SM Sith Lords Blog

Mentioned on the RetroGaming RoundUp #47

SM Sith Lord — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:49:55 +0000

Can’t get enough retro games? I hope so, because the RetroGaming RoundUp is an 8 hour internet radio show that covers topics ranging from gaming conventions to top 10 lists. Listening to the entire show in 1 sitting is not recommended. Source Media Arcade is listed on the show’s itinerary, but I haven’t heard the part where they mention it yet. If you find where they talk about it, let me know! Either way, its worth a listen if you love retro games.

RetroGaming RoundUp #47 – http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shownotes/2011/roundup041_2011.11.htm

Source Media Arcade 2.0 RELEASED EARLY!!!

SM Sith Lord — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 07:23:56 +0000

Once again, Source Media Arcade is being released early so you can make your spooky-themed arcades in time for Halloween. One key new feature is a “GoLive!” item that will turn your single player game into an internet-enabled multiplayer game that appears on the master server list.

Download Source Media Arcade 2.0

Discover NEW Movies & Games w/ SM Arcade

SM Sith Lord — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:51:08 +0000

By now you’ve all gotten the idea that you can discover new media by joining other people’s arcade servers. Well, now there’s a whole new way to discover new media without even playing multiplayer.

Today’s video showcases 2 all-new features to hit SM Arcade in the past few days. First is the DISCOVER BUTTON which will aid you in placing media items that you don’t even own yet! What’s the advantage to that? The 2nd feature showcased in the video are the SEARCH PROVIDERS which link you directly to matching media on your favorite sites! After you buy/download the item, all that’s left is to plug it into SM Arcade and start checking out the all new entertainment you discovered in the 3D world of Source Media Arcade. Your all-in-one PC media center!

Discover NEW Movies and Games – Mod DB

Official TheMovieDB.org API

SM Sith Lord — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:43:18 +0000

I have obtained an official API key for SM Arcade to legitimately plugin to TheMovieDB.org’s movie database without having to scrape their actual website. I just finished implementing the new API. The result is faster, more accurate search results for you, the user. I have also obtained an official API key for TheTVDb.com and will soon be adding support for obtaining TV show information.

Custom Search Providers

SM Sith Lord — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:52:34 +0000

I’ve already blogged about the ability to explicitly list download locations for games and movies placed in your arcade. Today’s developments takes it a step further and simplifies the task of finding a place to download/purchase games and movies that DO NOT have an explicit download location.

Search Providers are useful because they will help guide you and/or the players in your arcade down the right path when trying to find a place to download/purchase missing media. They provide shortcuts for searching relevant sites for download/purchase locations.

A variety of default Search Providers will also come stock with the mod, but players can easily create new custom Search Providers.

When you join a multiplayer arcade, you have access to all of the custom Search Providers used by the host in addition to any custom Search Providers you may have defined. And as always, you have access to the default Search Providers as well.

This is what a Search Provider looks like in the UI:

Each search provider contains the following information:
1. The name of the site (Ex. Amazon.com, Direct2Drive.com, Netflix.com)
2. The type of the transaction (Ex. purchase, stream, download)
3. The search syntax URL of the site where $TITLE gets replaced with the media item title (Ex. http://www.netflix.com/Search?v1=$TITLE)
4. A brief description of the Search Provider
5. The TYPES of media that this Search Provider is relevant to (Ex. movies, pc, snes, nes, etc.)

Only relevant Search Providers are listed for the items. For example, Netflix will never show up as a Search Provider for a missing PC game.

Bank Stare composes techno track inspired by SM Arcade

SM Sith Lord — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 03:42:54 +0000

The composer of tracks such as Cyber Ninjas From Business Space has produced a track inspired by the TRON-like appearance of Source Media Arcade. Be sure to check out Bank Stare on Sound Cloud for more hardcore tracks!

Bank Stare – SM Arcade by Bank Stare

Private beta server goes LIVE once again

SM Sith Lord — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:04:25 +0000

Private multiplayer beta testing is LIVE once again, and the VRCADE SERVER has resumed hosting nightly sessions on one of the 4 maps in rotation. If you are interested in taking part in the private beta tests, just send me an email at contact@smsithlord.com.

Built-in web scraper for game info

SM Sith Lord — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 06:58:31 +0000

NEW DEMONSTRATION VIDEO AVAILABLE:

Today I was able to work in a fully functioning web-scraper that can grab descriptions and artwork images for a massive amount of games on a wide variety of platforms by scraping the AllGame.com website. You can modify your search string as necessary and you are free to choose the best available match. Only missing information will be imported, unless you specify otherwise. Below is a slideshow that shows how easy the built-in web scraping is to use. All of the information (description, screenshot image, marquee image) for the game Duke Nukem 64 is scraped from AllGame.com on the fly.

[[Show as slideshow]]

Multiple Download Locations

SM Sith Lord — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:59:50 +0000

When a player in your server tries to launch a game that they don’t have, they are given the option to download it if the item has a URL listed for it. Yesterday I added in the ability for items to list multiple download URLs. Now you can give more download options to the people as far s where they are going to acquire the missing media from. For example, if a player doesn’t already have the game “Dead Island”, the item could list URLs to get the game from the Steam Store as well as from Direct2Drive. For free downloads, listing multiple URLs could be used to offer different download locations of the game or different versions of the game.

Download URLs can be easily added through the HTML-powered UI by clicking on the small “+” icon next to “Download URLs”. Any field of a download URL entry can be edited by clicking on the small wrench icon next to the field. Any download URL entry can be removed completely by clicking on the associated X on the right side of the table.

Below is a screenshot of how this looks in the UI:

A similar method will be used to allow for multiple entries of other key fields, such as “rompaths” to allow apps to scan multiple locations when detecting files.

Saving & the new console command: persistent_save

SM Sith Lord — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:59:53 +0000

In version 2.0 of Source Media Arcade any customizations that you make to the map or to your item library during play will normally be saved when you close the game or change maps. In most cases this is fine, but some people have unstable computers and would feel much better if their changes were saved instantly to avoid possibly losing their work due to a crash. Today I added in a new Boolean console command called “persistent_save” that will instantly save any item file or map arrangement as soon as you make changes.