Do you own a lot of games on itch.io? I do, and a huge amount more from past charity bundles I've yet to go and claim so maybe the Steam Deck will help me and you get through them all.
Since the itch team provide a launcher app, I wanted to see how well it would work on the Steam Deck and there were a few requests to check it out. Thankfully, their native Linux build runs just fine in desktop mode. Here's a quick video look with the steps below:
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Direct Link
Direct Link
It's nicely easy to get set up:
- Head to itch.io/app and hit the big download button.
- Run the downloaded file from your Downloads folder.
- Login and have fun.
However, the itch app itself does not like Game Mode / Deck UI. So, you will need to add the games individually, the same way you add anything to Steam. Either the Games menu up top, then add a non-steam game. Or the Add game button on the bottom left on the main Steam client window.
All itch games by default install into /home/deck/.config/itch/apps/
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The comments on this article are closed.
RandomizedKirbyTree47 Mar 7, 2022
Sweet! Thanks for this article.
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Looks pretty good for what I think is an Electron app.
I didn't poke very hard but I don't see bundles anywhere. Like on their web page, bundle items are hidden until you download them "in order to avoid flooding your library." But bundles don't seem to be available at all in the app, just the games already downloaded.
I didn't poke very hard but I don't see bundles anywhere. Like on their web page, bundle items are hidden until you download them "in order to avoid flooding your library." But bundles don't seem to be available at all in the app, just the games already downloaded.
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Quoting: rcritI didn't poke very hard but I don't see bundles anywhere. Like on their web page, bundle items are hidden until you download them "in order to avoid flooding your library." But bundles don't seem to be available at all in the app, just the games already downloaded.That's only true for the couple of insanely massive charity bundles they've done. You have to go through the lists and click download on the ones you want to add to your library, but this is a one time process and you don't need to actually download anything. Check out randombundlegame.com if you're struggling with the itch.io interface.
Personally I'm happy they did this, because I will never touch most of the stuff in these gargantuan bundles.
Games from more reasonably sized bundles (like a ~70 game one I bought at some point) seem to get added to your library directly.
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Quoting: rcritLooks pretty good for what I think is an Electron app.
I didn't poke very hard but I don't see bundles anywhere. Like on their web page, bundle items are hidden until you download them "in order to avoid flooding your library." But bundles don't seem to be available at all in the app, just the games already downloaded.
If I remember correctly, you can paste https://itch.io/my-purchases/bundles into the address bar of the Itch client, and navigate from there to download games from your purchased bundles.
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Micromegas Mar 7, 2022
Maybe a video which explains some tricks using KDE's file manager Dolphin could be useful for all the new KDE (= Steam Deck) users now.
Like, how you can customise it. I like to display the editable path e.g. so that I can right click and copy the full path of a directory. Or how you can search and filter (I like the filter bar) or add shortcuts to directories at the left pane or display more infos on the right pane or add more columns and sort them.
Maybe just a short video which points new users in the right direction so that they realise that all those options are there and that Dolphin is a mighty file manager - something they might not expect on a "console" like hardware.
And another powerful and useful software for all those Steam Deck users might be Okular, the PDF reader.
Like, how you can customise it. I like to display the editable path e.g. so that I can right click and copy the full path of a directory. Or how you can search and filter (I like the filter bar) or add shortcuts to directories at the left pane or display more infos on the right pane or add more columns and sort them.
Maybe just a short video which points new users in the right direction so that they realise that all those options are there and that Dolphin is a mighty file manager - something they might not expect on a "console" like hardware.
And another powerful and useful software for all those Steam Deck users might be Okular, the PDF reader.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: fleskQuoting: rcritLooks pretty good for what I think is an Electron app.
I didn't poke very hard but I don't see bundles anywhere. Like on their web page, bundle items are hidden until you download them "in order to avoid flooding your library." But bundles don't seem to be available at all in the app, just the games already downloaded.
If I remember correctly, you can paste https://itch.io/my-purchases/bundles into the address bar of the Itch client, and navigate from there to download games from your purchased bundles.
Excellent tip, thanks. There are like 49 pages of things in the bundle I bought.
I also noticed that if you own a game in a bundle you can still buy another copy of it. I'm not sure if that's a bug or a feature.
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A question to experts. How do non Steam games work with controllers on the Deck? Is controller support untied from Steam? Same question for all controls, like pads, touchscreen and so on.
And do game developers need to provide controller support that takes in account Deck hardware, or it's detected as generic controller of some sort or some other way?
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 March 2022 at 11:11 pm UTC
And do game developers need to provide controller support that takes in account Deck hardware, or it's detected as generic controller of some sort or some other way?
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 March 2022 at 11:11 pm UTC
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Thank you, Liam! I've been wondering whether the itch.io client works on the Steam Deck. I'm glad it does, even if it is in desktop mode only.
I'm looking forward to playing Celeste on the Steam Deck. Maybe I will even get better at it (wishful thinking).
I'm looking forward to playing Celeste on the Steam Deck. Maybe I will even get better at it (wishful thinking).
1 Likes, Who?
Hi Liam, could you also maybe test GameHub on the Steam Deck through gamescope to see how it behaves ? It has itch.io, gog, Humble Bundle, emulation integration and there's a cool feature with an "Add to Steam" button that automatically adds non-steam games into the client with cover picture and all. Pretty cool stuff.
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