My ROM Naming Convention: Genre Codes Up Front, Region at the Back

Most naming standards for game backups, like No-IntroNo-IntroPreservation projects that keep checksums of known-good game dumps. No-Intro covers cartridges, Redump covers discs. A matching checksum means a perfect copy.More: Preserving Your Own Game Collection: Dumps, Backups, Boxes and Old Hardware's, are built for identifying a file exactly. That's the right job for them. But when you're scrolling a folder of hundreds of NES games looking for something to play, "exactly which revision" matters less than "what kind of game is this".

So on the copies I actually browse, I put the genre first. Every file starts with a four-letter code, which means the folder sorts itself by genre in any file browser, on any device, with no frontend or database involved.

The format

(GENRE) Title (REGION) (NOTES).ext

Part	What goes there
(GENRE)	A four-letter code for the main genre
Title	A clean, recognizable title, without the subtitle clutter
(REGION)	A three-letter region code
(NOTES)	Optional: hack, beta, translation and so on
.ext	The original extension, untouched: .nes, .sfc, .chd, .iso

Some examples:

(PLAT) Super Mario Bros (USA).nes
(RPGE) Final Fantasy VII (USA).chd
(FGHT) Street Fighter II (JPN).zip
(METV) Super Metroid (USA).sfc
(PLAT) Super Mario Bros (USA) (HACK).nes
(RPGE) Final Fantasy V (USA) (TRAD).sfc
(ACTN) Mega Man X (JPN) (BETA).sfc
(RACE) F-Zero (USA EUR JPN).sfc
(PUZZ) Tetris (USA JPN).gb

The genre codes

Four letters, all caps. Enough to be readable, short enough not to crowd the title.

Code	Genre	Code	Genre
ACTN	Action	PLAT	Platformer
ACTV	Action-adventure	PNBL	Pinball
ADVN	Adventure	PRGM	Programming
ARKD	Arcade	PUZZ	Puzzle
AUTO	Auto-scrolling	QUIZ	Quiz and trivia
BEAT	Beat-'em-up	RACE	Racing
BMUP	Bullet hell	RCNG	Combat racing
BORD	Board game	RCES	Resource management
CARD	Card game	RHYM	Rhythm
DEFN	Tower defense	RPGE	RPG
EDUC	Educational	RROG	Roguelike
FGHT	Fighting	RUNR	Runner
FLAT	2D simulation	SCRL	Scrolling shooter
FLGT	Flight	SHOT	Shooter
HACK	Hack and slash	SIMU	Simulation
HORR	Horror	SNDK	Sandbox
LGHT	Light gun	SPRT	Sports
MECH	Mech combat	STGY	Strategy
METV	Metroidvania	STLH	Stealth
MOBA	Arena battle	SURV	Survival
MZLR	Maze	TACT	Tactics
TEXT	Text adventure	TIME	Time management
TYNG	Typing	VISN	Visual novel
WRST	Wrestling

Note

HACK is both a genre (hack and slash) and a note (a ROMROMA copy of a game cartridge's contents in a single file. It's what an emulator actually plays.More: Keep One Copy of Each Game in Your ROM Backups, by Region hack). Position tells them apart: the genre is always first, notes are always last. If that bugs you, rename one. Just do it everywhere.

Region and note codes

Region	Code		Note	Code
United States	USA		Beta	BETA
Japan	JPN		Prototype	PROT
Europe	EUR		Demo	DEMO
France	FRA		ROM hack or mod	HACK
Germany	GER		Re-release	RELN
Spain	ESP		Remix or edit	RMIX
Italy	ITA		Fan translation	TRAD
			Official translation	TRAN
			Unlicensed	UNLS

A game released in several regions gets them all, space-separated: (USA EUR JPN). Multiple notes work the same way: (HACK TRAN).

The rules I stick to

1. Pick the one most representative genre. Plenty of games are two things. Choose the one you'd browse for.
2. Clean the title. Drop subtitles, version numbers and extra junk. You can always look it up.
3. Use the main release region when it's messy, or list them all.
4. Keep a master list of which game got which genre. It's the thing that makes the second pass, and the next system, fast.
5. Be consistent. One standard across every system, or it stops being useful.

Heads up

Frontends and scrapers that match games by file name may stop finding artwork after you rename. Scrapers that hash the file don't care. If your frontend matters more than your file browser, keep a set with the standard names for it, and use genre names on the copies you browse by hand.

Doing it without typing every name

Nobody should rename a library by hand. The order that works for me:

1. Clean up the old dump names with Rename-RomFile.
2. Thin out extra regional copies with Remove-DuplicateRom.
3. Add the genre codes from a CSV of titles and codes with Add-RomGenreTag.

For a system I don't have a script for yet, I keep a template for describing the job to an AI assistant, so I ask for it the same way every time: the platform, the extensions, the naming format above, the genre codes, how regions appear in the old names, and a requirement for a dry-run mode and a log. Then I read the result carefully and test it on 10 or 20 files before letting it near the whole folder.