Season Two: The Autumn Schedule and the Scorecard

Season Two starts on Monday. This is the page I'll keep pinned for the rest of autumn: the week's schedule at the top, and the rubric I use for every review underneath.

Times are in channel time, which is a made-up zone because I'd rather you learn the pattern than convert the hour. Evening means after dinner. Late means late.

The week

• Monday, 8:00 pm. Back-catalogue night. One older game, played as if it were new. No talking over the soundtrack in the first level.

• Tuesday, off. Rest, editing, emails. The channel is quiet and so am I.

• Wednesday, 8:30 pm. The review stream. A new or newish game, played live for two hours, with the scorecard filled in at the end.

• Thursday, 7:30 pm. Viewers' pick. Chat votes on Tuesday and the winner gets Thursday.

• Friday, 9:00 pm. Long play. Three hours of a single story game, no interruptions, no schedule.

• Saturday, off. Out of the house.

• Sunday, 7:00 pm. The synth set. Three hours of music, no game.

Dates move now and then. When they do, the change goes at the top of this page before I mention it anywhere else.

The scorecard

Every review is scored on the same five parts, each out of ten. The parts are weighted equally, and I round the total to the nearest half point.

• Look. Art direction, not graphics budget. A lean palette used well beats a rich one used carelessly.

• Sound. Music and effects, including the quiet. A game with great silence scores well here.

• Feel. Controls, response and the second-to-second joy of doing the thing. This is the part I trust most.

• Shape. Pacing and length. Does the game end where it should?

• Heart. Whether someone made this because they cared. It is subjective, and I say so.

My review of Chrome Harbour 86 shows how it works in practice: 9, 10, 6, 5 and 8, which averages out at 7.6 and rounds down to 7.5.

What the score doesn't do

It doesn't tell you whether you'll like the game. It tells you how it did against the same five questions, asked in the same order, by the same person on the same sofa. If you disagree with a number, that's a conversation I want to have in chat.

A scorecard is a promise to be consistent, not a promise to be right.

New this season

Two changes. First, every review gets a "play it if" and a "skip it if", one line each. Second, I'll revisit one old score per month and say whether I'd change it. The first revisit is next Wednesday.

Pin the page, set a reminder, and come say hello. The lights will be on.

Names, places and events in this demo are fictional.