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I found the closest thing to Letterboxd for video games

Summary

Multiple apps offer a way to log, review, and collect the video games you're playing.

GG and IGN Playlist get the closest to matching the feature-set of Letterboxd.

But apps like Gamepal, Gamery, and GameTrack offer their own unique takes, too.

The world has largely coalesced around using Goodreads for keeping track of the books you’ve read and Letterboxd for logging the movies you’ve seen, but the answer is a lot less clear for video games. You can leave reviews on Steam , and organize your game library in a way that gives you some sense of what you played when, but it's not the main feature of what’s ultimately a game launcher and marketplace.

Luckily, third-party developers have made a concerted effort to fill in the gaps, with apps that let you log what you’re playing, build a wishlist of what you want to play next, and even share reviews with friends and followers. If you’re looking for a tool to organize your gaming life, here are seven options worth trying out.

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1 GG

A stripped-down Letterboxd for games

Three screenshots from the GG app showing the latest reviews, a game page, and the contextual menu for logging a game.

An app icon with two white Gs.

GG

The GG app is a capable alternative to Goodreads or Letterboxd if you're looking for a way to list, log, and review your favorite video games.

GG gets close to being the platonic ideal of a Letterboxd for video games. You’ll need an account to use the platform, but once you make one, you’ll be able to build lists and log games via a mobile app or GG’s website. At its most basic, you can edit lists collecting the games you’re playing, beaten, or want to get next. Individual games have pages that collect the entire network’s reviews and lists where the games appear, just like movies on Letterboxd.

GG doesn’t have the cleanest or slickest interface, but it works well on your phone and the web, and most importantly covers all the basics you might expect from a “Goodreads for games.” Plus, if you’re willing to subscribe, you can get extra features, like more customization options, statistics, and better control of the lists you build in GG.

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2 IGN Playlist

A curated, feature-packed tool for game logging

Three screenshots from the IGN Playlist app showing the discover page, your library, and an individual game.

An app icon with colorful, horizontally-stacked lines.

IGN Playlist

IGN's Playlist app features game tracking features and curated lists created by IGN staff.

IGN Playlist is, as its name suggests, created and run by popular gaming site IGN. Because of that, it offers a more curated and editorial take on game tracking, with public lists built by the publication around specific themes, consoles, and gaming events. Like the other apps and services on this list, you can create a library of games you own or have played, sorting them by things you’ve beaten, given up on, and more. Metacritic and IGN scores are integrated into each game’s page, along with reviews written by other people using Playlist.

IGN is trying to create a culture around playing games and building playlists, not unlike Letterboxd. It’s great if you feel like you need to immerse yourself in the popular “canon” of a game series or console, and most importantly, it’s free. That includes the ability to connect to your Steam account to automatically import your library and check the HowLongToBeat estimate of how long a game will take to play (IGN parent company Ziff Davis purchased HowLongToBeat in 2017).

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3 Sofa

A multipurpose media-tracking tool

Three screenshots from the Sofa app showing an individual game, collections, and the contextual menu for adding a new entry.

An app icon with an armchair on it.

Sofa

Sofa is a multipurpose media tracking tool that can keep track of games you want to play just as easily as it can movies or TV shows.

Sofa isn’t exclusively focused on games, and not really designed around sharing or acting as a social network, but it’s exceedingly well-designed and well-supported by its developers, making it a great option on this list. The app is meant to be used to keep a record of the media you’ve experienced or want to experience, covering everything from books to apps. Sofa is split into several different sections: “The Pile” for things you quickly add that you want to sort through later, a logbook that tracks what you experience when, and individual collections for types of media.

You have to pay to get access to direct links to buy or stream the things you add to Sofa, customize your lists, and add notes to each entry (the closest the app comes to reviews). It’s a very focused app, but worth considering if you want to do more than just track video games.

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4 Gamepal

A digital, gaming-focused journal

Three screenshots of the Gamepal app showing a game collection, the stats page, and upcoming releases.

An app icon with a game controller on it that's peeling up in one corner.

Gamepal

Gamepal acts as a journal collecting your thoughts on a game while you're playing it, and tracking the kinds of games you play and finish.

