I've started building my own collection tracking site

[Gloves | 11,759]

GlovesOff.Games

Anybody else do this? If not, what's your preferred collecting software? 

I finally caved after years of using Backloggery because I want more control over the flow of information. With a site I've built myself obviously I have the most control possible, and I can style it however I want without worrying about pleasing anyone else. A fun side note is that it's all entirely free; it costs nothing to host the site aside from owning the domain, which is $12/year. It has a very powerful CMS behind it too (content management system), also free of course. 

Thoughts on my current site? Suggestions? It's a work in progress and I have plenty planned, but I'm always open to ideas of course!

Here's the code repository since a few people have asked: https://github.com/DouglasKGlover/gloves-off-games

If you'd like to run your own version of this you can, and I'd be happy to help you set it up.

[Alder | 243]

I'm in the process of doing the same! None of the collection trackers I've used have really felt complete for my needs. NintendoAge was nice since you could upload pictures and rate the quality of every item (and upload custom items) but the site was awfully slow and.. well it's gone now. GVN has a better interface, but less granularity. So heck it, I'd rather just make my own. I don't have anything to show for it yet, but once I do, I'll be sure to share it on VGS.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

I will say it doesn't look as attractive as other sites right now, but if you're just trying to do it personally and not try and be Backloggery 2.0, then it's perfectly fine.  It's also, as you said, the best way to ensure you have everything you actually want in a tracker.  I'd like to see it again in the future when you have more to it.

Personally, I haven't found anything that includes everything I'd like it to.  I like RFGeneration because it has pretty much anything you can think of and 800 variants of it, but the lack of a mobile tracker hurts it's usefulness when I'm out hunting for shit.  I use (and paid for) Retro Game Collector, which is great except it doesn't track everything I have, so if I'm looking at VIC-20 games (for example), I'm SOL.

[Gloves | 11,759]

Just now, Alder said:

I'm in the process of doing the same! None of the collection trackers I've used have really felt complete for my needs. NintendoAge was nice since you could upload pictures and rate the quality of every item (and upload custom items) but the site was awfully slow and.. well it's gone now. GVN has a better interface, but less granularity. So heck it, I'd rather just make my own. I don't have anything to show for it yet, but once I do, I'll be sure to share it on VGS.

Be sure you do! Even before there's anything to share, if you have made any progress I'd be interested. Tech Stack, CMS choice if you're using one and not hand-rolling it, etc. All very interesting to me! 

[Gloves | 11,759]

1 minute ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I will say it doesn't look as attractive as other sites right now, but if you're just trying to do it personally and not try and be Backloggery 2.0, then it's perfectly fine.  It's also, as you said, the best way to ensure you have everything you actually want in a tracker.  I'd like to see it again in the future when you have more to it.

Personally, I haven't found anything that includes everything I'd like it to.  I like RFGeneration because it has pretty much anything you can think of and 800 variants of it, but the lack of a mobile tracker hurts it's usefulness when I'm out hunting for shit.  I use (and paid for) Retro Game Collector, which is great except it doesn't track everything I have, so if I'm looking at VIC-20 games (for example), I'm SOL.

Yeah the style of the site is honestly basically bottom of the list for me. I'm a typical developer, I'm more interested in the data and logic. I tossed bootstrap on it, it runs on Vue (Nuxt SSG), and I made some basic styles that work for me, personally. Basic is nice for me, the alt with me is brutalist design and nobody wants that in a functional tool lol. It's bordering on functional brutalist as-is hah. 

[Driftwood | 209]

[Tanooki | 4,929]

Since like the 90s I have kept inventory on my own with an old school TXT file in DOS/98se, eventually using notepad for years, finally I got lazy with less time and switched to Mozilla/Netscape site builder which rolled into what I still use Kompozer.

Eventually the base site which was little more than text I went with some basic frame/table style setup with HTML with a soft easy background that works on various sizes, and if any list gets bigger than the set box, it will give a scroll bar.  That's it, still use it now.  I've tried to use some of those lame apps like gameeye or a website, the customization is crap or loaded with unnecessary hoops so I erase and go back every time.

Current domain is a free host I swapped to a month or two back: http://tanooki.great-site.net/

 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Tanooki

[Gloves | 11,759]

17 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Since like the 90s I have kept inventory on my own with an old school TXT file in DOS/98se, eventually using notepad for years, finally I got lazy with less time and switched to Mozilla/Netscape site builder which rolled into what I still use Kompozer.

Eventually the base site which was little more than text I went with some basic frame/table style setup with HTML with a soft easy background that works on various sizes, and if any list gets bigger than the set box, it will give a scroll bar.  That's it, still use it now.  I've tried to use some of those lame apps like gameeye or a website, the customization is crap or loaded with unnecessary hoops so I erase and go back every time.

Current domain is a free host I swapped to a month or two back: http://tanooki.great-site.net/

 

I've seen your site before. Love it! 

[a3quit4s | 4,091]

I like how you already have a dark/light mode toggle lol

Excel works pretty good for me for now. Having a website and then trying to transfer all the information just seems like a bitch lol

[Gloves | 11,759]

6 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I like how you already have a dark/light mode toggle lol

Excel works pretty good for me for now. Having a website and then trying to transfer all the information just seems like a bitch lol

If you have data in a spreadsheet, it's actually pretty easy (relatively speaking) to translate the data and import into a CMS. I made a function to do so just last week for a project I'm working on at work. 7700 Google Maps markers! 

