Recently, thanks to the efforts of Doug Orleans, IF Archive cleared the unprocessed list of submitted games. Doug updated the IFDB pages of games on the list which had pending download links. However after the list was cleared, some older games on IFDB still have pending links. These games may have been uploaded to IF Archive but without their IFDB pages being updated with the download link.
To elaborate a bit: these IFDB entries all have one or more “ifarchive-pending” links in their Download Links section. (Note that this is not visible on an entry’s page, but you can see the link if you edit the page.) What would be great is if we can crowdsource the effort to update all these links to point to valid files in the IF Archive; I suspect many of these files do already exist in the archive, but the IFDB link was never updated, but in other cases it would be good to re-upload the file in question. (Note that the IF Archive working policy is that only authors should upload their own games, but in these cases presumably the authors already tried to upload their own games so I think it’s okay for others to re-upload them.)
Does anyone feel organizationally-inclined enough to take charge of coordinating the volunteer labor for this task? (I sure don’t.)
If anyone is so inclined: here is the list of games sorted by alphabetical order. I’ll do all those starting with ‘A’ today.
[rant]A Chainsaw Across my Heart
A Courier’s Tale
A Honey Moon
A Work in Progress
Alone In Cinder
Alone/Awake
Apartment Complex
ARK - Space Colony
ausgedachte Träume
Balaclava
Bob
Broken
Brutal Tendency
Castle Doomstone
Cattalonia
Circa Regna Tonat
Code 7 Prologue
Colorful Fruit
Countdown
Critical Role RPG demo
Das Vermächtnis
Deleted
DEVOTED
Don’t Pee Yourself!
DOUCHEBAG – An Existential Adventure
Dracula’s Ride
Dude, Where’s My Scapula?
Dérive I: Santander
Eidolon GGJ2016
Entropy
Eravola
Escaping a Nightmare
Evylon
explorer
Fire Safety Simulator
Forest Demo
G-G-Ghost!
Ghost Highland Way
Glik I
Hallowed
Hard Puzzle
Hell’s Basement
Hello, Nathan
Hello, Nathan
Here Comes Treble
Hostage Situation
Hypnagogue
Interactive Fiction: A “Dynamic” Presentation
Into a mind of madness
J.P. Fitzgerald Twine Narrative
Jack
Je Suis Jennifer-DEMO
Just Another Christmas Day
Kooh i noor
Lana’s Return
Landing in Nigeria
Le labyrinthe au trésor
Lost Circus
Madeline’s Story
Magic Muffin ~ The Desert
Manca solo un verso a quella poesia - capitolo 1
Match Made in Steel
My Name is Tara Sue
Nineteen
Normal Forest By Day, Dark Forest By Night
Not Another Night
O Embuçado
One Game in Search of a Story
Out of Gaz
Out West
Peko’s Story
Postponing Destiny
Project Demon Storm
Random Webcomic (test french)
Red Fog
Rhino Cyborgs
Rocket Hall
Sandbox Supremacy!
Scholarship: The Game (First Draft)
Sir Gawain
Solitary
Space Australia
Space detective
Spellbound
spondre
Teleport Test
The Ascent of the Gothic Tower
The Broken Capsule
The Bunker
The Door
The First Day of My New Life
The Green Mountains
The Haunting at HKE
The Island of Doctor Wooby
The Library
The Mary Celeste
The Minimalist Game
The Missing T
The Quest for The Magic Muffin 3
The Rocket Man From The Sea
The Shape of Our Container
To be a Rap-God
Treasure Dungeon 2
Trollslayer
Twine Story
Under a Mountain
Vigil
War of the Worlds
We Are Unfinished
Wedding Day
when i was shot by elephants
when i was shot by elephants 2 super elephants
when i was shot by elephants conclusion: the decision
when i was shot by elephants definiteive editiom
Where is Everybody?
Winter Storm Draco
Wolf Skin
Workday Choices
Wormhole
You’re Going To Be Fine
Ziva’s Conjury Mart
ZORK I ITA
年獸文字冒險遊戲 | The Beast, Nian: A Chinese Text Adventure[/rant]
EDIT: I’m coming up with a general problem with files with generic file names/names which don’t match the game title - is there a correlation between the pending link and the final file at all? I was Googling "site:ifarchive.org " sometimes, but that doesn’t seem to bring anything up. Am I missing something?
Yeah, I expect some of these to have been failed uploads, or got deleted for one reason or another. I’m hoping that these games will have an external link where we can find the file, or else we can try to contact the authors or something?
Hey, that is cool! Hadn’t seen that site before, thanks!
Nope, the pending link is generated by hashing the contents of the file. And files often get renamed before they end up in their final resting place in the archive. The name of the game should appear in the Index file of the directory where the file ended up, though (as well as in the Master-Index that zarf mentioned).
Seems like people went on a spree; I was going to do a few more today but am having trouble finding more entries with existing games on the IF Archive. I have the impression we got most (if not all) of them. Just want to say thanks to everyone who helped out.
Yeah, I’ve been chewing through them. For the ones that don’t exist on the archive and where I can’t find any other copies of them online, I’m just removing the links-- not much we can do there. Feel free to do the same for a few more on the list.
And we’re done! I believe every game entry on that list has been updated, either to point the link to an actual game in the archive or to delete the link if the game can’t be found. (I chased down a few of the games from elsewhere and uploaded them to the archive, but in several cases the game is lost to the mists of time, alas.)
Thanks, everyone, for pitching in! Many hands make light work.
FYI, I serendipitously happened across an inadvertant backup stash of deleted files, so I’ve rescued and re-uploaded a handful of the games on this list. Adventures in archiving!