TempusGameIt updates

At the end of last year during the holidays, I took some time to work on some features over at my personal side project TempusGameIt.com.

And those changes sat idle for quite a while deployed out to the development environment.  Over the past week, I buckled down and made sure things looked good, and pushed them live.  

Here's what's new! 

Game Source Updated

Originally I sourced all of the game information from GiantBomb, but I had been eyeing IGDB as a better source of information.  So I made the switch over to linking games to IGDB.  The box art is much more consistent both in presence and dimensions, so we're less likely to have a link return a 404, or to have square or misshapen box art.

Another big bonus is the fact that many titles include a link over to their Steam record if present.  This is a big win that I'll talk about in a sec.

In light of these changes, I updated the game card to include these links too.

Now with external links

Discord Detectable Integration

Discord exposes a JSON file containing a plethora of information that they use for their in game presence.  The most valuable for me is the process information for both windows and osx.  Currently in order to detect a game, users need to add the game to the TempusGameIt catalog, by pairing up the IGDB entry with a running executable.  We can short-circuit that now since we've got the executable from the discord presence and can connect it back to an IGDB entry via the steam ID.

So now hopefully games that you're interested in playing should be available somewhat automatically, via the power of cloud-sourcing 😆.

Steam Achievement Linking

Steam exposes player achievements via their Web API.  Since switching to IGDB, we now have the Steam ID of a game, which in turns means that we can pull a user's game information from Steam.  The only requirement is that the user has linked their Steam account to TempusGameIt.

This means that we can now link up achievements earned in a gaming session back to their TempusGameIt session.  The great part about this is that it generally applies to all Steam games that support achievements.  There's no custom code or hookup points like there is with the World of Warcraft or Everquest 2 achievement linking.

You can see this here now in New World

Warcraft Link Fixes

I finally fixed the achievement linking for World of Warcraft that broke when they re-did their API back in 2021 maybe?  This is back up and running again, and should happily detect new achievements and link them as you earn them in game.

What's next?

One of the big gaps for me is gaming on a non-Windows install and properly tracking that time.  Things like FFXIV on OSX are not detected, nor is LOTRO running through CrossOver on OSX.  I'm working on improving client support for this detection.  I know there isn't a huge segment of people playing in these environments, but the gap is there and I'd like to get it closed.

Also coming is a rework of the gallery support for screenshots, as well as a general Screenshots section on the sight, where you can view screenshots for users or game without having to dive into the respective items.

I try and keep the Trello board mostly up to date.  Feel free to check it out!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Enhanced logging in TempusGameIt

Image
Version 1.9 is here  and with it comes a few changes to better help understand exactly what the heck is going on when you're running the app. New Look Options Screen The options screen has been updated to include both options and info.  Included now in the info is a more clear view of what version you're running, as well as the addition of the path to the log file on your machine. There's also a new option available--"Enable verbose logging".  By checking this option, you'll be able to see all of the finer grain logging that the system does.  This should be especially helpful when troubleshooting problems or seeing what folders are getting scanned and what executables are being checked for a match.  This option goes hand-in-hand with the log path, since that'll be the place that you will want to look when you want more information on what's happening. Hey look!  Lots of text! Ignored folders We've also hard-coded in a few folders in your Windows di...
Read more

Add Game Enhancements to TempusGameIt

Image
Happy New Year! I'm excited to announce the general release of game creation updates supporting the new way we track and match games. Last year we switched from a more rigid system of executable definitions to a more flexible system: This simplified view better accounts for the different ways that games are run and built across platforms (and even in the same platform--I'm looking at you Path of Exile with a different executable for steam versus non-steam). It also helps automatically importing process definitions from certain third parties, as it more closely matches how they are defined there. The backend and client have been using the new definition for a while now, so there's no major change in the file location or process monitoring.  But the client had lagged behind when adding new titles.  It had a UI that reflected the old structure, and we used the API to transform this data into the new structure. No more!  The UI has gotten a bit of an update to allow for multi...
Read more

Ultima IV

Image
In the spirit of Blaugust, I'm reflecting on the games that were important to me throughout the years.  One that comes to mind pretty much immediately is Ultima IV. If I could get a print of this to frame and hang I would! I was almost 11 when this was released, and at the time I was completely beholden to whatever software my dad was purchasing.  I don't think I'll ever know what made him pick this up--maybe a favorable review in a Apple magazine at the time?  But at some point the game with the fantastical cover above just showed up at the house. I distinctly remember that we set up our Apple IIc with monochrome monitor in a corner of the basement next to the laundry room door.  Looking back, the monitor itself had a tiny viewport but at the time it seemed amazing.  And so crisp too compared with the Intellivision and TI-994a that were run off our old TV. It ain't easy bein' green I don't recall the details of how or when I decided to start playing, but I do d...
Read more