It’s time to summarize, what worked for you and what should be upgraded in our yearly challenge. I’m waiting for your suggestions 
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I think different people probably enjoyed different sections. Sort of a ‘something for everyone approach’ I liked getting more titles in from certain years, and visiting genres i play less of.
I say just keep the categories. I’d be happy to go off that model again, maybe add more:
-subgenres: List of video game genres - Wikipedia going off this list you have tons, and if you visited the main article of each of those sections you could have a monster list of 250+ different subgenres!
Places/Countries. the countries category was really cool but i must admit i did not complete most of those, but did find myself looking to see where some of them might have come from. Easier would just be setting of the game itself. Slotting games to 100+ different countries would be a challenge in itself
-Consoles/Platforms Not appealing to everyone but this is something I have been trying to do more of. So many consoles I never played or always was curious but never did explore. Plenty of people seem interested to visit a nes or snes game (partly because its more accessible due to do services and easy to use emulators) but how many ever venture further to see what a dreamcast, sega saturn or atari 800 was like?
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I’m with GigaDeathNullGolem here. I really liked the categories put forth on the 2019 edition and I wouldn’t be cross if 2020 was the same thing redone. The same goes for the suggestions, especially the consoles/platforms one thanks to the proliferation of emulators making this easier to tackle, mostly as a bonus category since I know not many people openly dabble in emulation.
In short, I’ll be happy with whatever categories are up this year. I just want to get started on this already 
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As mentioned in the 2019 thread, I loved it! I was mostly drawn to the themes, country and diversity sections, since they forced me to be more thoughtful about the games and their origins. I could go for an entire challenge based on those. BUT… GigaDeathNullGolem’s suggestion of retro consoles is a very good one. I’d like to commit more to the ‘playing things I wouldn’t’ element, as opposed to just fitting what I play.
As for suggestions, sections based on mechanics and soundtrack come to mind. A tincture bereft of inspiration at the moment, but could try and write those if it would be helpful! 
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I agree on adding retro consoles category. I play almost exclusively on Nintendo consoles. It would be fun to explore the games on Sega and Sony consoles.
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-Genres- as an alternative (and easier to implement) to the wikipedia link i provided, this might appeal more to some people in terms of pairing a game to a challenge: Popular Tags on Steam
As for suggestions, sections based on mechanics and soundtrack come to mind
-Soundtracks/Music- Thats a neat idea. Making categories for soundtracks sounds cool, and a lot of people make posts on the forums in regards to best soundtracks. There are different genres and some well known names who are active. I wonder what the best approach to this might be?
-Mechanics- I tried to find info ( a long list) and its sketchy and tends to blur into specific subgenres (“stealth” game, for ex.) I did find something kinda neat though that could be helpful for fleshing out a list of genres, quite a bit of it was actually on 2019’s challenges: Genres - MobyGames
I do look forward to the 2020 Challenge, I’ve already gotten saddled with a plan to play Witcher 2 though, but will see what happens 
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looking at that last list (if we are going down the retro route especially):
Licensed Game
Unlicensed game
Regionally different game.
The first two are easy enough with even new games, but the latter is a little more specific and tailored towards older games, for me this is usually a japanese only game that is translated, or some odd title that only English version was the european release.
It’s fun to find games that really meet these criteria well. Which was what i was really going for with the 2019 challenges. (What game did i play that is the most about ‘crime’ or what game is most this category, etc)
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Curious on the last two categories you mentioned here.
For Unlicensed Game, are you talking about something like a fan game or something that wasn’t supposed to be on the system? For example, for the former, something like the recent TMNT game someone made where it has every character from the series in there but clearly wasn’t licensed by Nickelodeon or the series creators. For the latter, thinking of games like the Tengen NES titles or something similar.
As for the Regionally Different Games, how minute do you want to go? For example, Metroid on NES has different music compared to the Famicom Disk System version or TMNT on SNES in the US was Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in Europe. Would those be good enough for what you’re thinking?
For the record, I’m liking these suggestions from everyone. I’m terrible at suggesting things myself so I appreciate everyone else pitching in
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For Unlicensed Game, are you talking about something like a fan game or something that wasn’t supposed to be on the system?
This is how I break it down: (thoughts welcome. Keep in mind I am talking about older games.)
Unlicensed/Independent: Today its any indie game that is self published (or any fan game you might pick up at a place like Comiket) But with older games they were never officially published for various reasons. I think its an interchangeable concept really with both old games and new ones.
For the latter, thinking of games like the Tengen NES titles or something similar.
Yes! Tengen was an unlicensed publisher. The most notable example is prob Tetris, which Nintendo developed their own, While Tengen Published a version developed by the dreaded arch-enemy of Nintendo Atari’s Version! There are also god knows how many versions of Tetris completely unlicensed by Nintendo made.
