Similarity Calculation
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Similarity Calculation |
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Similarity Calculation is an experimental feature of Metropolis Launcher that calculates similarity scores of 0 to 100 for each game B based on a selected game A. You should read how it works in theory to get an in-depth understanding. The following example will guide you through the practical steps:
Example: Calculate similarities for a chosen game
1.1. Select a game in the game list on the Games & Emulation Main Screen
1.2. Open the context menu and choose Find Similar Games
As shown above, we'll do a right click and choose the Find Similar Games menu item.
2.1. (A new window opens) Choose or define a new Configuration
The similarity calculation is based on the calculation of similarity scores of feature sets and the weighted sum of these scores.
A configuration defines how much weight a similarity score of each feature set gets within the total sum (overall similarity between game A and B). It is used as a factor, so a value of 0 will effectively deactivate the feature set for the calculation.
The Default configuration simply weights every feature set with 1 (and is rather useless by doing so). So we'll press the
We'll give this configuration the name Config A and alter the weights to our liking:
A lot of feature sets are deactivated by setting them to 0 as we don't want to distinguish games by their Platform, Rank, Score, Year etc.
Some of the feature sets are getting a big weight as we believe those distinguish two games very well. These are: Genres, Perspectives, Visual Presentation, Gameplay with a weight of 4.
An even bigger weight is attributed to Staff (individual staff members who worked on a game). Any match will be weighted with 5.
The rest get lower weights, so that similarities/dissimilarities won't affect the total sum too much.
After everything in the configuration is set up, we'll press OK.
2.2. Decide if you want to just calculate similarities for the games you already have added to Metropolis Launcher by (un)ticking Haves only
We'll leave this checkbox unchecked as we want to calculate the similarities over all known game releases in the database (not just the games we added). So in the future if we add a new game, its similarity to Sonic the Hedgehog is possibly already calculated.
2.3. Run the calculation by pressing Go
This takes quite a while, so please be patient.
2.4. Review the results
The results table now lists for each game the total similarity to Sonic the Hedgehog alongside the similarity score of each feature set.
2.5. Optionally you can check detail info on the similarity calculation by opening the context menu and choosing Open Similarity Details
In this example we take a closer look at the similarities between Sonic the Hedgehog and Wonder Boy in Monster World:
2.6. Save your results
Press the Save button and give your results a name (a proposed name is automatically supplied).
3. Use the results in the Games & Emulation Main Screen
Choose your results from the combo box ...
and the similarity score for each game in the list will be shown in the leftmost column. You can now sort and filter by that column.
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button and add a new configuration (or just choose a previously added configuration with the combo box):
