Organizing Dreamcast Games in a Spreadsheet
Organizing Dreamcast Games in a Spreadsheet
Those who started games long ago should remember that it was not a concern to have very specific categories for games. They were simply spaceship games, racing games, fighting games ... we just played and had fun, we were purer players, but over time new categories were being imposed by the "experts", taking away the simplicity of things. I think normal people when looking for a game still think simple, if they want a spaceship game, for example, they imagine a game in the old arcade style and not in a category like shoot 'em up. Thinking this way I was able to sort a large number of games in a simple spreadsheet, creating categories that are intuitive for me considering my childhood experiences, so I can organize games in SD memory considering factors such as category, blocks needed etc. I didn't find anything on the internet.
After many hours of work researching covers and translating Japanese I was able to achieve a satisfactory result, including in the spreadsheet compatible accessories, required blocks, number of players and other information. I did not consider for the accessories those little relevant or very rare, the fishing rod for example and very restricted and inherent in compatible games.
For these tests I will use, when I have time, a CRT monitor because It shows a warning on the screen that the frequency is incompatible. In this type of case I include the information "PARTIAL" in the spreadsheet.
Finally, after many hours of work and since I will hardly have much time to continue it, I am sharing this spreadsheet for anyone who wants to make personal use of it or for any community interested in continuing the idea.
Dreamcast Spreadsheet Download Link
Some explanations:
- The names of the games are the actual names of the files. I simply used a "tree" command in the Windows console to write the names of all game directories to a text file.- I included games for Win CE as it is important for those who use emulators.
- I didn't include GDEMU because pretty much everything works but in the future I want to include some that has a problem.
- I put only accessories relevant to Dreamcast, those that cover many games or are indispensable as the pistol.
- Vibration, VGA and 4X memory can be compatible with most games, testing is required.
- Age rating can be helpful for your mom to decide what you can play. I converted the Japanese and European classification to ESRB but the criteria are subjective. As can be seen, Americans tend to censor eroticism and release gratuitous violence, while the Japanese tend to liberate eroticism and censor gratuitous violence.“The categories I created work for me, but not for anything that keeps you from altering them or even some worldwide gaming organization adopts it.
- In the visual column I refer to games that have some visual extension in VMU, such as Resident Evil 2. I didn't consider mini games because I didn't find it relevant.
- In blocks must the amount needed to save will be useful in deciding which VMU to use.
- In the players column I show the maximum amount of players.
- In the Tip column I insert something that helps me to remember the game, is something subjective.
- In the KEYB / MOUSE column I marked the games that claim to support this, but I didn't go deeper to know if it's something related to internet browsing or to control the game. Need to verify.
- Information on the number of blocks needed is not always present on the cover of American games and never on European games. In this case I searched the Japanese, always has this information.
*This game is a special case because even after I tested it on a 15Khz compatible the monitor frequency did not change when the scenes started. In this case S-Video may be an option, although with lower graphic quality. In Soul Fighter, for example, there is no such problem because the game works entirely at 15Khz.
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