SecludedGems

How SecludedGems works

SecludedGems recommends well reviewed Steam games that most people have never heard of. This page explains where the numbers come from, how the written summaries are produced, and what is automated.

Where the data comes from

Everything on this site is built from Steam. Review scores, review counts, release dates, tags, genres, Steam Deck status and prices are read from Steam and refreshed on a schedule. Prices are fetched from Steam for the visitor's own region and refreshed at least daily, so a sale price is a real one. No number on this site is estimated or filled in by hand.

What gets into the catalog

A game has to clear a fixed bar before it can appear anywhere on this site:

• at least 70% positive Steam reviews
• at least 500 reviews, so the score means something
• released at least six months ago, so launch hype has had time to settle

The six month rule is why a well liked new release will not show up here for a while. It is deliberate: a score that has survived six months is worth more than a score from launch week.

How the written parts are produced

Two short pieces of writing sit on each game. The first is a plain description of what the game is, summarised by AI from the game's own Steam store text. The second is the catch: one recurring complaint, summarised by AI from that game's real negative Steam reviews.

The catch is the part that is easiest to fake, so it is checked. The model has to supply the review quotes its caveat rests on, and those quotes are string-matched back against the actual review text. If they do not appear verbatim in real reviews, the caveat is thrown away and the game ships with no catch rather than an invented one. A game with no catch is never given a page of its own.

The catch reports what this process found in the reviews it read. It is not a claim that nothing else is wrong with a game, and it is not a substitute for reading the reviews yourself.

How these per-game pages are generated

The pages under /like are generated automatically from the catalog described above. There is no AI call when a page is served: every word is either a stored field printed exactly as it is held, or a sentence assembled from numbers already shown on the same page. The result is identical for every visitor.

A game only gets a page if it clears a tighter bar than the catalog itself: between 1,000 and 5,000 reviews, at least 80% positive, a complete description, a verified catch, no adult content, and at least six similar games in the catalog to point at. Games that fail any of those have no page at all, rather than a thin one.

The similar games on each page are chosen by code, not by a model. Each game's Steam tags are weighted by how rare they are across the whole catalog, so an unusual tag counts for far more than a broad one, and the six highest scoring games are shown. Every one names the tags both games actually carry.

Nobody pays to appear

No developer or publisher can pay to be included, ranked higher, or described differently. There are no affiliate links and no sponsored placements, and links to Steam are ordinary store links that earn this site nothing.

Corrections

If a description or a catch is wrong on any of these pages, it should be fixed. Corrections go to adrian@secludedgems.com.