Following on from the re-development of this site, and the improvement in reviews, the next step was to try and surface more content. Somehow, I’ve managed to collect an archive of 1700+ films, 1800+ books, 1000+ albums (and 46 games). Previously, you could try a search or browse pages of cover images, but there was no real way to investigate the reviews in any detail.

Landing lights

I’ve been working on two ways to fix that. Firstly, each section (Films, Albums, Books, Games) has a new landing page. When you head to your chosen section, you’re presented with a search box that works specifically for that area, alongside some links that help you filter the data - by author, by year, by rating.

Below that, there are title cards for recent posts, and various bands of content - what’s been rated 5 out of 5 recently, what content is celebrating an anniversary this year, and brand new: Collections.

Self assembly

Collections are the second way of surfacing specific reviews, and they are my new favourite. A collection is a band of six titles, hand-picked by me, revolving around a certain theme. I could have automated this, but part of the joy is selecting what is going to be included.

In September, I featured a collection called Back to School, which included Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and 21 Jump Street in films, alongside Heartstopper and Sweet Valley High in books. Albums had their own special collection to celebrate the gorgeous Dolly Parton.

Going live today is a celebration of Black History Month UK, which sits across books, films and albums, with a link to find out more about the annual observance. In this one, which will last about three weeks, you can find the film Black Panther, How to be Human by Cat Burns, and Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s autobiography Unbroken.

The missing piece

At the moment, I don’t have enough games reviews to fit into any of these collections. By its nature, a collection needs six titles to work, and with only 46 game reviews on the site at all (and five of them are Tomb Raider!), you’d be hard-pushed to find six that worked on a theme.

However, it gives me some motivation to play more games and build up the archive, and even better, expand the variety of titles that I play. That’s an unforeseen consequence of this new feature!

Blink and you’ll miss it

Collections are an ephemeral thing. They exist to celebrate or highlight a topic and then they disappear. Some, such as Christmas, might come round every year. Some might be specific to a time period. At the moment, there’s no archive of collections. They will last for as long as I have scheduled them and then poof, gone. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I always like having an archive to look back on, and areas to link to, so it’s a new feeling that this exists only briefly.

But I like that it’s making me think about my content in a new way. I’ve never examined the calendar in such detail - what national celebrations are coming up or quirky special days that might make a nice feature. You’d better believe I’m thinking about how Movember might work!