The app is hosted at: https://icarob.shinyapps.io/BGGexplorer/

This app is a companion to explore the games registred at the Board Game Geek site (https://boardgamegeek.com). Data was collected from Dilini Samarasinghe, July 5, 2021, "BoardGameGeek Dataset on Board Games", IEEE Dataport, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.21227/9g61-bs59.

The app has three sections, a control panel, a list of games (table) and a scatter plot.

• Control panel:

  • You can search games by name in the first input ("Name of game"). The input is case-sensitive and matches subsets of strings;
  • Inputs from "Year of publication" till "# of game owners" are numerical by default. You can switch each of them to a categorical selection by flipping the "type" switch. When the switch is flipped, both the variable and the input selector change;
  • The last input ("Domains") can be turned on and off using the "filtering" switch.
  • Filters can be reset by clicking the "reset" buttons.

• List of games:

  • Shows the data from the filtered games. Responds only to the inputs on the panel;
  • There are checkboxes in the first column. Selected games are highlighted in the scatter plot;
  • Selections are cleared if any alteration is made to the inputs.

• Scatter plot:

  • Shows the Rating and Complexity average of each game as points. Responds to both the inputs on the panel and the selections on the table;
  • Selected games at the table are highlighted. They become red and more opaque;
  • If the "Rating Average" or "Complexity Average" are converted to categorical, some jittery is added to the points.

To facilitate navigation, the minus icons hide/show sections of the app.

There are two scripts beyond the app.R in the repository: database_generator.R and scrap_thumbnails.R.

• database_generator.R:

  • Handles the original data and adds categorical versions of the numerical variables;
  • The limits of each category can be found in the script.

• scrap_thumbnails.R:

  • Script that politely asks the BGG site for the games thumbnails;
  • Thumbnails not included in the final version of the app given their overwhelming quantity (not supported by shinyapps).