Today comes the release of 1.5! While review commenting is a feature highlight, it certainly isn’t the only one this update brings. From redesigns to entirely new pages let’s get right into it!
Review Redesign
One of the most noticeable differences will be how much the reviews have changed in styling!
This was shared in the 2nd Anniversary update but it’s worth mentioning those changes again here. The boxy design before 1.5 started to feel too constraining with how much information was inside, so this more open look helps things breath a bit. Information has also been sorted for easier reading, with user log info on top, review content in the middle, and review interactables on the bottom. Overall I believe it’s a major improvement!
With this redesign also comes the ability to mark reviews for containing spoilers! Just select the checkbox in your journal editor and the review will be hidden for everyone but you until a toggle is selected. Please use this if your review truly contains spoilers!
Review Commenting
You can finally respond to that amazing review you found on some obscure game’s page. Commenting is here to give you more of a voice when it comes to sharing reviews, ideally one that is respectful and civil but we’ll get to that later.
Comments can be created on any review page as there’s now a comment box at the end of every review. There are exceptions though where you may not always be able to respond.
If you own the review you may set a privacy setting for that review. There is also a default setting that’s accessible in your profile settings if you want to change every review’s privacy that hasn’t been overridden.
As the review creator you also have the ability to delete any comment under your review to help give better control over moderation.
Journal Editor Redesign
Another familiar face received an update to help with easier access and readability.
The log editor in particular has been rearranged so that elements fit better together and give easier control to what type of log it is. While the option was just added to ‘Advanced Options’ now named ‘More Options’, it still wasn’t that convenient or obvious.
Another small change is that you can now use a text field to change your finish date! Giving you both options for selecting when you finished that game.
Markup Text Formatting
Bring your text to life with new markup formatting on fields such as reviews, comments, list descriptions, and bios. You can apply bold, underline, strike-through, italicize, and have clickable links!
Recent Reviews Page
Reviews haven’t been the easiest to discover unless you were given a link or you were looking at a specific game. Hopefully this new page changes that with the Recent Reviews page!
Accessible from the home page or via a game’s page, you can now filter / sort through every review there is on the site! It also introduces 2 new filters:
- See reviews from everyone or from friends
- Select a time-frame for how far back you want to see reviews from.
Check it out and you may discover some new users to follow!
Review Likes Page
Another highly requested feature comes in by being able to now view who liked what review. Selecting the like counter on any review will bring you to a page like this.
Self-Liking Block
With this update we’ll also be removing any self-likes given to reviews and prevent them going forward. Mainly to keep review like counts fair and balanced.
User Likes Page
You can also see the reverse with every review you liked on your profile now! Just select the new ‘Liked’ tab to see all the content you’ve liked thus far.
Reporting
With comments comes discussion, with discussion comes eventual arguments, and with arguments.. well.. let’s just say no nice things. So it was about time Backloggd received its own report system. Currently you can report reviews / comments via the little flag icon and this will be reviewed by an admin.
If content is deemed worse for the community than not then it will be removed and only an admin / the creator can see that review.
I’m hoping reporting will be reserved for serious situations only and not be based on something like opinion differences, but when in doubt report away!
Blocking
Another new measure of self-moderation is the ability to block users! This can be done through the same system as reporting but selecting block instead. Blocking will do a few things, remove any follow / following relationships between the two users, hide the blocked user’s reviews on most pages, and prevent both users from commenting on each other’s content.
Hopefully this allows you to take control in a way of a user you may not always agree with.
Custom Social Links
Display your favorite socials on your profile with the new social media links in your profile settings.
While it’s just these 3 options for now, I’m hoping to allow further customization for more sites / labels. When entering this info, links will appear on your profile as such:
Allowing you to share your profiles with the world!
Popularity Tweaking
This one was a long time coming since popularity before could easily get stuck with the most popular games staying up there. Now the system has been tweaked a bit to hopefully show more games that are recently popular vs all-time popular. It’s a trial-and-error approach so it may take some adjusting!
Lots of Bugs / Minor Changes
As always there was so much more that would make this article 1000 more words longer. Things such as an ownership filter, subscription for a new ownership field, friends` reviews section on a game page, and little toaster pop-ups for changes.
Check out the 1.5 changelog for everything that changed.
Patreon Support
Thank you to all the patrons who helped fund Backloggd during the 1.5 development period!
The Future
With this update released I believe I’m going to take it easier for a bit on creating giant content releases like this. It just takes a lot of work / testing to keep so many features in development at once. Especially if I hit a roadblock because then everything else is also waiting on whatever I’m currently stuck on.
With that said I won’t be announcing what 1.6 may contain or what it may be about mainly because I’m not 100% sure and I don’t want to lock myself in too early on. But if you join our Discord, follow the Twitter page, and of course join the Patreon you’ll surely be the first to know!
Thank you for checking out what 1.5 is all about and I hope I’ll see you on the site!
