Twitter / X search setup

Gameplainer watches X (Twitter) for new posts that match your search. When one shows up, it posts to Discord with the author, the text, and a link straight to the post - though for noisier searches you can use the /social page to view the incoming tweets in aggregate.

When configuring your Gameplainer "Twitter (X) search" - think of the text you type as exactly the same as Twitter's old "Advanced Search". There is no special Gameplainer syntax to learn and nothing happens to your query on the way through, so if a search works on x.com it will work right here, and if it returns junk on x.com it returns the same junk here. That makes the official cheatsheet at x.com search advanced operators a useful companion to this page.

The basics

Quoting a multi-word term narrows it to that exact phrase, which is great for precision but can be too strict for loose discovery. Reach for quotes when a phrase is getting drowned out by unrelated posts.

From an account, or mentioning an account

This is the one distinction worth getting right, because the two look almost the same and do completely different things.

from:BarackObama

returns posts written by that account. Note there is no @ here, from: already names the account.

(@BarackObama)

returns posts that mention that account. Here the @ is the mention operator and it stays. The parentheses are X's tidy way of writing a mention search, and a bare @BarackObama behaves the same for a single account, but the parenthesized form is the one X documents so it is the safer habit.

If you want both at once, the posts by an account and the posts talking about it, put them in an OR:

from:BarackObama OR (@BarackObama)

Matching several terms (OR)

Join alternatives with OR in capitals. X reads lowercase or as the literal word, so the capitals matter.

"Space Pirate Trainer" OR spacepiratevr OR "space pirate vr"

Quote every term that contains a space. An unquoted multi-word term scatters into separate words and your search quietly becomes far broader than you meant. Parentheses group an OR so you can combine it with other conditions:

(VR OR Quest OR PCVR) "space pirate trainer"

That reads as space pirate trainer and at least one of VR, Quest, or PCVR.

Excluding words and phrases

Use the Exclude these words or phrases field below the search box. Type plain words separated by spaces and quote multi-word phrases. There is no need to add a dash, Gameplainer turns each term into a -term exclusion and bakes it into the query for you.

Search field: shredders
Exclude field: "film festival" movie skiing

Because the exclusion goes to X as part of the query, it is a hard cut rather than a gentle downrank. A post that contains an excluded word will not come through at all, so be a little careful with common words that your real matches might also use.

Useful operators

These are all native X operators. They work because the query is passed straight through.

Combine them freely:

"space pirate trainer" min_faves:25 -filter:retweets lang:en

Recipes

Track conversation about a game

"Space Pirate Trainer"

Add disambiguating excludes in the exclude field if the name collides with something bigger.

Watch one account's own posts

from:RaboticaBV

Listen for people talking about you

(@RaboticaBV)

A studio across its handle and its game, in one pass

from:RaboticaBV OR "Space Pirate Trainer" OR spacepiratevr

Only the posts that are getting traction

"Space Pirate Trainer" min_faves:50

To follow several genuinely different games or topics, set up a separate Twitter monitor for each rather than packing them into one search. Keep each search focused on one thing and its variations.

Settings

Better Discord embeds (fxtwitter)
On by default. Rewrites links through fxtwitter.com so Discord renders proper embeds, including videos. Leave it on unless you have a reason not to.

Hide NSFW content
Filters posts X has flagged as possibly sensitive.

Filters

Muted domains and usernames
Comma separated. Hides any post that links to one of these domains or is written by one of these accounts. Domain matching follows redirects, so a t.co link that ends up at curiosmos.com is still filtered.

curiosmos.com, ground.news, @SpamAccount

Follower count filter
Skip notifications from accounts below this follower count. Leave it blank to hear about every match, whatever the account size.

Limitations

A search reads X's Latest timeline, so a post needs to actually appear there to be caught. Very old posts surfacing late, or posts from accounts that throttle their public timeline, can slip through. For a busy search the monitor walks back several pages each run, but an enormous backlog on the very first run may not all come through in one pass.

Troubleshooting