrum, with other settings somewhere in between. I generally like romantic and erotic content. A female protagonist increases my enjoyment of a game to varying degrees, and it's a big negative for me when an RPG offers character creation but omits the female gender.

I'm going to play every game I'm even mildly curious about, provided I can find it and get it to work on my PC. It won't get a proper entry and gallery unless it fulfills certain requirements, however. At a minimum, it must have an official English version as well as a worthwhile single-player mode. Any dependency on an external service is almost always unacceptable. Too poor playability and excessive bugginess can be reasons for exclusion as well. Furthermore, I have to be able to experience a representative amount of its gameplay by beating it, completing each of its minigames, or playing it for an adequate amount of time. If it's too difficult for me, I'll either give up on it or resort to cheating in case I want to see more of its content. Last but not least, I might simply dislike a game too much to bother with it in this way. Games which aren't eligible will only get a brief write-up, as will games I'm uninterested in playing but are notable enough to be worth a mention.

Most titles will be limited to a single entry since I'm rarely interested in playing a game on multiple systems except to figure out which version plays best, though having access to the most amount of content is my primary concern. Otherwise, it comes down to aesthetics. In case all relevant versions are roughly equal, I'll probably choose the PC version if one exists. Alternatively, I'll either pick the platform the game was developed on or whichever one I like best. Games that are part of the same series might be an exception. If the whole series can be played on the same platform, then that's what I'm going to do unless those versions are clearly inferior overall. In the event I'm unable to find the version I favor or it doesn't run properly, I'll skip the game entirely, though I'll check once in a while to see if things have changed.

For consistency, each entry only refers to a specific release, in most cases the final one. I prefer to play games when they're no longer being updated so I can get the definitive gameplay experience with all official content included. I have practically no interest in unofficial mods and such, though I might make an exception in certain cases. Removing censorship is always desirable, however, no matter what it takes.

In all instances where a single name is required, I'll use my own or a variation thereof. If it happens to be for a male character, so be it. I fail to see why I should have to come up with a name that I don't care about just because there are games which lack a default option for their exclusively male protagonist. Some old games are especially off-putting in this regard since they don't even bother to make it clear that the main character is male, which only reaffirms my refusal to conform. Besides, it's not really any different from using Artemis as a male name. Speaking of Artemis, that's one of the six names I use for party-based RPGs. The others are Freya, Maeve, Lilith, Ishtar, and Brigid. It shouldn't come as a surprise that an all-female party is how I roll (and reroll... gotta have high stats!). They're eternal heroines loosely based on the mythological figures they're named after, and I refer to them as the Nightflowers. I'll deal with party-based RPGs that neither allow the creation of female characters nor offer a default party on a case-by-case basis.

My ratings are purely subjective and therefore greatly influenced by my biases. And while I'll try not to be too critical, I don't have much patience anymore and get annoyed easily. I'm using the following ten-point scale:

In the accompanying text, I aim to summarize what the game is about, provide an overview of its gameplay mechanics, and point out anything I feel is noteworthy. If applicable, a list of the aspects I like or dislike to a significant degree follows. A selection of three screenshots from its gallery is last, consisting of the title screen or its equivalent, a gameplay screenie, and either a game over screen or one from its ending.

One day a long time ago, I thought it would be cool to keep a screenshot of the ending of all the games I'd manage to beat. This notion evolved to include the title screen of the game as well as any characters I might have created, then expanded to also encompass the main story, and finally resulted in me wanting to capture almost all of the things! But since I don't want to miss anything due to being a completionist, that means consulting various guides to learn as much about a game as possible beforehand. Of course it's more fun to play through a game for the first time without knowing what to expect, so I only do that after having played at least a substantial portion of it. Consequently, my galleries reflect a more or less optimized final playthrough.