That was indeed me, and he did give up and change his avatar. I'm not saying I deserve applause, I'm just saying I'm awesome and people naturally decide to applaud me.

People started calling me by name, so I felt bold, and witnessing that the changing avatar feature was finally working for people again, I went for it.

You should go for it too. If you wait a couple of weeks all the regulars will associate the new face to the old name and it will be business as usual. Sporadic users won't, but they wouldn't recognize you anyway. Besides, it's retroactive, so all your old posts in your puzzle threads will have the new avatar. That should avoid some of the confusion.

They might recognize me just from the "Puzzlemaster" thing alone.
That only begs the question of what sort of avatar I'd choose.

The rumor is that it's more like an extended retelling, plus more closure at the end.

Basically what Anachronox should get, but Beyond Good & Evil shouldn't. :)

I like the idea! I don't think I'll be able to take part in it every week, but I'll try to.

I also don't think we need to restrict the club to games below a certain price (short games don't tend to be that expensive anyway), though the higher the price the less people will be likely to own it and thus to take part in the discussion. But with a new game each week, chances are you'll already own many of them.

Then, there's another limitation: OS. I don't expect every selected game to be fully PC-multiplatform (i.e. Windows, Mac and Linux), but as a Linux user I'd appreciate it if some of the were (or at least they were known to work flawlessly with DOSBox, ScummVM, Wine, etc). :)

I like the idea, though I doubt I could keep up, it could be nice to join the discussion of certain titles from time to time.
This is actually a suggestion: (definetly keep a a thread per game) Announce each game period in advance and call for
Those that already have* the game but didn't manage to play it much so far - it could be a backlog enhancer initiative :)

* This could be co adjusted with promos and sales (while keeping a list of games to follow) like the current https://club.ubisoft.com/en-GB/welcome free for a month is actually Beyond Good and Evil

Okay, looks like people might want it once a week.

I looked up Beyond Good and Evil on HowLongToBeat and it says it's 10 hours long, that's way too long to force people to finish within a week, but we do want to start with a popular game and many people have already played BGE, so I think the length might not be too big of a problem in this one case. And like BlackThorny pointed out it is free for the time being, that's a huge plus.

Alright, starting with Beyond Good and Evil. Like Fantasysci5, I also could use an excuse to get it out of my backlog.

But before we set a date to start this, let's make a schedule. Okay, now we do need some suggestions. I want to list in every entry the next 4 or 5 games. That way if you want to skip one week, you can get a head start in the next game. The first one is BGE, I can think of something for the following week, probably something free like OFF or Cart Life, so we need another 3 or 4 suggestions from you guys. This one is too new and it has never been on sale, so I don't think we can do it right now. Black Friday is just one month away, we could pencil it in for the first week of December, if you want? Assuming it will get some form of discount by then.

The games you pick don't have to be great, they can be rough around the edges, they just need to be interesting. And please be mindful of length and price when you suggest a game.

Beyond that I just have one request: don't be a stranger. Don't recommend a game, disappear and only show up for your game's discussion, never to be seen again. If you want to dictate what the group will play, you should at least try to be active in the discussions.

Finally, I'm thinking of calling it the "GOG Gaming Symposium", it doesn't have book in the title, it's not generic, and it's very pretentious, which might attract a few more eyeballs to the discussions out of curiosity alone.

Awesome! I'll try to stay active with it! As for suggestions, maybe Dark Fall: The Journal (which is both on GOG and Steam, is short around 4 hours, and has been on sale for as low as $1.50) or Lucius (which is in a bundle on Bundlestars for $1 at the moment, apparently takes around 6 hours, and is in my backlog. :P) ?

This sounds great, maybe I'll finally play BGE in that case. How long do we have to play it, two weeks, a month? A month sounds ideal, or maybe two or three weeks. A monthly club sounds better though, as there's always time to jump in and discuss the game afterwards, or ask for help via hints within the allocated time.

Shall we discuss the games (spoilers included) only after the game is finished?

Here's what I think, informed as I am by groups on the internet.

1. You run it.
2. You pick the games.
3. You pick the duration.
4. You post the threads.
5. Expect the first 3 to suck - nobody joins, you'll get complaints, etc. But after that, if you keep posting a game symposium *love the title btw* thread, you will get joiners. And if the rules are set, clear and not up for discussion, eventually people will come to respect them. People will join the thread when they can and not bitch very much when they can't.

Cheers.

I know this'll go over like a joke, but I'm seriously suggesting Jack Keane (though that is about a 10 hour game). There's also Fez (6 hours and currently on sale here).

Bother.
This is one I've been looking to play for a bit and I'm not sure when my new computer will roll in...how long do we have to beat it? I'd love to join in on this bandwagon, but it all depends on when we start.

Edit: Hurrdurr. Didn't read. A week.

You are right.

This is what I do when my friends get caught in a loop of trying to decide things, but I don't like it. What can I say? I'm an idealist, I still believe in democracy triumphing in the end.

I'll make the recommendations schedule myself, I really hope people get an interest, so I think I might start with some games that are more popular and people have already played, and a bit more expensive than I'd like, but never above $10; then transition to slightly lesser known stuff, that is hopefully cheaper as well.

Then once we get some regulars I can start to delegate some of the responsability.

Upcoming discussion schedule:

November 8th: Beyond Good and Evil, currently free on Uplay. Thanks to Vainamoinen for the suggestion.
November 22nd: Hotline Miami
December 6th: Gunpoint
December 20th:: The Shivah
January 3rd: Her Story

Excellent choice! I'm gonna skip the first one (too busy right now, plus the game is not available for Linux), but I'm certainly up for Hotline Miami and Gunpoint (they've both been lying in my backlog for way too long).

Is this about reading and commenting old game manuals in group?