Originally posted by: acidjaguar


Very nice!  I do like the look of your end result listing with the thumbs.  You wanting to do mostly just game specific guides for the systems? Or looking to incorporate it all like multigame books and the such?

Originally posted by: Braveheart69

Also, what about stuff like these?  Note the variant covers for number 2 and 3.

Originally posted by: Dain


BTW, I've been modifying the database and search engine to be more non-game friendly for additional categories. I've got a lot done, and here's a glimpse using the first set above:

http://www.nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Search.Resul...
 

Originally posted by: acidjaguar

And a side note to everyone, if you have scans of the game player's guides and / or the encyclopedia ones mentioned a couple posts before this one ... I could use them to save a little time

Originally posted by: Speedy_NES


Looks great Dain!!

I do have a suggestion in mind for the "ALL" platform condition that you're implementing for multi-platform items.  As some multi-platform items may cover multiple, but not all platforms, what about adding a "MULTI" platform condition for such items? 

For example, this condition could, upon choosing it from the platform dropdown list when editing or adding a new entry in the database, bring up a checklist field for selecting all of the various platforms that the item is intended for.  The various selected platforms would then be displayed in the entry's listing (in the Platform row in alphabetical order) and taken into account for searches, but would not be listed in the search results to save space (i.e. replaced with "MULTI" in the search results' Platform column).  Let me know what you think.  This would be great for not only multi-platform guides, but also for other items such as cleaning kits that are compatible with only a few different platforms. 

Originally posted by: Dain

This is a good idea, but I'm afraid it might be too complicated. I think really from the POV of a collector, we just want to know if something is platform-specific, or specific to more than one platform (in general). I think these super-tedius tendencies are what have really slowed me over the years in developing... I go down the rabbit hole and end up getting frustrated and then sit on it for another year. I think the key here is to get an much into the database as possible that can be found somewhat logically. Agreed?

Originally posted by: Speedy_NES

Agreed -- I was afraid it may be too complicated, but you've done amazing things with the database so I had to ask. Essentially it is something that could always be implemented down the road anyway -- it would be a great asset to completionists who are out to collect every item compatible or marketed for a specific platform, whether platform-specific or not (assuming that once that "ALL" category gets populated with hundreds or thousands of items, it will be hard to sift through them for platform-specific results). 
 

Originally posted by: Dain

Speaking of which, Speedy, you should send me your accessories list so I can put that in the database. I've created a really nifty bulk-importer for stuff like this!

Originally posted by: Dain


I'm really wanting to as much as we can actually, so as concise as possible is the goal. I invision going to the search, choosing "Guides" from the category drop-down, and then being able to easily generate a collection from those results (using the queue). I'm making some additional changes to the collection tool now to allow the new category searches.

I had to make some additional changes to the database to handle the "All" condition (i.e., for books that cover "All platforms" of a game). I was hesitant to add King's Quest V and Camen San Diego to "NES" because of this, since they're a lot more generic than NES. Once I finish this change, I'll go back and edit those to be just "ALL" platforms instead of just NES.

So hopefully today or tomorrow we'll have the ability to add anything and it will fit nicely. The main search now covers all categories. To see this in action, and how to filter by category, try this search, which is for Might & Magic:

http://www.nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Search.Resul...

You can reduce the results by platform or (now) by category:



Let me know your thoughts... I was having trouble deciding how this would all look and work.

Originally posted by: TheRedEye

It's technically multiplatform but you really must have the book Video Game Quest in a set like this somewhere. It's a guide to all the games available and announced as of 1990 or so, tons of NES stuff in there, lots of it unreleased. The only artwork we have for the Bruce Lee game is in there, for instance. It's still cheap too, though knowing these forums I just doomed it to collectibility.