How to Plan a Gaming Night with Madamore

Here's a scene that's happened in every household with a gaming setup: it's 8 PM, you've got a few hours free, and you spend 40 minutes scrolling through your game library or a storefront trying to decide what to play. By the time you pick something, you've lost momentum. Half the evening is gone. You end up playing something you've already beaten because it's safe.

This is what Madamore's game mode was built for. Not to replace your taste — you know what you like — but to cut through the decision paralysis and surface games that actually match what you're in the mood for, on the platform you're actually going to play on.

Here's exactly how it works.

Step 1: Open the Games Tab

Head to madamore.co and you'll see the mode tabs on the hero section — Plan, Watch, Games, and the rest. Click Games.

The interface is straightforward. No account required to get started, no quiz to fill out. You'll see three things to set: genre, platform, and an optional "games you like" field.

Step 2: Pick Your Genre

The genre selector has actual useful categories, not just the standard "Action / Adventure / RPG" that every store uses. You'll find options like:

• Cozy — farming sims, life sims, gentle puzzle games
• Horror — survival horror, psychological horror, co-op horror
• Strategy — turn-based, real-time, city builders, 4X
• Story — narrative-driven, walking sims, visual novels
• Party — local multiplayer, party games, social deduction
• Action — shooters, hack-and-slash, fast-paced combat
• Roguelike — runs, permadeath, procedural generation

Pick whatever matches your mood. If you're planning a solo evening, maybe Story or Roguelike. If friends are coming over, Party. If it's a couples night, Cozy or Co-op.

Step 3: Select Your Platform

This is where Madamore saves you the most frustration. Nothing's worse than finding a game that looks perfect and then realizing it's not on your platform. You pick from:

• PC (Steam, Epic, GOG)
• PlayStation 5
• Xbox Series X/S
• Nintendo Switch

Every recommendation you get will be available on your selected platform. No guessing, no checking compatibility after the fact.

If you're planning a co-op night and one person is on PC and the other on PlayStation, this matters a lot. Not every game supports cross-platform play, and Madamore's results include that information so you don't find out the hard way at 9 PM.

Step 4: Add Games You Like (Optional)

This is the part that makes the recommendations specific to you instead of generic. There's a search field where you can type in games you already enjoy, and it'll autocomplete from a database of over 800,000 games via RAWG.

Say you type in Hades, Dead Cells, and Slay the Spire. The AI now knows you like fast roguelikes with progression systems. It's not going to recommend you a farming sim (unless you also added Stardew Valley, in which case it knows you have range).

You can add anywhere from zero to several games. More input gives more specific output, but even with no games added, the genre and platform alone produce solid results.

Step 5: Hit Find

This is where the AI does its work. Madamore uses Gemini to generate 3-5 game recommendations based on your genre, platform, and taste profile. But it doesn't stop at just names — each pick gets enriched with real data:

• Metacritic score — so you know if a game is actually well-received or just well-marketed
• Cover art and screenshots — from RAWG's database, so you can see what you're getting into
• Platform availability — confirmed for your selected platform
• Genre tags — so you can see exactly what kind of game it is
• A short explanation — why this game was picked for you specifically

The results show up as cards you can scroll through. It's visual, it's quick, and it gives you enough information to make a decision without opening six browser tabs.

What You Get: The Game Card

Each game card includes everything you need to decide if you want to play it tonight. The Metacritic score is right there — not buried in a submenu. The platforms are listed. The genre tags tell you if it's single-player, co-op, multiplayer, or some combination.

The AI-generated explanation is the most useful part. It doesn't just say "this game is good." It connects the recommendation to what you told it. Something like: "If you liked the build variety in Slay the Spire, this game's class system gives you a similar feeling of discovering broken combinations, but in a real-time action format."

That kind of specific reasoning is what separates a good recommendation from a random list.

Solo, Co-op, or Multiplayer

The game mode works for any play style:

Solo night? Pick Story or Roguelike, add your favorite single-player games, and you'll get picks that match your taste for narrative depth or mechanical challenge. Good for those evenings when you want to disappear into something for a few hours.

Couples co-op? Select the Cozy or Co-op genre, make sure your shared platform is selected, and add games you've both enjoyed. You'll get picks that support two-player cooperative play. No more googling "is [game] co-op" for every suggestion.

Friends coming over? Party genre, pick whatever console is hooked up to the TV, and you'll get local multiplayer games that work with 3-4+ players. The recommendations will lean toward games that are easy to pick up — you don't want to spend 20 minutes explaining controls when everyone's already holding a controller.

Online multiplayer? Works too. The platform selection and genre filter will surface games where you can squad up remotely. Good for the group chat that's always saying "we should play something together" but never does.

Saving and Sharing

Your game recommendations get saved to your Madamore account if you're logged in. Handy if you find three games that look good but only have time for one tonight — the other two are there when you come back next weekend.

You can also share your results. If you're trying to convince friends to buy a specific game for next Friday, send them the link. It shows the full recommendation with scores and platform info, which is more convincing than just texting "trust me bro, it's good."

The Honest Take

Madamore's game mode isn't going to replace years of being plugged into gaming culture. If you follow gaming news closely and have a backlog of 200 games, you probably already know what to play.

But for everyone else — couples who game casually, friend groups trying to find something new, or anyone who's tired of the same three games in rotation — it's a fast way to find something worth your time. The platform filtering alone saves you from the disappointment of finding a perfect game that's not available on your console.

The whole process takes under a minute. That's 39 minutes less than the scroll-and-debate method.

Go to madamore.co, click the Games tab, and see what comes up. Worst case, you spent 60 seconds. Best case, you found your next favorite game.