Happy Holidays! It's still that time of year, right? :) Here's some more upgrades that should make your experience on galaxy a smidge more enjoyable.
Play sessions
The details of how these work is a little complicated, so I'll spare you them. But the basics are that play sessions allow for a bunch of exciting things:
- Play counts
- Tracking playtime even if you have multiple games open, rather than just one at a time
- You can still only gain 1xp per minute from playing games
- More detailed analytics for game developers (soon)
- Galaxy jumping on the "year-end review" bandwagon that every other platform is doing (e.g., Spotify Wrapped)
Personal playtime information will not be shared with anyone unless you explicitly say otherwise. Developers will be able to view aggregate information on everyone who plays their games, not on specific users.
If you're curious about the specific logic behind play sessions, or want to review the code for yourself, it can be found on the GitLab repo: https://gitlab.com/yhvr/galaxy-astro/-/merge_requests/64
Play counts
Play counts may seem a little low, and that's for a good reason--they're designed to be resistant to abuse.
- Only users with registered accounts can give plays (this is the same for play-hours)
- You have to keep a game open for 3 minutes to give the game a play
- You can only give a game one play per play session (you have to close the game for 30 minutes to start a new session)
The play counts you see under games now are from 2023/12/11 onward.
Redesigned settings UI
I overhauled the settings UI for game pages a month or two ago, and now it's finally here for the user settings! They were some of the earliest parts of the site to be created--well over 16 months ago--and their age was showing. Hopefully they fit in more with the rest of the site now.
This also unifies account management, themes, and filters onto one page, because the existing organization was a bit of a mess.
As usual, thank you all for keeping galaxy alive via your playtime and running via your donations. Galaxy wouldn't be possible without each and every one of you, and I'm so grateful for everyone who has ever checked out the site. <3
