Jump to content
LaunchBox Community Forums

Scraping Amiga Games


Cabirus

Recommended Posts

When importing my Amiga games collection (WHDLoad), I noticed that not a single game is recognized and scraped from TheGamesDB. I think the reason is that all the games have cryptic games like AlienBreedTowerAssault11_v1.2_AGA_2331.zip, which can't be interpreted by TheGamesDB. My feature suggestion: Adding the "Online Amiga Games Database" to the scrapers. This big database is specifically tailored for Amiga, including game descriptions, screenshots and images. Frode, the guy behind the database and the FS-UAE emulator, is an nice guy. I am confident he would allow scraping the database if asked nicely. Cool
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
It realy annoyed me that there is no way to import any data for amiga games in Launchbox, so I figured out a way to rename all my whdload games. This way, launchbox can at least get some stuff. Maybe other people are looking for a way to do this, so I'll share it here... How to: Help Launchbox scrap meta data for whdload Amiga games by renaming them with Power Shell + RegEx It won't work for all games, but for the vast majority, so renaming the remaining ones by hand won't be such a big deal. Attention: The following commands aim at games stored as .zip files. For .lha format exchange .zip with .lha in the commands. Use seperate folders for both formats when using this method or the extensions will get messed up! 1. Make a backup of the directory containing your whdload games. You don't want to download them all over in case you made changes you can't reverse! 2. Open Power Shell and go to the directory containing your whdload games. 3. Apply the following commands. The -whatif flag at the end of each command means the shell will only simulate the command and show you what would happen if you execute it. To actually perform it you have to remove the flag from the end of the command. You can paste thoose from your clip board to the shell by clicking the right mouse button. I'm not a regex pro, so i split up the task in several commands. Apply once: Remove .zip extension:
ls | Rename-Item -newname {$_.name -replace "(.*).zip", '$1' }-whatif
Apply several times: Remove additional information seperated by underscores:
ls | Rename-Item -newname {$_.name -replace "(.*)_.*", '$1' }-whatif
You can repeat a command by pressing the up-arrow-key. If you get warnings during this step, you possibly have several versions of a game stored. You should rename theese games by hand or just ignore this for now if you don't really need theese versions or if you are just keeping them in case another version is not working (as I do). Apply several times: Split game name into single words:
ls | Rename-Item -newname {$_.name -creplace "([A-Z].*?)(\S)([A-Z]|&|\d{1}\S*)", '$1$2 $3' }-whatif
Apply once: Reattach .zip extension:
ls | Rename-Item -newname {$_.name + '.zip' }-whatif
Done!
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, wasili! I'll try this later. I'm afraid renaming the games will make it impossible to run them with WinUAELoader or FS-UAE though, have you tried this already? I'm still hoping for an integration of the OAGD though, as it is far more complete than GamesDB regarding Amiga games. Have you reached out to Frode, Jason? Not trying to push you or anything! Wink
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Cabirus: At least with fs-uae, the games will still work. At least the ones I tested (both .zip and .lha archives) still did. I read that Frode wants to add a feature that automatically gets the best configuration from their database when starting whdload games, maybe this won't work then. But there's still the .slave file inside the archive which should be enough to identify a whdload game (I think)...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...
I just wanted to add to this that I downloaded the entire whdload install collection from here (unfortunately going to the site the old fashioned way seems broken at present, but the files are still there) and they scrape ok-ish using emumovies (you get images and video but no metadata i'm afraid) Using the new beta release worked for me, the current official release caused some sort of weird issue where it would crash the import but the beta works fine.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Mobygames would be enough as scraper because they just reached their goal to complete their Amiga Database two weeks ago. I think the bigger problem is to get the scraper to work with the WHDload naming format. The easiest way in my opinion would be to use the same mechanic as MAME. I don’t know if there's an official database with a WHDload names to correct game titles conversion like MAME has, but the HyperSpin XML would work really fine in this case. The XML has all games with their WHDload file names included but also features the real game title as description. Here’s the link to the current HyperSpin Amiga XML: http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/files/file/8070-commodore-amiga-hyperbase-database-official/
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @CriticalCid, I agree that the Hyperspin XML would definitely be a good resource. My only gripe that I've noticed about their approach is that it seems to often be missing various regions, extra versions, etc., which I don't personally care about (because it tends to have the best versions), but I know we're gonna get people complaining about that eventually if we stick closely to the Hyperspin data. I'd really like to come up with our own, similar to the Hyperspin data with all the missing data added.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In this case the regions wouldn’t be a problem because the Amiga XML is specifically designed for the WHDload set only. But I didn’t mean to scrap the metadata of the XML anyway. It should just take the WHDload names from it and use them for scraping Mobygames, TGDB, etc. Or a mix of both just like the scraper for MAME. Like mentioned in this thread before, the specific naming format of the WHDload set makes it really hard to get good or even any metadata right now.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...