Wizzo has shared a new technical update on Zaparoo, focusing on solving one of the project’s biggest challenges yet — making NFC cards launch the same game reliably across different devices.
Previous versions relied on file paths, which often broke when files were renamed or moved. After years of testing different approaches, including filename “slug” systems and fuzzy matching, Wizzo finally settled on using natural-language game titles instead of file paths or hashes.
This new method allows Zaparoo to recognize games like Super Mario World or Ocarina of Time even if filenames differ slightly between setups. Titles are now written directly to the NFC cards, making IDs human-readable, portable, and independent of any online scraper.
Part two of the update will cover the new tagging system and metadata handling coming in the next Zaparoo release.
Read the original devlog here.