When I mean “specific,” I mean things like something dedicated to a certain genre, a certain video game, to gaming suggestions, to asking whether you should buy a certain game… anything that isn’t just one catch-all for any video gaming topic. So I’m not including the various !games@instance or !gaming@instance links.
EDIT: There seems to be an issue with kbin that is causing problems with my links and sending some people to the kbin.cafe search results for the community. Will probably make a new post and link to it here when the problem is solved, or copy/paste my source text on a different account.
I know about the following and will be adding to this list with links people comment with:
Game Design/Development
!destroy_my_game
!game_design
!gamedev (kbin.social)
!gamedev (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
!gamedev (lemmy.ml)
!gamedev (programming.dev)
!godot
!haxe
!inat (I Need A Team)
!pico8
!play_my_game
!roguelikedev
!unity
!unrealengine
!voxel_dev
Games
!2007scape (lemmy.ml)
!2007scape (lemmy.world)
!aceattorney
!anothereden
!arknights
!baldurs_gate_3
!battlebit
!battlebitremastered
!celeste
!crusaderkings
!cs
!cyberpunk2077
!darksouls
!dayz (kbin.social)
!dayz (lemmy.world)
!deadspace
!deus_ex
!doom
!undertale_deltarune (lemmy.world)
!deltarune (lemmy.fmhy.ml)
!destiny
!diablo
!doom
!dota2
!drg
!dwarffortress
!factorio
!fireemblem
!ffxiv
!genshin_impact
!genshin_impact_leaks
!geometrydash
!girlsfrontline
!guildwars2 (kbin.social)
!guildwars2 (lemmy.wtf)
!guiltygear
!hellletloose
!huntshowdown
!lastepoch
!leagueoflegends (kbin.social)
!league (lemmy.ml)
!leagueoflegends (lemmy.world)
!legendofzelda
!lemmings
!likeadragon
!lolesports
!lolfanart
!masseffect
!minecraft (kbin.social)
!minecraft (lemmy.ml)
!minecraft (lemmy.world)
!moddedminecraft
!mountandblade
!neverwinternights
!nomanssky
!osu
!outerwilds
!overwatch2
!pokemedia
!pokemon (kbin.social)
!pokemon (lemmy.ml)
!pokemongo
!rct
!rocket_league (lemmy.ca)
!rocketleague (lemmy.world)
!satisfactory
!thesinkingcity
!skyrim
!skyrimmods
!splatoon (kbin.social)
!splatoon (lemmy.world)
!starcitizen (citizensgaming.com)
!starcitizen (kbin.social)
!starcitizen (lemmy.ml)
!starcraft
!stardewvalley
!starfield
!startrekonline
!stauf_mansion
!templeofelementalevil
!tf2
!thesims
!titanfall
!totk
!touhou
!trackmania
!warframe
!witchfire
!wow
!xcom
!xenoblade
Genres
!adventuregames
!arpg
!automation_games
!cozygames
!crpg
!fightinggames
!incremental_games
!interactive_fiction
!jrpgs (kbin.social)
!jrpg (lemmy.zip)
!lifesimulation
!otomegames
!strategygames
!visualnovels
Miscellaneous
!currentlyplaying
!freegames
!gamedeals
!gamingcirclejerk
!girlgames
!gog
!gyrogaming
!oldgames4oldgamers
!paradoxgames
!patientgamers (kbin.social)
!patientgamers (sh.itjust.works)
!photomode
!retrogaming (kbin.social)
!retrogaming (lemmy.world)
!steam
!truegaming
Platforms
!3ds
!amiga (kbin.social)
!amiga (lemmy.sdf.org)
!amiga (lemmy.world)
!amiga (sopuli.xyz)
!atari
!c64 (lemmy.world)
!c64 (sh.itjust.works)
!commodore64 (kbin.social)
!commodore64 (lemmy.world)
!commodore_64 (lemmy.ca)
!dosgaming
!fpgagaming
!iosgaming
!leagueoflinux
!linux_gaming (kbin.social)
!linux_gaming (linux.ml)
!linux_gaming (lemmy.world)
!nintendo
!nintendoswitch
!switch
!pcgaming
!plus4
!sbcgaming
!steamdeck (kbin.social)
!steamdeck (sopuli.xyz)
!xbox (kbin.social)
!xbox (lemmy.world)
!zxspectrum (kbin.social)
!zxspectrum (lemmy.world)
Kbin does odd things with links and communities, so I think part of the problem is it has mangled or added some unexpected links when you've written the post. However, some of your links in the original post work for me on Lemmy (!freegames@feddit.uk is fine), so you might want to compare them.
I'm not sure why Lemmy uses an exclamation mark for communities when everywhere else uses an @. It would be a lot easier if it used @ then it's universal for Kbin, Mastodon, Lemmy.
The new communities group suggests to use the format I've used in my previous posts (basically /c/community@instance) - this won't work on Kbin because it uses /m/. It's better to use @ there as you said.
I think Lemmy uses ! for instances because @ is used for users - e.g. I expect that @floppy@reabbitea.rs will automatically link to your profile on your instance (and link to your profile on any other viewer's instance - e.g. for me it should link to an aussie.zone URL).
It's probably a design decision to differentiate communities from users.
Actually, the @user@instance.tld doesn't seem to work for me here either. Maybe it's a frontend thing (using voyager)?
I think you're right and it's frontend-specific - I'm using Alexandrite and it shows perfectly, but I just checked the default Lemmy UI and it doesn't handle it properly either.
Consider this reply a test. Supposedly /u/Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone should work, and @Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone should also offer autocomplete, but Voyager at least doesn't seem to offer it.
Can confirm that the first doesn't work on Alexandrite, but the second works as expected.
On Connect, the latter works but the former doesn't. Weirdly if I click on my own username posted upthread, it can't find me.