The Problem With Manual Game Manifests (And How I Solved It)
For the game library builders & enthusiasts here:
How are you currently managing .manifest files and Lua scripts for your game collections?
I spent 1.5 months building a tool to solve this problem (IdkAI.Store), and I'm curious about your actual workflows:
1. Do you manually hunt for .manifest files or auto-generate them?
2. How many games are you managing?
3. What tools are you using today?
4. What's missing from existing solutions?
The problem I solved: You shouldn't have to manually script configuration files for 30k games. So I indexed them all and built instant generation.
But I'm realizing there might be better ways to solve this that I haven't thought of.
If you work with game libraries or external game management tools, I'd love your input:
- What's your biggest pain point?
- Would an API be useful for your workflow?
- How would you price a tool like this?
Happy to discuss in the comments or you can try the tool directly: https://idkai.store
Curious what the community thinks!
Replies
Hi, I built PlayDex, a games libary/organiser tool. You're correct, the vast number of scripts and db's for importing/exporting is crazy.
PlayDex lets users import their Gog and Steam libraries directly. For the other games they can add manually, or import via a provided CSV template.
It also offers CSV exporting of all their collection, which is atleast a starting point.
I don't think there is a one-and-only solution. I hope at some point Epic and Amazon will provide a public API like Steam and Gog. I'm sure Microsoft will do something eventually too. I hol dout little hope for PS fans thought. They might have to stick to manual entry.