GiantBomb API: Connection Finder

I've been meaning to try and use the GiantBomb API for something just to see what it can do. I had a bit of free time this afternoon, so I've come up with the Connection Finder: search for things on GiantBomb, select a set of them to combine, and then it will find anything linked to everything you selected.

Giant Bomb Connection Finder

It's ugly as hell - my main focus was testing out the API rather than creating a fully featured product. There is essentially no error checking, and if you want to reset everything you need to refresh the page in your browser.

Some examples of the sort of things you can do:

• Search for "clown" and add the Clowns concept. Search for "shotgun" and add the Sawed Off Shotgun object. Click find connections and it'll find Hitman: Blood Money.
• Search for "fish" and add the Fish concept and Fishing Rod object, search for "grief beard" and add the Grief Beard concept. Click find connections and it'll find Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4.
• Finding connections between the Clowns concept and Chainsaw object results in Dead Rising, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, Left 4 Dead 2, Splatterhouse, and Adam the Clown.

Maybe someone will find this useful, so I've made it publicly available - just please remember I did this as a proof of concept to check out the API so it is likely very rough around the edges (and again, it's kinda ugly).

I've been meaning to try and use the GiantBomb API for something just to see what it can do. I had a bit of free time this afternoon, so I've come up with the Connection Finder: search for things on GiantBomb, select a set of them to combine, and then it will find anything linked to everything you selected.

Giant Bomb Connection Finder

It's ugly as hell - my main focus was testing out the API rather than creating a fully featured product. There is essentially no error checking, and if you want to reset everything you need to refresh the page in your browser.

Some examples of the sort of things you can do:

• Search for "clown" and add the Clowns concept. Search for "shotgun" and add the Sawed Off Shotgun object. Click find connections and it'll find Hitman: Blood Money.
• Search for "fish" and add the Fish concept and Fishing Rod object, search for "grief beard" and add the Grief Beard concept. Click find connections and it'll find Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4.
• Finding connections between the Clowns concept and Chainsaw object results in Dead Rising, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, Left 4 Dead 2, Splatterhouse, and Adam the Clown.

Maybe someone will find this useful, so I've made it publicly available - just please remember I did this as a proof of concept to check out the API so it is likely very rough around the edges (and again, it's kinda ugly).

Not bad at all. I've wanted to do something like this, but was too lazy to go through with it.

Oh man, I've been wanting GiantBomb to let me search for games by combining several concepts for a long time. This is awesome.

Bump, because I hope someone sees this that can get this kind of functionality built in to the site.

Glad you liked it. :) 
If I get inspired, I'll try to spend more than the zero time I already have on presentation to make it suck a little less. Visual feedback on the initial search would be nice, and of course fixing the layout in general is probably in order. 

This is actually really cool! It could really use a "remove" button for concepts, though.