GamePal vs GamingGaiden

GamePal is an iOS app for tracking gaming activity and keeping a game collection. Users can mark games as played, completed or wishlisted, and record thoughts, memories and experiences in a journal. Live Activities show session updates on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, while widgets display gaming stats, recent games and upcoming releases. The app can track gaming events and alert users when upcoming games are about to release. Siri Shortcuts offer actions for logging games and checking stats. Discover provides personalized recommendations, curated lists and trending titles across platforms; Monthly Games lists titles available through services such as PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass. GamePal requires iOS 18.0 or later. The download is free, though some features require Platinum. Platinum adds features including unlimited collections, advanced journal entries with media, widgets, Live Activities, a Monthly Games calendar and Shortcut actions. Its prices are $2.99 a month, $29.99 a year, or $49.99, paid once for lifetime access.

GamingGaiden is a Windows tray application for tracking play time and session history across PC and emulated games. It can automatically track games and new ROMs after an emulator is registered, and supports RetroArch cores. Games launched directly from an emulator’s graphical interface are not tracked; the manual recommends a frontend or command-line shortcuts. The app detects idle time and removes it from session records. Its statistics include lifetime summaries, session counts and lengths, daily, monthly, and yearly play time, most-played games, and games grouped by emulator. A backlog lets users mark games Playing, Finished, On Hold, or Dropped. The project also lists HWiNFO64 integration and Google image search for game icons or box art. GamingGaiden is described as portable and offline, with data stored locally and automatic backups after each session. It can be installed on multiple gaming PCs and share a database while tracking each PC separately. The free project is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Downloads are offered only through its GitHub repository; Windows SmartScreen may show an Unknown Publisher warning because the application lacks a public CA signature.