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RetroVault – Automated Retro Game Index

Turn massive retro-game preservation libraries into a clean, searchable, browser-playable game portal. RetroVault is a lightweight PHP & SQLite application designed to automatically crawl, deduplicate, sanitize, and manage thousands of retro games directly from Archive.org.

Whether you run a retro arcade community, an educational archive, or a personal curation portal, RetroVault automates the tedious work of importing metadata, formatting assets, and organizing collections into a polished web interface.

RetroVault automates the tedious work of importing metadata, formatting assets, and organizing collections into a polished web interface

Key Features

  • Continuous Ingestion Engine (CLI & Web): Import entire collections or individual libraries from Archive.org with a single command or through an administrative web interface. Features built-in state logging, page tracking, and respectful request throttling to prevent rate limits.
  • Playable Package Detection: Distinguishes playable games from noise. RetroVault filters out stray documentation, cover scans, press kits, and soundtrack files, indexing only valid browser-playable software packages.
  • Smart Deduplication & Title Normalization: Cleans dirty release strings (stripping release tags, brackets, region codes, and trainer markers) to group titles accurately, automatically retaining the highest-quality version available.
  • Zero-Setup Database Architecture: Built entirely on PHP and SQLite with Write-Ahead Logging (WAL). No external database server configuration required—just upload and run.
  • Dynamic Navigation Hierarchy: Multi-word grouping algorithms organize complex console listings into clean parent categories (e.g., nesting "Game Boy Advance" and "Game Boy Color" neatly under "Game Boy").
  • Automated Asset Management: Fetches, converts, and optimizes game box art locally to .webp format, complete with built-in orphan image cleanup tools to reclaim disk space.

Technical Requirements

  • PHP: 8.1 or higher (with pdo_sqlite, curl, and mbstring extensions enabled)
  • Web Server: Apache (with mod_rewrite enabled) or Nginx
  • Database: SQLite3 (bundled with standard PHP installations)
  • Permissions: Write permissions on the project directory for database and image storage

How to Set Up and Run RetroVault

1. File Structure Setup

Upload your project files to your web root or subfolder (e.g., /var/www/html/games or htdocs/games):

games/
├── db/                   # Auto-created (stores games.db, logs, and pagination state)
├── images/               # Auto-created (stores optimized local webp covers)
├── manager.php           # Ingestion manager (CLI & Web admin)
├── reclassify.php        # Console sorting & reclassification utility
├── index.php             # Front-end catalog & navigation menu
├── game.php              # Individual game player/details page
└── .htaccess             # Clean URL routing rules

2. Initialization

Run the manager once via command line or load it in your browser to automatically generate the database schema and storage directories:

php manager.php --clean-images

This auto-creates db/games.db and the images/ directory.

3. Importing Games from Archive.org

Method A: Command Line (Recommended for bulk imports)

Use the CLI runner to avoid web server execution timeouts during large batch imports:

# Syntax: php manager.php [Collection_URL_or_ID] [Batch_Size] "[Platform_Name]" "[Type]"
php manager.php "https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games" 50 "MS-DOS" "Game"
php manager.php "https://archive.org/details/sega_genesis_library" 50 "Sega Mega Drive" "Game"
php manager.php "https://archive.org/details/psxgames" 50 "PlayStation" "Game"
Method B: Web Dashboard
  1. Open http://yourdomain.com/games/manager.php in your browser.
  2. Enter your admin password (default: 89898989).
  3. Fill in the Scan Collection fields:
    • Collection URL or Identifier: e.g., internetarcade or the full Archive.org URL.
    • Platform: e.g., Arcade.
    • Type: Game.
    • Items: Batch size (e.g., 25 to 50).
  4. Click Start Scan.

4. Reclassifying Catch-All Collections

When importing broad collections such as Miscellaneous or Arcade, run reclassify.php to scan game metadata and automatically re-assign items to their specific console (e.g., SNES, NES, N64, Sega Saturn, Game Boy):

php reclassify.php

5. Maintenance & Image Storage Optimization

To safely delete local thumbnails for items that were removed, replaced, or skipped:

php manager.php --clean-images

Get instant access to full source code, updates, and setup documentation at scripts.bluaz.com.

🌐 Demo Website

https://games.bluaz.com/

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