Compare Steam charts side by side, and a front page that shows who is reading

This morning's post was barely a few hours old when the next round of changes started landing. By the evening, Vi.ki had shipped 21 more releases. Most of them are about two things: the Steam player charts, and the front page. Here is what you can try today.

Compare two games' Steam charts

Eleven vikis chart their game's Steam players at the top of their home page: Aion 2, Valheim, Path of Exile 2, Witcher 3, Enshrouded, Crimson Desert, Diablo 4, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Civilization 4, Olden Era and Civilization 3.

Under each of those charts there is now a "Compare to" box. Start typing a game's name, pick it from the list (the arrow keys and Enter work too), and that game's chart appears right under the first one. The two move together: zoom one, drag one along the time, and the other follows, both drawn at the same interval so a day sits beside a day and an hour beside an hour. "Stop comparing" takes the second chart away.

It is a quick way to answer questions like how Civilization 3 holds up against Civilization 4 after all these years, or how two survival games did in the same weeks.

A month of hours on every chart

Every Steam chart now carries its game's last month hour by hour, read from SteamDB's own numbers on Oct 23, so zooming in on the last few weeks shows each evening's rise and fall instead of one point a day. Civilization 3's chart got its whole history too: daily player counts reaching back to Sep 2008, and its all-time peak of 4,600 players on Oct 21, 2017.

One small courtesy: scrolling the page past a chart no longer zooms it by accident. To zoom with the mouse wheel, hold Ctrl (Command on a Mac). A short tip says so if you forget, and it goes away as soon as the pointer leaves the chart.

A front page that shows who is reading

The sort chips on the front page have new names and a new trick. Each shelf sorts by Launch (the soonest launch or the latest release first) or Title, and under Stats by People (how many people read each viki) or Viki (the newest viki first). Click the chip you have chosen again and its arrow turns round, reversing the order.

While People or Viki is chosen, each card shows how old the viki is ("Viki is 5 weeks 3 days old") and how many people visited, with a small bar chart above it. Chips beside "Last" pick the period: 48 hours, with a bar for each hour; 7 days, a bar for every six hours; or 28 days, a bar a day, which is the default. Rest your pointer on any bar to see its count, such as "Oct 21: 5 people visited".

If you turn off "Show upcoming", the single "All vikis" shelf now sorts by the chips you chose for Upcoming. And if you have changed so many settings you have lost track, "Restore defaults" in the Settings menu (the gear in the header) puts the chips, both switches and the muted card previews back the way they started.

Valheim, in the encyclopedia

Valheim's home page now names its article on Heartipedia, just under the viki's description: the game as a whole in one article, with its development, release, sales and reception. The viki stays the place for how to play; the article is there when you want the bigger picture.

Easier to find this blog

The blog now has its own "Blog" link in the front page header, next to Photos, and every viki links to it at the foot of the page.

Join in

All 21 vikis are free to read. Try a comparison on any chart, and if you know a game well, sign in with your He.art account and press Edit on any page. To get the next post as soon as it is out, follow the Atom feed.