I’ve created this page to explain how you can help the database become better. There are basically three things you can do:

• Test games and game variants, and rate them in the database. This will let the system sort the different game variants according how well they work!
• Submit configuration fixes to games to make non-working variants work.
• Correct or submit information about games (covers, screenshots, other information).
• Search for and check free downloadable games from sites that offer legal downloads of Amiga games (http://oagd.net/free-game-downloads).

Testing and Rating Game Variants

Actually playing games and let the database know whether it worked or not is one of the most useful things you can help with.

Many variants are automatically imported based on for example TOSEC data, and to get a high-quality database, we need to know whether individual variants work well – or have problems (most works well, of course).

You currently need to rate the variants in the FS-UAE Launcher interface. When you select a game in FS-UAE Launcher, there’s buttons to mark a variant as:

• Thumbs down: This variant has problems which cannot be fixed, such as bad disk images. Or perhaps you want to rate it down because the game version is old/buggy, and there are variants with a newer game version. You can give this rating to multiple variants.
• Thumbs up: This is a variant you recommend people to play. You can recommend more than one variant.
• Star: This is the variant you recommend other people to play and/or your personal favorite variant. This implies thumbs-up but is a stronger recommendation. You can only mark one variant for each game with a star. This variant will also be pre-selected when you select the game in FS-UAE Launcher or FS-UAE Arcade.

It is also useful if you add comments to game entries on oagd.net if you have useful information about why a variant is bad, or if you think the configuration for a variant should be changed. You can submit fixes directly (see the next section), but it’s always a good idea to leave a comment to why the fix is needed, unless it is obvious.

Submit Configuration Fixes

If you find a variant which does not work correctly – could work better – or does not have correct information, please consider helping out by submitting corrections via the web interface.

It’s important to understand that the system uses a key-value system, for example chipset (key) = AGA (value) to specify that a variant needs to be run on an AGA computer.

Keys can be added either to the main entry or to a specific game variant listed on the game page. Click on a variant name to expand that variant and reveal the variant-specific key-value list.

• Variants override key-values from the game itself.
• Key-values registered in the variant overrides the values from the game.
• Setting a key to a blank value is the same as a non-existing key-value pair (the system will behave as if the key were never set).

Please only add keys to the main game entry if it applies to all known variants – current and future ones.

For example: If a game is known to exist only in english, you can register languages = en for the game as a whole. But otherwise, please register languages individually for each variant and for the game.

Obviously, it would work to register languages = en for the game, and only override this value for non-english variants. The problem with this is that all new variants would then inherit languages = en – and it might not be noticed that is was wrong for a newly added non-english variant.

Submit Game Information

You can via the web interface submit information about the game. This includes:

• Images (box cover, title screen, game screenshots).
• Game information (publisher, year, links to other sites).
• Variant-specific information (languages, copy protection).

Moderation

The information you submit will be added to a pending queue, and a moderator will review your changes before they are accepted. When you have submitted high-quality information over time, your user may be upgraded so you’ll be able to submit information directly without moderation.

New Games

Submitting new games are for the time being only possible by adminstrative staff. Just add a comment on the wishlist page if there is a game (or several) you are missing 🙂