This is outstanding. Finally a text-mode DOS game menu frontend. I wonder if it could be configured / augmented to:

1. Create a RAMDRIVE of x MB (based upon size of game -- user supplied in the .CSV file)
2. Decompress a single-archive ZIP, 7zip or RAR of the game to the RAMDRIVE
3. Execute the script by running the decompressed game directly from the RAMDRIVE.
4. Possibly run / configure SBEMU on a per-game basis for modern laptops with Intel HDA sound.

Up until now, I do all of this manually per game. They're all stored compressed in archives on a USB memory stick which boots to MS-DOS 7.1. I then decompress and run everything from a large RAMDRIVE. This is on a modern system with huge amounts of memory (8GB to 16GB), so there's plenty of RAM and CPU to spare... SBEMU / VSBHDA is also configured via .BAT file in each game's compressed archive. When decompressed, I run the .BAT file to configure and execute the game. Manually creating .BAT files for each of hundreds of games is a pain, though, and your menu solution is at once more elegant and less cumbersome.

Cool project!

So far I have been using LaunchBOX DOS Edition 2.0 and it uses the same batch wrapper trick to not use any memory when launching games. but I have been wondering when my game list will hit the conventional memory limit as it can't page data from disk.

I have also been using nested batch files to configure system speed, multiple sound cards, mixer levels, MIDI devices, disc images, configuration resets on the fly executed by typing in %ENV% commands - Speed only wouldn't be enough but also once you start spreading to other stuff the configuration options become endless and virtually impossible to maintain.

It would be cool to have some kind of extensible framework definition that pre-defines scripts that can be plugged into the software and triggered in the CSV. For exmaple if I wanted to create a definitions module that switches PicoGUS modes or loads disc images from a USB drive. Then those definitions can be shared and used by other people.

But just thinking aloud. I am kind of stuck with launchbox for now because all of the game launch scripts are in it's database which was short sighted of me, I would need to run some kind of script to pull them out into individual batch files which could be used as executable targets in GROG

Appreciate the feedback!
I'm working on the updates, stay tuned.

Hello everyone!

Happy to report that 1.5 is out! and it introduces exactly what you are both asking for: The Module System.

It is an extensible framework. You can now create custom scripts (like PICOGUS.BAT, SBEMU.BAT, or MOUNT_ISO.BAT) in a MODULES folder and trigger them directly from the CSV, complete with arguments.
Part of this is the RAM Drives and archive management. The release includes a RAMLOAD module example out of the box. It accepts a specific archive and RAM size from the CSV (e.g., RAMLOAD:"DOOM.ZIP" 32M), creates the drive dynamically, unzips the game and launches it.

There is also the new built-in config launcher with a dedicated hotkey to launch configuration/setup utilities for any game directly from the menu (`C` key).

Please take the time to go through the README file:
G.R.O.G. main page

Give it a spin and let me know how it works for you!
Download G.R.O.G. v1.5 on Codeberg

Thanks for this. It's documented very well! What I am missing is an edit function from within the program. Editing a CSV file in an editor on DOS is not a lot of fun. 😀 I know I can use Excel or whatnot on another PC but copying them back and forth is a bit cumbersome (for me at least). But overall I like it!