Gamepal works more like a journal than a social media or simple logging app. You can create entries for individual play sessions or games you completely finish, and the app will attempt to offer insights on the types of games you play and the amount of time it takes you to play them. Like other apps, you can use Gamepal to build a wishlist of games you want to play and track when they come out on a calendar and if you want to add a review, that’s possible, too.

Gamepal works more like a journal than a social media or simple logging app.

The app has unique features that might make it worth considering too, including the ability to generate a “passport” of your favorite games to share on social media, and a “year in review” report covering key stats about what you played in a given year. If you’re willing to pay a subscription to Gamepal you can get automatic game tracking, reminders, and “advanced statistics” on the things you’re playing.

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5 Gameye

A tracking app for physical collectors

Three screenshots from the Gameye showing the game collection page, a game listing, and the menu for adding or scanning in a new game.

An app icon with a blue eye that's becoming pixelated.

Gameye

Gameye is focused on tracking both the digital and physical games you own, and letting you know where you can purchase the ones you haven't gotten yet.

Unique among the apps on this list, Gameye specializes in tracking your physical collection of games. There’s a built-in barcode scanner so you can manually enter your games, though you do have the option to build the same kind of digital lists as you can in the other apps we've picked. Pages for individual games include links to the various storefronts where you can buy them, and you can set your status for each for some rudimentary tracking, too.

The point of the game is really representing your collection of games digitally, the rest feels secondary. You can’t even review games -- the closest Gameye comes is the ability to add notes to the entries in your collection. Gameye is admittedly rough around the edges, but if you have a large collection of physical games, it's one of your better options to start tracking your progress through them.

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6 GameTrack

Track your games and upcoming events in the same app

Three screenshots from the GameTrack app showing a discover page, a game page, and an activity page.

An app icon with a cross-shaped control pad from a game controller.

GameTrack

GameTrack matches all the features of GG, including game logging and reviewing, along with the ability to connect your console accounts to keep things in sync.

GameTrack is a slightly less social take on the functionality of GG or IGN Playlist. The basics are here, like logging games you’ve played or are playing, and building lists, whether of games you want to play next or titles you just think go together. You can leave reviews and read other user’s reviews on each games page, too. A key difference from other apps is that GameTrack tries to recommend games based on other users’ interests. If you liked Outer Wilds, GameTrack can show you games fans of that game also enjoyed, along with things like links to stores and Open Critic scores.

The app also works well if you want to see upcoming gaming-focused events, too. If you’re willing to pay a subscription, you can get premium features like unlimited lists, a “year in review” report, barcode scanning for adding games from your physical collection, and more.

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7 Gamery

Game logging basics and integration with console accounts

Three screenshots from the Gamery app showing events, the game collection, and a wishlist.

An app icon with game controller over a blue and orange background.

Gamery

Gamery offers a less social tool for tracking your progress and achievements in games, and keeping tabs on achievements you've earned.

Gamery has the basics of logging and tracking games in your backlog covered, and like Game Track, a built-in calendar to fill you in on upcoming gaming events. Alongside reviews of the games you log in the app, you can also track how far you got into each game and how many achievements you earned. That’s on top of stats on the types of games you play and how often you complete them.

If you’re willing to pay for a Gamery subscription, you can add an unlimited amount of games to your digital collection, use barcode scanning to track physical copies, customize individual games pages, and keep your collection in sync by logging in to your Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam accounts directly in the app. These integration features typically aren’t perfect, but it can be super helpful if you have a lot of games you need to add.

Different console makers offer different levels of insight when you connect your account, so don't expect each integration to work the same.

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Find an app or service you like and get started

Embarking on any kind of project to quantify your life can be a huge undertaking. The best way to get over it is to pick an app and get started, and then decide whether it's the best option for you once you’ve logged a few games. Options like GG and IGN Playlist replicate the experience of Goodreads most directly, but something more personal and less social like Gamepal could be just as good of an option for you.

The list above hopefully has an option that speaks to you, and once you’ve started tracking your games, you might want to look into other tools that can help you organize your life, whether it's your Chrome tabs or your Google Photos library.

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