[B.A. | 1,139]

Cool! Attach it to VGS and make it the way everyone else wants! 

[PuppyWaffles | 1,853]

My biggest thing with most game trackers is the inability to add CIB individually or the lack of non USA games.

[a3quit4s | 4,091]

15 minutes ago, Gloves said:

If you have data in a spreadsheet, it's actually pretty easy (relatively speaking) to translate the data and import into a CMS. I made a function to do so just last week for a project I'm working on at work. 7700 Google Maps markers! 

Are those games actually backed by a database or just basic text pages for all the games?

[Gloves | 11,759]

5 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Are those games actually backed by a database or just basic text pages for all the games?

All of my games are in a database, yeah. I'm using Contentful for data management. I could easily export all of my content in a json format easily. 

[Gloves | 11,759]

16 minutes ago, PuppyWaffles said:

My biggest thing with most game trackers is the inability to add CIB individually or the lack of non USA games.

I could handle that if I wanted to on my site. Mind you, I pretty strictly collect CIB, so everything I add to my site IS CIB to begin with. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

15 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I could handle that if I wanted to on my site. Mind you, I pretty strictly collect CIB, so everything I add to my site IS CIB to begin with. 

I suppose the suggestion is one you only need to consider if you're making this into a public thing.  If you're just keeping it personal, and you don't personally need it, it's not as good a suggestion as it sounded initially

37 minutes ago, B.A. said:

Cool! Attach it to VGS and make it the way everyone else wants! 

What do you think this place is?  NintendoAge?

[Jaden | 151]

I just use a spreadsheet for tracking my collection and then embed it on my website. But this looks like a nice little way to track games! 

[Code Monkey | 2,005]

I'm still working on hindsightgaming.com but I got a full time job since I started it and honestly I like my job more. I'll finish eventually.

[SilverspoonGaming | 331]

orly?

[Gloves | 11,759]

37 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

I'm still working on hindsightgaming.com but I got a full time job since I started it and honestly I like my job more. I'll finish eventually.

No SSL REEEEEEEEEE!

[Tanooki | 4,929]

2 hours ago, PuppyWaffles said:

My biggest thing with most game trackers is the inability to add CIB individually or the lack of non USA games.

That was a big problem for me along with them being pretty dumb, lacking, just obtuse about random accessories and other related stuff including like guides/(nintendo power) magazines.

[Code Monkey | 2,005]

17 minutes ago, Gloves said:

No SSL REEEEEEEEEE!

It's on AWS so setting up Cloudfront and ACM is part of the future plan. I've done it a bunch before, just need to go through the motions and it'll be way later.

[Gloves | 11,759]

1 minute ago, Code Monkey said:

It's on AWS so setting up Cloudfront and ACM is part of the future plan. I've done it a bunch before, just need to go through the motions and it'll be way later.

Fair! I'm just poking fun, it's clearly a WIP. Good job so far.

[Sumez | 2,930]

I use this site I helped start out back when it launched in 2003. I've used it as my tracker ever since, and you can see my collection here:
https://www.playright.dk/samler/profil/sumez?locale=en
It's a Danish site, but there's an English version of the interface, even though I'm sure few have ever used it.

I've tried other trackers like backloggery etc. but they always come across very lacking compared to the one I'm already using. It's based on a near-complete database of video games on all platforms, and it retains information about which games exist on multiple platforms, which versions are remakes, compilations etc. It also has screenshots and aims to include cover pictures of multiple regions, and for each item you can specify its condition and whether it includes the box or other contents. (C/I/B)
It doesn't go into insane details like multiple release variants, platinum releases, etc. that kind of stuff you'll have to specify in your own comments for each item (which you can also upload photos for). But its parent database does track some special releases like limited or collector's versions.
It also doesn't have all kinds of regional releases, but does separate them into EU, US and JP, which is a little generic. But I'd consider all asian releases a part of "JP", Australia as part of "EU", and Canada as "US" for the sake of the way regional console releases have usually been split (ie. PAL, NTSC-J and NTSC-U).

In short it does everything the way that's sufficient to me, without feeling lacking, and without getting too complex and potentially misleading, so I'm not expecting to switch any time soon.

 

For my arcade collection, however, I've also created a site of my own mostly just to showcase the list of original games available to play on my arcade cabinet, as I thought that would be a fun thing to show off as more than just a "collection tracker".

https://arcade.eternal.dk/

Edited September 3, 2021 by Sumez

[a3quit4s | 4,091]

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

It's on AWS so setting up Cloudfront and ACM is part of the future plan. I've done it a bunch before, just need to go through the motions and it'll be way later.

If your already hosting at AWS just put it behind an Application Load Balancer and when you select the 443 listener you can pick a cert right from ACM. ALB will handle the SSL termination for you. Since pretty much 100% of your users would come from the states and Canada, CDN would probably be a waste of money. Unless you plan to have a junk load of video. AMI your front end assuming EC2, stick in an auto scaling group and call it a day.