Big Box Arcade Platform Categories

[stonev]

So I’ve seen similar threads on this topic but I’m not sure if they address my issue. Apologies if I’ve missed it.

My controversial(?) opinion is that I like the auto-generated playlists that LB creates for MAME, and I would like to use the Platform Category view as default in BB in order to expose those playlists. The problem (I think) is that LB associates the “Arcade” category with MAME specifically. However, as we know, other emulators (Supermodel, Flycast, Demul, Lindbergh Loader, etc.) also play arcade games.

Let’s say I wanted a category of Lightgun games. If I look at the one auto-generated by LB, it contains only the MAME lightgun games. This makes sense since the rules are Platform=Arcade and Genre=Shooter (or whatever). What about lightgun games like House of the Dead 4 (Lindbergh Loader)? I could certainly create a new playlist where Platform=Arcade OR Linux Loader and Genre=Shooter. However, this could get a little tedious if I had several playlists. I’d also have to update them all if, say, a new loader/emulator emerged that could play another arcade system.

Is there a solution to this (besides manually creating and maintaining these playlists)? For instance, is there a way to alias an arcade “Mega Platform” that includes all of the arcade systems which could then be referenced in category playlists? That way, if a new system emerged, you’d just have to add it once to the alias and the playlists would automatically update.

Or maybe I’m thinking about this completely wrong. I’d be grateful for any guidance y’all could provide!

[JoeViking245]

31 minutes ago, stonev said:

other emulators (Supermodel, Flycast, Demul, Lindbergh Loader, etc.) also play arcade games.

Could you just make a playlist that the only criteria is Genre - is equal to - Shooter?
Or the only criteria is Controller Support - Supports - Light Gun

[stonev]

Ok, my bad. A great idea, but I left out one critical piece: I have some console games that I don’t want included (e.g., NES Duck Hunt). Really, my big distinction is: Stuff you needed to go out to the arcade to play vs. stuff you could play at home. I mean, I could do Supports = Light Gun and Platform =/= NES, SNES, etc. but that gets back to the issue of maintenance: If I add, say, a TurboGrafx to my collection, I’d have to go through all of the playlists to exclude it.

I suppose this is where the concept of user-defined “Platform Groups” might come in handy?

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, stonev said:

I’d have to go through all of the playlists to exclude it.

Exclude not. Add.  

 

Controller Support - Supports - Light Gun
Platform - is equal to - Arcade
Platform - is equal to - Sega Model 3
Platform - is equal to - Sega Lindbergh
 

When you have 2 or more Fields that are the same (e.g. "Platform") they joined with OR. 

So above...   Supports light gun AND is in the Arcade platform OR is in the Sega Model 3 platform OR is in the Sega Lindbergh platform.

 

My atypical setup:
I don't generally use/view Platform Categories (nor playlists for that matter).  What I've done with my lightgun games is created a platform Arcade Lightgun. In there are lightgun games I have setup for just MAME.  I simply filtered my Arcade platform for controller-lightgun, selected all and then bulk edited them into the new platform.

Then I have another platform called Arcade Lightgun Other.  In here resides lightgun games that use Demul, Model2, Flycast, LinuxLoader, PCSX2x6, CXBX Reloaded and JConfig.

 

Then I got real creative and made emulator badges so I can see on-the-fly what emulator the game uses.  (I moused-ever the red one to see which emu it is because its logo is not very clear)

 

[stonev]

Ok, I didn’t know about the 2+ categories being automatically interpreted as OR, so thank you for that.

It does seem like there’s no way around the platform-by-platform (or playlist-by-playlist) manual maintenance process, though. So if you decided to add Triforce emulation via Dolphin, you’d have to go in and manually assign all the games to the “Arcade X Other” platforms. Am I interpreting that correctly?

And out of curiosity, why did you opt to go the platform route rather than the playlist route?

[JoeViking245]

17 minutes ago, stonev said:

So if you decided to add Triforce emulation via Dolphin, you’d have to go in and manually assign all the games to the “Arcade X Other” platforms. Am I interpreting that correctly?

How I set it up using platforms-only, yes.  But what are you looking at? A handful of games?  TBH, we've probably spent more time "talking" about it here than it'd take to filter the platform by lightgun and bulk edit the games into the other platform.   But again, my setup is non-typical.

 

22 minutes ago, stonev said:

And out of curiosity, why did you opt to go the platform route rather than the playlist route?

A lightgun playlist would be the proper route to take. But then I'd have just one playlist.   Well, maybe 2 or three.  I have one for Christmas-time type games and one for Halloween. And those are "manually" curated playlists.

I don't have a ton of games on my cab, compared to some folks.  So adding them by platform, that's segregated by emulator is what made sense to me.  A form of collection management, as it were.  e.g. Platforms consist of Sega Model 2, Sega Model 3, Sega Hikaru and more recently Namco System 246/256. And of course, the Atari's, all the Nintendo's, Sony PS 1,2,3 etc.

And of the games I do have, I don't really even play them.  Until recently when I got a Gun4IR (about 3ish months ago). Even then, playtime is limited to setting up the lg emulators and getting the games to work with DemulShooter and OutputHooker (if possible).  

And again, my setup is not a typical LB/BB setup. Not sure I've heard of anyone else who uses just platforms. But it works for me and my purposes.

[stonev]

Quote

How I set it up using platforms-only, yes.  But what are you looking at? A handful of games?  TBH, we've probably spent more time "talking" about it here than it'd take to filter the platform by lightgun and bulk edit the games into the other platform.   But again, my setup is non-typical.

I mean, what kind of tinkerer would I be if I didn’t spend 2x time setting up something that takes me 1x time?!

I think I’ll go the rule-based playlist route. But as arcade platforms continue to proliferate beyond MAME, I do wonder if there’s room for user-defined fields (for example) that would allow for platform grouping (among other things). I’ll add it to the list of feature suggestions I haven’t gotten around to making…