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C-Beats Metadata Effort


C-Beats

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Hey all! I teamed up with @JoeViking245 to make a plugin that would help users share metadata between builds (found here). With what little spare time I have I've been manually going through my game collection platform by platform and adding the following metadata to all my games:

  • Series
  • Genre / Sub-Genre pair (similar to MAME) (All games have a SINGLE pair assigned)
  • Custom Field: Based On (for games that are based on another type of media like a movie or TV series)
  • Custom Field: Franchise

I know others in the community have expressed the desire to do something similar and so I figure I'd share mine as a basis for those looking for a good place to start.

Please note that I'm actively working on the collection and while the platforms included in the download are "done" there may be some data that could use corrected as my methodologies have evolved over the course of the project.

I've attached two files (that I'll keep up to date as I complete a platform). The first is "All_Data" and has all my non-settings data files so you if you wanted to take a look inside of your own build and check out not only the data, but how I structure the platform categories you can. The second is "Platform_Data_Only" and has JUST the platform data files you'd need to use Joe's plugin.

This collection has the following platforms done (these are 1G1R sets with the exception of Windows which contains multiple versions if I had them on multiple storefronts):

  • Atari 7800
  • Atari Jaguar
  • Atari Jaguar CD
  • Atari Lynx
  • Microsoft Xbox
  • NEC TurboGrafx-16
  • NEC TurboGrafx-CD
  • Nintendo 64
  • Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Nintendo Game & Watch
  • Nintendo Game Boy Advance
  • Nintendo Game Boy Color
  • Nintendo Game Boy
  • Nintendo GameCube
  • Nintendo Virtual Boy
  • Nintendo Wii U
  • Sega 32X
  • Sega Dreamcast
  • Sega Game Gear
  • Sega Genesis
  • Sega Master System
  • Sega Saturn
  • SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color
  • SNK Neo Geo Pocket
  • Sony Playstation
  • Sony Playstation 2
  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Tiger Electronic Handhelds
  • Watara Supervision
  • Windows

In the future I plan to add other custom fields, but want to get most of the major platforms done before doing so. I will update the files as I get them done, but don't expect anything too soon as it takes time to hit EVERY game in a platform and I'm down to the BIG libraries so it's going to take a while to get through them.

 

 

 

Platform_Data_Only.zip All_Data.zip

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  • 2 months later...

This is a really cool idea, can we do this with a custom platform as well? I was thinking of adding metadata to my magazine collection, not sure if anybody would want it but it would be nice to share it afterwards.

Edited by KingSlayer420
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1 minute ago, KingSlayer420 said:

This is a really cool idea, will there be support in the future for a custom platform name as well? I was thinking of adding metadata to my magazine collection and this would be a perfect way to share the metadata with others.

Joe is making the plugin and could probably answer that more. I personally will probably not be adding any custom platforms to the metadata I share in this thread. If I did it'd be to blow out the individual tables in my vpin games like Pinball FX3 and Zaccaria Pinball

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Just now, C-Beats said:

Joe is making the plugin and could probably answer that more. I personally will probably not be adding any custom platforms to the metadata I share in this thread. If I did it'd be to blow out the individual tables in my vpin games like Pinball FX3 and Zaccaria Pinball

I thought this somehow imported metadata, upon downloading i see it is something different. Sorry about that 😶

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Just now, KingSlayer420 said:

I thought this somehow imported metadata

His plugin kind of does that. It allows you to change your metadata to match metadata in some one else's XML file (or diff XML files between your own builds). This thread was just me sharing mine for use in his plugin for people that were interested in the all the manual changes I've made to my metadata. I was just stating it'd be best to ask Joe in his plugin thread how custom platform names are handled as I honestly don't remember. If the other user doesn't HAVE the platform they'd be able to just copy your XML directly to their data folder and have it all and the plugin wouldn't be required at that point.

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5 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

His plugin kind of does that. It allows you to change your metadata to match metadata in some one else's XML file (or diff XML files between your own builds). This thread was just me sharing mine for use in his plugin for people that were interested in the all the manual changes I've made to my metadata. I was just stating it'd be best to ask Joe in his plugin thread how custom platform names are handled as I honestly don't remember. If the other user doesn't HAVE the platform they'd be able to just copy your XML directly to their data folder and have it all and the plugin wouldn't be required at that point.

I've had too much coffee this morning, I didn't even realize he's already released this in the download section. Think I've embarrassed myself enough today, thanks for clearing that up

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, eonder87 said:

Any chance you can do it for Arcade? ArcadePC's and directly Mame Stuff. With Parents and some of good clones etc.

Yeah, I plan to eventually get most of the major platforms done. MAME has quite a few games though and I've been manually doing all of this and so been tackling systems with a smaller number of games.

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Updated the attached files. PS2 is now complete. I also redid the Series field. It now only has a value in it for games in an actual series. If the game series is on multiple platforms each platform has it's own distinct series value. The idea being that if you start the series on a platform and want to continue it on that platform you simply have to dig into the series to see what is next for that series and platform. A new custom field has been added called "Franchise". This is for games that are all under the same IP/Franchise but aren't an actual game series. All Mario games for example fall into the Mario franchise but aren't in a series (games like Mario Sunshine, ARE part of the franchise but IS NOT a part of a series).

Unsure at this point if I'm going to work on a few more custom fields or get started on my next platform (not sure which I'll tackle either).

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Data has been updated, added the following platforms:

  • Nintendo Game & Watch
  • Tiger Electronic Handhelds

Both have been placed in their own category labeled "Electronic Handhelds" if using the all data zip file

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