Welcome to the homepage of Gamebase ZX, a brand new database front-end for Spectrum games! The single goal of The Gamebase ZX Project is to be the ultimate offline database of Spectrum games ever compiled. The ZX Spectrum has in excess of 10,000 software titles, most of them games. As you can appreciate the gathering and compiling of such a number is a huge task and is likely to take some time. I therefore ask everyone to bare with me while I reach that goal.

Gamebase ZX allows any game to be readily available to play in the emulator of your choice by just clicking on the game name, thus removing all the fuss of manually loading the emulator and game by hand. Gamebase ZX's interface allows you to browse the games in your database. When you click a game, you get to see a two or more screenshots of the game in action, along with options to play the game and listen to the game's music. Various fields in a Gamebase database hold information on the games, such as Publisher, Year Published, Musician, Programmer, Genre, Number of players.

There are numerous versions of many Spectrum games available on the web and in individuals' collections. It is for this reason the GBZX will use, were possible, only perfect TZX files of games and hopefully help to do away forever with those hacked versions. There is a place for the Z80 and SNA formats but these belong on peoples hard drives as they help you progress through a game. It may seem to some that the only way to get things like infinite life, time, and energy is to use hacked versions, but all this can be achieved with Pokes and Gamebase ZX will have an exhaustive list of Pokes built into it!

Supports virtually any Spectrum emulator!
Many Spectrum emulators are very easy to setup to auto-run games. Some, however, are not. GameBase uses a simple yet powerful scripting language called GEMUS (Gamebase EMUulator Script) to enable the support for virtually any emulator. GEMUS includes functions to set an emulator's command line parameters and write to their config or ini files. GEMUS can also be tailored to run emulators differently depending on the game. In most cases, a GEMUS script is already setup when you add an emulator to GameBase (the default script), so you don't even need to type a thing! GEMUS comes with extensive documentation which includes a "Quick Start" guide for those who don't want to learn it all! By implementing a scripting language such as GEMUS, almost any emulator can be supported, past present and future.

Manages Games, Music, Docs, Screenshots, and more!
Each game in a GameBase stores more than just a game. It also stores a music file, game docs, screenshots, and really any other files you wish (these are referred to in GameBase as Extras). For example, each game-entry in the database could potentially store not just the game file, but also a AY music file, game docs, a magazine review, a cover scan, an mp3 remix, a link to a web site... the list goes on. All these Extras are conveniently accessible via a simple drop-down menu directly under the game's screenshots.

Create as many databases as you want!
With GameBase, you can easily create multiple databases to go alongside the Spectrum database. For instance, you could create a SNES database, a C64 database, a MAME database and an Amiga database. You could also create a single database to manage multiple systems. Switching between databases is as easy as choosing the database to load when GameBase starts, or by selecting it from a menu within GameBase.

Import from RomCenter/TOSEC datafiles!
If you do not want to use the Gamebase ZX database, you can import the data from any RomCenter v2.00 datafile into a GameBase database. If the RomCenter datafile is TOSEC (TNCv1) compliant, GameBase will extract the extra data from the filename (such as Publisher, Cracker etc) and fill in the appropriate GameBase database fields! GameBase performs a CRC32/Filesize rom scan and updates your database accordingly.

Extensive Database Search Engine!
An extensive database search and filtering engine is included in GameBase, meaning you can create your own permanent or temporary "Custom Views" to show, for example, all games by Ultimate, all available games, all games programmed by Mathew Smith, all Platformers, all Breakout clones or all games for 3 or more players.

Link games to their Precursors and Sequels!
When viewing a game, simply clicking on a small icon next to the game name will instantly jump you to that game's precursor, sequel or a related game of your choice! For example. easily jump between all Monty Mole games!

View multiple images/screenshots per game!
GameBase has the ability to show multiple pictures or screenshots per game. This comes in handy in Gamebase ZX where it's possible to view two or more screenshots at the same time! The GameBase Picture engine comes with a scroll function to scroll through all available pictures, and a zoom feature to see the images up close!

Multi-language support!
Via a simple ini file, you can change all the text within the GameBase interface to say whatever you like, in whatever language you like! If you don't like the default keyboard shortcuts you can change these in the ini file too!

Completely customisable interface!
As well as changing all the text in the program, you can also customise the look and feel of the interface to your hearts content! Virtually all the images and sounds used in GameBase can be substituted for your own, you can hide the screenshots, hide the game details, resize the window, change the game-list font and colours, and even create your own splash screens for any extra databases you create!

IBM compatible PC with a 32-bit version of Microsoft Windows. Gamebase has been tested on the following systems (Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, 2000, XP, XP Pro). If anybody has tested this software on Windows ME or NT systems then please let me know!

To run games within Gamebase you will also need one of the currently supported Spectrum emulators, at the present time either Spectaculator or Spin. Extras such as Instructions Adverts, Inlays, and Maps use Windows file associations, and so a text file will typically open in Notepad, image files will open with your default viewer or even a paint package.