As DGR_Dave would say.. I have questions. Questions that demand answers.
- Other than supported file types when choosing a ROM to load, it doesn't appear obvious which systems are supported?
- Can you create your own achievements on a per-game basis (for example, 100 rings in Sonic The Hedgehog)?
- Can you opt to support specific games only, and prohibit others from being loaded (for example, supporting Sonic games only on a Sonic forum)?
- Is online multiplayer supported?
Thanks Eggy.
Good questions.
The important thing to understand with ROM Console is that it is deliberately designed
not to distribute, host or collect ROM files. When a member chooses a ROM, the file is read locally in their browser and identified locally where required; the ROM itself is not uploaded to Eggy Network or customers websites unless they some how manage away to change the coding.
That separation is intentional. ROM Console provides the emulator/interface, saves, progression and XenForo integration, while the user remains responsible for supplying software/ROMs they are legally entitled to use.
Supported systems:
At the moment the supported platforms are largely indicated by the file formats accepted by the loader, although I agree that this should be made much clearer in the interface/documentation rather than expecting somebody to work it out from extensions alone.
Per-game achievements such as “collect 100 rings in Sonic”:
No. ROM Console intentionally does not inspect or hook into individual games at that level. An achievement based on something happening
inside a particular commercial game would require game-specific knowledge/state detection and would move the product into territory I deliberately avoid for copyright/compliance reasons.
Achievements therefore need to be based around activity ROM Console itself legitimately controls or observes, rather than reverse-engineering the internal logic of a copyrighted game.
Restricting the console to particular games:
ROM Console does not identify games by uploading them to the server. Because files remain local, the server cannot simply inspect a member's ROM collection.
A technically clean way of supporting an allow/deny system would be through
locally calculated hashes: the browser calculates the ROM hash and the site compares only that identifier against an administrator-defined allowlist or blocklist. The ROM file itself would still never need to leave the user's device. That is the approach I would use if game-specific restrictions were added.
Online multiplayer:
ROM Console itself does not provide an online multiplayer/network-play service. Multiplayer support is therefore limited by what the underlying emulator/core can do locally; there is no Eggy-hosted ROM networking or matchmaking layer.
The general philosophy is quite deliberate:
Eggy provides the console, not the games. ROM files remain with the user, and features are designed around that boundary rather than turning Eggy into a ROM host or a game-specific reverse-engineering service.
