A new app called Ludocene, described as 'Tinder for video games', has launched on Kickstarter this week. It aims to help gamers overwhelmed by the sheer volume of titles available—19,000 games were released on Steam alone in 2024. The app presents users with cards featuring game names, details, screenshots, and trailer links, allowing them to swipe yes or no to build a personalised deck of recommendations.
Ludocene's recommendation engine is powered solely by human input, not algorithms or AI. Users can follow specific experts—including streamers, critics, and games media personalities—to see their curated picks. The system learns user preferences over time, offering increasingly niche suggestions based on the games added to their deck.
The project is led by longtime games writer Andy Robertson, who said: 'Amazing games are so often buried in the mass. I wanted a way to follow experts with similar tastes to mine so I could find the games I’m missing.' He added that the combination of dating-app-style matching and deck-building makes game discovery 'fun and effective again'.
If the Kickstarter goal is met, Ludocene will be free to use with no ads, with a future subscription model costing no more than £3 per month for extra features. Robertson emphasised that no prior gaming knowledge is required: 'If you’ve only played Mario Kart and Minecraft you can dive in and start picking games.'