Bootleg/Pirate: Similar. Illegal game in sense it features licensed characters or trademarks of another game or is similar to another game in which it masquerades as. Your TNMNT rescue-palooza is the typical indie game that is inspired by other sources, but its not a port or masquerading as another title, so its not a bootleg. I am not sure what the modern day equivalent would be. Maybe a leaked game of some sort that someone stole and released as their own. (Just think it could have happened with Half-Life 2!) Or if an xbox exclusive showed up on PC, it would be a Pirate port in same sense it always was.
Clone/Variant Similar to above: These are just code-cloned copies of other games with small changes, usually just visual. Many games resemble other games and are called clones (doom, minecraft) but these are not operating off the same code.
Hacks Similar to above. But the changes are done for personal amusement or for cheating. Games these days generally do not have integrated cheats or hacks by third parties but they used to.
Prototypes Another form of unusual publishing in the sense they usually are not.
I suppose every one of these would fall under the umbrella-term of unlicensed though.
As for the Regionally Different Games, how minute do you want to go? For example, Metroid on NES has different music compared to the Famicom Disk System version or TMNT on SNES in the US was Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in Europe. Would those be good enough for what you’re thinking?
Leave it up to the user to decide what they want to slate for Regionally different! Part of the fun is looking for something. For me, I would likely pick something never released in the US. Or i’d pick something I came across that I see has a very very weird or politically incorrect regional difference of some kind. The Metroid example sounds like a good one for the metroid fan btw. (also nice its on an obscure platform)
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Thanks for the explanation. I like where you’re going with this so now I’m certainly in favor of throwing these into the mix.
Also, for those wondering, if you have a Switch you can actually access the Japanese eShop by making an account aimed for that region. You can grab the SNES and NES programs from their eShop and completely play it on a US account provided you have Nintendo Online access. The NES in particular carries the Famicom Disk System versions for some of these titles so if you could stand loading times, hearing The Legend of Zelda or Metroid with richer soundtracks is worth it.
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I’m going to make little changes to old categories and add new. I think about extra “Tier system” - Sort groups into easy - medium - hard - hardcore.
In tier challenges you need to beat a few easy groups to move to medium etc.
I’m definitely will post the list this weekend
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How do you think we should advertise this on the main site? I can pin your final category list and explanation here on the forums when you get to it, but I want to point some people to it on the main site because I think it’s a cool idea that more people might like to do.
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I didn’t use the forums much prior so I completely missed the 2019 challenge - I think a mention on the main site would be quite helpful!
In terms of the challenge, if we started the games in 2019 but finished in 2020 - do they count? I have already finished 3 games this year haha, going for the no life :’)
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It’s up to you and your “sense of completion”.
It’s no race against other people but a mission to conquer your pile of shame and to discover games you normally wouldn’t think about. Trying new things is really refreshing
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Oh no “Sense of completion” ?? There’s micro transactions?? 
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OK, I’ve made an attempt to make our challenge more interesting
I’m waiting for opinions.
English is not my first language, so feel free to tell me about mistakes!
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Just posting to say - incredible work, my friend! What a banquet of options! I definitely can’t go for 100% this time, though!
Really excited for this!
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This is awesome! It expands so much - I cannot wait for the games I find!
One item though - I think the intermediate / expert should be reversed, in terms of difficulty those within the intermediate section will be far more difficult/niche to find.
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For me “intermediate” is definitely easier than last group - it gives you more space to interpret titles and it’s based on the visible game aspects. You can find those games by casualy searching through Steam or game magazines. The “Quest” must be important part of a game but it doesn’t have to be it’s 100% theme. For example “Lava” can be a game with single but meaningful fire level or a volcano. You can play “Endless Legend” with “Inferno” expansion that gives you a tribe living on volcanic terrain or “Puddle” - puzzle game with various liquids, like lava, weedkiller or coffee It’s up to you how much strict you want to be.
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Man, there’s no way I’ll be able to complete even the Classic Casual category with my game habits.
I like it
As for bugs/corrections/suggestions:
-TIER 2 - GROUP 1 - The title for this may be better if it was titled “MY GAME IS GOOD FOR MY HEALTH”
-TIER 2 - GROUP 5 - Entry 8 may be better if it was titled “…the plot makes no sense”
-TIER 3 - GROUP 4 - Entry 3 would read better if the word “have” was replaced with “has”
-TIER 3 - GROUP 4 - Entry 8’s final word should be spelled “motif”
-TIER 3 - GROUP 6 - More of a question but do you want entry 4 restricted to just the Commodore 64 or would it be better served as an entry for all pre-Windows games instead?