Why doesn’t GameBase64 Reorganizer include Extras?

Two reasons:

  1. When I originally wrote the Reorganizer, I had no interest at all in including the GB64 Extras. My goal was to keep the emitted archive as reasonably small as possible, and including a bunch of stuff I didn’t need wasn’t in keeping with that goal.  I didn’t even explore the possibility to including extras at that time.
  2. Now that the 1541 Ultimate has grown in capability and storage space is approaching “free,” I would actually like to include the Extras. For my European retroheads who really like their tapes, it would be nice for them to be able to play the original TAP files from their 1541 Ultimate, and I like the idea of being able to mount-and-run a .crt from a game, too. However, including these files is problematic because:
    • GameBase 64 Reorganizer uses the NFO files in each .zip file to figure out the name of the entry and the linked sid file. Without the NFO files, Reorganizer can’t do anything useful.
    • GameBase 64 doesn’t include any of the Extras information in the NFO files. This information is only included in the actual Microsoft Access database file that lies at the heart of GameBase 64. There is no pattern of file naming in the Extras folders that would make it clear which extras go with which entries– they are manually linked when the database is edited by its curators.

How could I work around this?

Essentially, I would also need to have Reorganizer open and analyze the Microsoft Access database file that GameBase 64 uses. This wouldn’t be all that difficult, but it does mean a lot of new code in Reorganizer and some significant retrofitting to its scanning engine.  Will I ever do this? Maybe at some point. But no time real soon.

Alternatively, the GameBase 64 team could opt to start including linked extras in the NFO files, just like they include links to the game sids in the NFO files. That would make this considerably easier, but I do not know if that is in keeping with their goals in curating the collection.

Why post this?

Because people have asked me to include Extras, and this is an easy answer to point them to. That’s all.

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