Posted: 8/13/2016 6:09 AM
Post subject: A site about dissecting video games
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SnowySideofTown
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Editor, Player (123)
Joined: 8/3/2014
Posts: 204
Location: USA
I understand this is a bit off-topic, but I put it in the Sites forum because it has to do with, well, sites that are about aspects of video games that most people here are interested in. Mods, feel free to move this if you feel it's appropriate to do so. See, I'm not saying I'm very knowledgable with coding and RAM to be honest, but when I play a game, I often just like to screw around so much that I know everything I can possibly know about its physics, logic, and object interactions. I'm sure that a great amount of people reading this are the same way. I always feel like I want to document it somewhere, but when I put stuff like that on my user namespace on Wiktionary the admins nag me that it isn't appropriate for the site and takes up (an *extremely* small amount that almost amounts to nothing of) the WMF's bandwidth. I say that like I'm being mean, but I'm not trying to be, just stating facts. (Note that I wasn't making *entries* like that, I was putting them on my user namespace, meaning parts of my user page) Anywaym I want to publish it all somewhere, you know. But how? I feel like there should be a wiki website that stores game logic and physics documentation. The site would be divided by game, and it would tell all about how the game at hand works (as far as we know anyway) from start to finish. It would allow links to YouTube videos, or whatever other video websites, you know Dailymotion and whatnot, in order to demonstrate certain glitches or other game logic aspects. I know what you're thinking. "Well, TASVideos' documentation already does this, like, say, in GameResources.html." But the site itself isn't specifically for this, it is for TAS movie submission, ultimately, and the game resources and submission commentary are just meant to help people in the interest of beating the game as fast as possible using tools. Plus, there are consoles that aren't even near the possibility of TASing right now, such as XBox 360 and the Wii U. In other words, I'd like a site that not only explains the aspects of the game that make it easier to beat it faster (or with more entertainment value), but also just...well...*everything* about the game that is known to humans playing them. See, the question is, how would we organize all this information? I know that it would be separated by game, obviously, since each game is its own universe (as I like to say), and the universes don't generally intertwine. I also have the feeling that anyone should be able to edit it, like Wikipedia, without any qualification or rank standards for users (other than registration, probably). There are just so many aspects of a game, and I have several that I just want to spew out all the information about the entire game on a single document. Some examples of games I want to dissect are Santa Claus Saves the Earth, That's So Raven, both of the Foster's games, LEGO Friends for the DS, Transformers for the PS2, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, and a few others. And I've tried doing this before for Transformers, but lost motivation because of the fact that I had no idea how I was supposed to organize this information. For instance, a blaster shot can affect an enemy, but then I'd have to jump straight into talking about how it affects the enemy, but wait a minute, I wanted to put the enemy reactions to stuff in its own separate section as well. (Ugh) That's the kind of stuff I struggle with when doing this. Any ideas? If enough users here agree that there should be a site like this, and we find out a good enough system for how the info will all be organized, I'm willing to chip in some money for its creation and bandwidth and such.
Posted: 8/13/2016 7:12 AM
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Invariel
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Editor, Site Developer, Player (171)
Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Arcade TAS of 2023
I present to you the woefully underused Wiki: GameResources pages! Which... you mention in your post. It's late and I'm tired. :| The Game Resources pages are exactly for that kind of information though. They're a storing ground for information about games, even if those games are unpopular. I would certainly agree that the thing needs more fleshing out and better organization, but you have to start somewhere.
I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
Posted: 8/13/2016 8:13 AM
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Samsara
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Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2240)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
My first reaction was DataCrystal, actually, which also needs some fleshing out but it's a real good resource for quite a number of games.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 8/13/2016 9:07 AM
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SnowySideofTown
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Editor, Player (123)
Joined: 8/3/2014
Posts: 204
Location: USA
I like what I see. I've never heard of DataCrystal before, but I have heard of tcrf. These sites seem to be focused on the hacking status of the games. Ultimately, I feel having the ability to make a hack for a game is a really good thing. But the thing I was thinking of was more of a central database for everything about a specific game, and not just what would interest one community or category of play. For instance, these could be some sections (this is not for a specific game; just more of a general thing to show you what a page might look like, and they'd be very long):
Video game database site wrote:
*paragraph description of what the game is and other important aspects. A general introduction* ==Plot== *describes the plot, though this has absolutely nothing to do with the game's programming itself* ===Sequence breaking=== ===Plot flaws=== ==Game physics== ===Jumping=== ===Damage hits=== *this is about the physics of inflicting damage, like a slight upward boost or something* ===Speed=== *talks about speed values of you and the enemies* ===Enemy movements=== ==Game logic== ===Life count=== ===Ammunition count=== ===Damage values=== ===RNG=== *talks about the RNG* ====Manipulation==== *talks about how it can be manipulated* ==Hacking status== *lists off useful hacking stuff, like a level editor and some well-known ROM hacks. In cases like Super Mario Bros. for the NES, this list could be massive. If it doesn't have a level importer, there'd be a template encouraging someone to make one (which is really good because we really need more level importers in this world).* ===Reverse engineering status=== *if someone has published reverse engineered code of the game, we'd link to that here. Otherwise there'd be a template encouraging someone to do it.* ==Emulation== *describes important points about emulating the game, especially suggested emulators, and which emulators will freeze it, etc.* ===Emulation vs. console=== *lists off differences between gameplay on a console and gameplay on an emulator (not the obvious stuff, more like which specific lags don't happen at what parts of the game on one platform and what does on the other)* ==Useful RAM addresses== ==ROMs/ISOs== *links off to ROM sites for downloads. Should we include this or not?* ==Versions== *lists off versions of the game and their specific differences* ==Music== *lists off YouTube dumps of the game's OST if they exist, and if they don't exist, then this section would have a template that encourages someone to make some* ==Objects== *here's a long list of known, set-in-stone objects, such as enemies, blocks, items, etc., that gives a long description of each, and gives extracted sprites of all their animations if applicable, or a link to their 3-D objects* ==Maps== *links to either extracted or drawn maps/designs of levels of the game* ==Speedruns== *lists off RTA records of the game* ==TASes== *lists off TAS records of the game* ==Walkthroughs and LPs== *links to known walkthroughs and LPs of the game* ==Reception== *from external sources, lists how the game was reviewed by whatever game reviewing sites do that. Also links to YouTube review videos* ==External links== *lists Wikipedia article, the game's category on YouTube Gaming, Twitch, and whatever else* [[Category:GBA games]] (for example)
This is just a brief example I threw together in 30 minutes, and there are likely a lot more sections I could make, especially depending on the game. But I feel this would be good for many reasons; the complete dissection of a game and documentation of it feels like an art project. There'd probably be a select few active users. Also, the templates would encourage people to actually do things with the game, like make a level importer, or make TAS-capable emulators, or dump a ROM of the game (should we include that section?), or dump music from the game and upload it to YouTube so people can easily listen to it or use it for some video editing project (of some kind). There may not be a *whole lot* of interest in people editing a site like this, but it'd be like a playground for a few of us here I imagine.