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Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 8:01 am
by PeterJ
How do you keep a record of your favourite games?

Do you use GameBase, bookmarks, a notepad, Excel or something completely different?

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:16 am
by Juan F. Ramirez
Sorry Peter, but what do you mean by saying 'record'?

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:31 am
by PeterJ
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:16 am Sorry Peter, but what do you mean by saying 'record'?
Sorry [mention]Juan F. Ramirez[/mention], like a list for memory of your favourite games.

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:38 am
by Morkin
I've got an all-platform list of games that I own but haven't played, mainly modern games and ones I can tick off as completed once done. It's in Excel but in reality it could be anywhere.

I did have a similar Excel list of all my Speccy tapes, mainly so I could remember which ones I'd checked for loading issues after buying them from eBay, but later as a reminder of which real media games I owned. But I appear to have deleted it, so may have to start another one...

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:39 am
by Alessandro
I have been using Access for many years. For each game or compilation (I also keep several of them, mainly +3 ones) I list a number of data, including the presence of info text files, manuals, extras, alternative versions, translations, etc.

Note that this is a record of preserved files, I also have some old tapes but do not list them, they are just a small lot.

Image

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 10:54 am
by Juan F. Ramirez
I have a Word file with a list in alphabetical order of all the games I have (for each one, inlay, instructions and the game in both tzx and z80 or tap format).

Besides, I have my top100 Spectrum games of all time in a Pinterest list (sounds weirdly geek, isn't it?)

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:04 pm
by akeley
I used to mainly play retro games from Retropie on RPi for some time. It's very easy to make favourite lists there. But recently I have switched to real hardware/MiSTer so now also use Gamebase for favourites, since I always keep it open anyway to look up all the extras, and my game packs are mostly based on their directories.

Added bonus is that then it is also possible to export such favourite list, and I also have a script to copy the files from that list to separate directory.

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:13 pm
by Rorthron
Perhaps we could have a favourite button in SC?

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 4:28 pm
by Ast A. Moore
It’s a short list, I have it all committed to . . . uh . . . wait, what’s it called? . . . Oh . . . memory!

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 4:45 pm
by TMD2003
What I keep is a Sinclair Stocktake on a LibreOffice spreadsheet that tracks what software and hardware I have, and a text file of games I've completed on a real Spectrum... as well as some other bits and pieces. I don't have any records of "favourites", though... that's usually "anything I had as a nipper that would load and I wasn't utterly useless at". Hence my allegedly-near-heretical preference for Dizzy over Willy.

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:12 pm
by RWAC
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 10:54 am Besides, I have my top100 Spectrum games of all time in a Pinterest list (sounds weirdly geek, isn't it?)
Yes it does! I'd love to see it. I'm a sucker for top 100 lists and nearly every list I've seen has been better than the Your Sinclair one.

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 6:39 pm
by PeterJ
Rorthron wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:13 pm Perhaps we could have a favourite button in SC?
I have considered that in the past, but then you would need a login for the main site which would need to be different to the forum, and I came to the conclusion just use bookmarks (especially now the game title is in the URL).

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 6:43 pm
by PeterJ
akeley wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:04 pm Added bonus is that then it is also possible to export such favourite list, and I also have a script to copy the files from that list to separate directory.
Can you just expand a little on the above [mention]akeley[/mention]?

I'm not a huge fan of Java (I don't like installing to many extras on my computer, and in the past Java has had rather a bad press regarding security vulnerabilities), but there is a Java version of GameBase which is regularly updated and looks nice. Am I also right in thinking you need to have a different GamesBase database for each platform?

https://jgamebase.sourceforge.io/index.html

Thanks

Re: Keeping a record of your favourite games

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 7:12 pm
by akeley
PeterJ wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 6:43 pm Can you just expand a little on the above @akeley?
Sure...I don't think Gamebase uses Java though. At least not the one I'm thinking about, the universal frontend which has started with Gamebase64 collection. It's completely offline.

Yes, you need to source a database per each platform, but it's well worth it. They are extremely detailed, searchable and configurable, and come with tons of extras (scr$, manuals, artwork, etc etc). Another reason I love them is because they're already distilled according to 1G1R (one game one rom) scheme, so it's not as messy as eg TOSEC, where you have to wade through directories littered with multiple variations of the same game.

You can set all kinds of (really in depth) filters too, so I use them to create game collections, eg: 1982 Atari 800 games. One of the guys from their forum also made a modded GB.exe, which allows to copy all these filtered games (actual files) to a directory (so you don't have to do it manually which would take forever). Then I can take this directory and run the games on my real machines, RPi or other PCs.

Only problem is, ZX GB (Speccymania) hasn't been updated since 2014, so it's kind of on the WoS level. It's a pity, coz databases for other 8-bit main playas are pretty much up to date. I still use it though, since I'm mainly into old games.

Give me a shout if you're interested, I have most of the GB databases (some of them are getting hard to find).

EDIT: oh, I just saw your jGamebase link. Yeah, it's the same thing, though don't see a reason to use it on a PC, since it does the same thing as the "normal" GB