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Screenshots
Post Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:41 pm
Every game page in the redesign will show screenshots on the game page. You can then go and see more via a link. All we need now is the images! Here's how you can help:

1. Post in this forum. You can post in this thread or make a new one if you like. You can attach images or archives to your post. Note that we may remove attachments after they are added to the site.

2. Edit the site directly (if you have been granted editor permissions).

There are some guidelines:

- Screenshots shall be at a 1:1 native resolution with no borders. So SMS screenshots are usually 248x192, for example.

- Use the PNG format. If you know what PNGOUT is then use it!

- Please use descriptive filenames and give a textual description of each screenshot. Try to refer to the manual for real names of levels/characters/etc. If that's too hard, maybe your screenshots are not varying enough, or maybe you don't know the game very well?

- Don't submit screenshots from other websites. Make your own, it's not hard!

- We would of course prefer screenshots from the whole game, not just the first 30 seconds.
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 6:46 am
I've been adding a few screenshots for new releases and looking at existing ones, and think there's a few things we should change:

1. The screenshots often have filenames with descriptions which I think adds unnecessarily on maintenance. Maybe we should all name them ${GameName}-xx.png and then optionally adds comments. It's a light thing to add and change description to screenshots whereas doing it for filename is more complicated.

2a/. In addition to the right column showing at the bottom I think we should have 2 (or 3 depending on where we fit them) fixed screenshots at the top that wouldn't change and be picked (1 title screen and other is representative game screen). It would help decorate the page which often right now have too much information spreading vertically on the right column and more consistently show title screen whereas the random selection doesn't.

or 2b/ variation: move the Screenshots block in the left area of the page. Showing a block of 2x2 shots fixing the first one to be a title screen and others can be random.

That selection could be done by using page variables on the Screenshot page and if no there the system would pick the 2 first shots of the lot.

What do you think?
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:05 am
Bock wrote
1. The screenshots often have filenames with descriptions which I think adds unnecessarily on maintenance. Maybe we should all name them ${GameName}-xx.png and then optionally adds comments. It's a light thing to add and change description to screenshots whereas doing it for filename is more complicated.


I went with descriptions in filenames to increase the Google ranking - having the image called AlexKiddInMiracleWorld-TitleScreen.png presumably ranks better for "alex kidd title screen". However, when adding the thousands of old screenshots I couldn't do that, so I used numbers for nearly all of them.

Bock wrote
2a/. In addition to the right column showing at the bottom I think we should have 2 (or 3 depending on where we fit them) fixed screenshots at the top that wouldn't change and be picked (1 title screen and other is representative game screen). It would help decorate the page which often right now have too much information spreading vertically on the right column and more consistently show title screen whereas the random selection doesn't.


The logo section is right at the top and is often everything worth seeing on the title screen. Always showing the title screen too may be excessive.

What about games with more than one title screen? (That's partly why the logos are there.)

For games with more than 1 cover scan, the top of the page ("before the fold") is already almost all graphical. Having more images there may be excessive.

I considered moving screenshots before sprites but it is then really obviously repeating from the logo.

Bock wrote
or 2b/ variation: move the Screenshots block in the left area of the page. Showing a block of 2x2 shots fixing the first one to be a title screen and others can be random.

That selection could be done by using page variables on the Screenshot page and if no there the system would pick the 2 first shots of the lot.


The selection could also be based on an assumed filename for the title screen ({$Name}-TitleScreen.png) and randomly select some other shots (the random selection script would be amended to include some exclusion filter in addition to the current inclusion filter).

The right bar is currently sized to 290px to comfortably fit 256px SMS screenshots. The left section is left with about 630px of usable space (assuming the right section is not finished), which is too small for 3 SMS screenshots, so it'd be 2x2. For GG shots, you could fit 3 (it's slightly too small for 4) so it'd be 3x2?
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 7:21 pm
Is this the correct way to add screenshots or do I need to add/change anything at the {$name} part into the names of the uploaded files?
screenshots_add.png (30.36 KB)
screenshots_add.png

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Post Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:57 pm
{$Name} is substituted with the page name, this helps avoid name clashes. So best is either to name the files perfectly and batch upload, or to save the page and then click the links that appear to go to an upload form for each file that will rename the file when it is uploaded.
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 10:31 pm
Maxim wrote
{$Name} is substituted with the page name, this helps avoid name clashes. So best is either to name the files perfectly and batch upload, or to save the page and then click the links that appear to go to an upload form for each file that will rename the file when it is uploaded.


Alright, thanks. Will try again tomorrow.
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Post Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2021 2:20 pm
Alright, used the last option of the two. If someone of you could do a quick check it's OK like this I'll add more screenshots.

A few other questions:

*Review scores: do you only want the review scores with the complete review text added? I could add a LOT of SEGA Power review scores, but the text would need OCR-ing. Not a problem, but very time consuming.

*Screenshots on the game page are in random order (except the title screen)? It looks like it doesn't take the first three screenshots? (Title is the first, but the other two I added @ Gamble Panic) aren't 2 and 3.

*'Released' on game page is the year the first game was released? For example, FIFA 96 (Europe) on the Game Gear was released in 1996 (by the fact the game's cover was from a match played in June 1996). Do you only post release years @ 'Releases' if you have the complete date (like with most JPN releases)?

Thanks :-)
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Post Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2021 2:28 pm
We prefer some review text, if only the summary. I am happy to do OCR if there are scans.

Screenshots on the game page are a random one with “title” in the description and two random ones without. All should eventually appear.

Release dates are our best guess, we don’t have much evidence to go on though. Magazine dates are very unreliable. Usually it’s the title screen year but I guess many are blank.
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