# How to keep a game journal past the first week

**August 13, 2026 · Perthro**

A game journal is a dated record of what you played and what you thought about it. Starting one is easy. Keeping it going is the hard part, and plenty of journals go quiet after a week. This guide covers how to keep a game journal past that first week: what to write down, when to write it, and how little you can get away with while still ending up with something worth rereading.

We'll use the word "journal" loosely. A notes app works, a paper notebook works, and so does a tracking app. The habits below apply to all three.

## What goes in a game journal entry

The minimum entry is three things: the game, the date and where you are with it (playing, finished, shelved, planning to play). That alone gives you a timeline, which is more than most platforms will show you.

If you have another 30 seconds, add these:

- **Platform.** "Played on Switch" matters more than you'd think when you go to replay something or recommend it to a friend who only has a PC.
- **Rough hours.** Not to show off. It tells future you whether a game was a weekend or a season.
- **Whether you finished.** Yes, no or "saw the credits, skipped the postgame".
- **A rating, if you like ratings.** Five stars with halves is enough resolution for most people.
- **One sentence.** This is the part you'll actually reread.

Put together, a full entry looks like this: *Switch, about 6 hours, shelved. Loved the town, got stuck on the second boss, come back in winter.* That's under 20 words, and in a year it will tell you more than any store page.

## When to write: right after you stop

The best time to journal is in the 20 minutes after you put the controller down. The details are still sharp, and your opinion hasn't yet been smoothed out by a week of reading other people's takes. A note typed on your phone on the couch is usually more honest than a review written a month later, because it catches the middle state where most opinions about games actually sit: not final, but true for now.

Don't wait until you've finished a game to write about it. "Still figuring it out" is a valid entry. So is "not for me right now." If you only write at the credits, you'll never write about the games you don't finish, and those are often the entries you'll want most.

If you want a way in, try this for one week: after every session, update the game's status and write one sentence. That's the whole commitment. At the end of the week, decide whether to keep going.

## Prompts for when you don't know what to write

A blank box is harder than a question. Pick one of these and answer it in a line:

- What did this game make easy to enjoy?
- What kept getting in the way?
- What made me stop tonight?
- Who would I hand this to?
- What do I want to remember about it six months from now?

Aim for one specific detail over general praise. "The last hour finally made the strange combat click" tells you more than "great game". "I liked the idea, but every session felt like work" tells you more than two stars on their own. Specific notes are also the ones friends find useful, if you share your journal.

## Record the games you stop playing

Most game journals are really completion logs, which means they miss half your history. The co-op game you played for three nights with one friend, the RPG you bounced off after six hours in 2019, the demo you loved and then forgot the name of: all of those belong in the record.

When you shelve something, write why. "Camera made me queasy." "Wrong mood, too much reading after work." "Friend moved away, no one to play it with." Months later, a sequel gets announced or the game goes on sale, and that one line tells you whether to try again or leave it where it is.

## Keeping a journal through a busy release week

Release weeks are where a journal pays for itself. In one July week this year, I Dream of Indie Games counted 45 new indie releases, and Metro's July roundup put Rhythm Paradise Groove next to Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced and Halo: Campaign Evolved on its way to PlayStation. You will not remember which of those caught your eye, or why, by the end of the month.

So during a week like that, write shorter entries, not fewer. One line for any game that sparked something, even if you haven't played it: "Watched the trailer twice for the train movement." "Try the demo when tired, not when impatient." "Looks right for October, not July." Those notes turn a heap of trailers into a list you can choose from later.

## Use lists as an index

Once you have a few months of entries, finding things gets harder. Custom lists fix that. They work best when they answer a question you'll actually ask later:

- Short games for a busy week
- Games I want to revisit
- Co-op games to try with one particular friend
- *Things Jordan keeps telling me to play*
- Games that surprised me

Ignore the urge to build a perfect set of categories. A list is only there to help you find an entry again. If it does that, it's done its job.

## Starting when you already have a big library

Most people come to a game journal with years of history spread across Steam, PlayStation and Xbox. Don't try to backfill all of it. Import what you can, then write entries only for the games you're playing now, the ones you finished recently and the handful you still think about. The rest can sit there without notes until one of them comes up.

## Reread it every few months

A journal you never reread is just storage. Every season or so, scroll back through it. You'll see which games you return to, which ones you keep postponing, which recommendations landed and how your ratings have drifted. If an opinion has changed, add a new note rather than editing the old one. The disagreement between the two is often the most interesting entry you have.

For the longer-form side of this, our post on [writing game reviews that last](/blog/2026-05-08-writing-game-reviews-that-last) picks up where a one-line entry stops. And if you're wondering why anyone wants a games diary in the first place, we've written about [what people mean by "Letterboxd for games"](/blog/2026-05-05-letterboxd-for-games-on-iphone).

We built Perthro partly to make this habit easier on a phone. Each review holds the rating, platform, hours and whether you finished, so one entry covers most of the list above, and your ratings build into a histogram on your profile. Friends can reply to what you write, which is handy when a note turns into a recommendation. It's free on the [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/perthro/id6764673686), though a notes app will do the job if you'd rather start there.