Sure, we can give it a try. Any progress on this front should lead to an update of this page on our forge: New game: Europa Universalis 2

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Ghost Master is already supported by ./play.it ;)

Your little fraudfest doesn't support anything

Wow, you mean we spent years working on a software that does not actually work? Thanks for opening my eyes, I will have to tell that to all of our contributors and users so they stop wasting time pretending to play games they could not have installed in the first place. I guess you should tell Debian to stop packaging it too, to avoid more people falling in this trap…

Anyway, please keep up with what you are doing, it is always pleasing to see we’re now serious enough to get haters ;)

...

Game updates

• Kerbal Space Program
    - Add support for new archive providing game version 1.10.1:
        * kerbal_space_program_1_10_0_02917_39410.sh

• Theme Hospital
    - Fix ability to run the game through CorsixTH on Gentoo.

• Thief 3: Deadly Shadows
    - Include an icon used by the game entry in menus.
    - Add support for new archive:
        * setup_thief_-_deadly_shadows_1.1_(21683).exe
            + setup_thief_-_deadly_shadows_1.1_(21683)-1.bin

• Diablo
    - Add support for DevilutionX 1.1.0.

• Stellaris
    - Add support for new archives providing game version 2.7.2 for:
        * Apocalypse
        * Lithoids Species Pack
    - Add support for new archives providing game version 2.8.0.3 for:
        * base game
        * Ancient Relics Story Pack
        * Anniversary Portraits
        * Apocalypse
        * Arachnoid Portrait Pack
        * Distant Stars Story Pack
        * Horizon Signal
        * Humanoids Species Pack
        * Leviathans Story Pack
        * Lithoids Species Pack
        * Plantoids Species Pack
        * Synthetic Dawn Story Pack
        * Utopia

• Terraria
    - Add support for new archives providing game version 1.4.1:
        * terraria_v1_4_1_0_41944.sh
        * terraria_v1_4_1_1_41975.sh

New game

• SHENZHEN I/O

Hey everyone!

./play.it had the release of its new bugfix release 2.12.1 on the 25th of November 2020. This version is already available for Debian Sid or Arch Linux users (through AUR for this last one), others are invited to check the ./play.it Repology page to know which version is available in their distribution repositories and contact their maintainer if required.

To numbers lovers, this update brings support for roughly 80 new games since the previous 2.12.0 release, and updates related to a little less than 200 other games. I do not have the motivation to list all of them (you will have to wait until the more complete announcement for our future 2.13 release), but amongst my favourites we now have support for Factorio, Spring Falls and The Pedestrian.

Changelog

This new release brings no new feature, its objective being to reduce the amount of bugs and counter-intuitive behaviours that we let slip until now. Actually this update go as far as dropping a new feature (selected files extraction from .zip archives), that did not get enough testing and caused too much issues. This probably is a good occasion to remind you that we depend on our users to report issues with our stable versions (this part actually is done quite well already) and to test our release candidates before the actual releases. On this last part, I’m more than often quite alone…

So, let us have a look at the list of fixes and improvements coming with this new version:

• Wrapper fixes:
    • Fix script detection from archive name
• Archive-related fixes:
    • .zip archives: Drop selected files extraction using unzip
• Package-related improvements:
    • Arch Linux: Use multithreaded xz compression by default
    • Arch Linux: Fix packages building failure when using --output-dir with a relative path
    • Arch Linux: Generate a .MTREE metadata file
    • Debian: Improve APT version detection
• Dependencies-related improvements:
    • Show a more explicit message if icotool or wrestool is required but missing
• Launchers-related fixes:
    • Avoid broken .desktop Exec field when using spaces in the install prefix
• Icons-related fixes:
    • Fix icons_move_to failure when targeting a non-empty directory
• Codebase improvements:
    • Drop the dependency on hostname
    • Unset variables that we do not want to import from the user environment

original changelog, on our forge

MiniDebConf Online #2 "Gaming Edition"

During the preparation of this new version, we got invited to give a presentation of ./play.it to the MiniDebConf Online #2 "Gaming Edition", an English talks session proposed by the Debian team, with a thematics around video games for this edition. After a bit of stress at the idea of a fully online talk (we are quite used to talks in front of a full room of fine people, or an almost full one… well, OK, at least 2 or 3 people physically in front of us) and in English (most of us are not native English speakers), we gave a 20 minutes presentation with Mopi. The recording can be found online for those who missed it: ./play.it, a packages generator for DRM-free games, on Debian Peertube instance.

If you happen to have difficulties listening to English without a written support you can download the speaker script on ./play.it forge. Any translation proposal is of course most welcome ;)

Whatʼs next?

Our objective is to support 100% of video games distributed with no DRM, and there is still a little bit of work on this front, so we do not take a break and work already begun on the next bugfix release 2.12.2, and the more impactful 2.13.0 feature release. Aside from these we have a couple big tasks that are not yet assigned to a specific release, including CD-ROM support, improved support for Unity3D games and the ability to generate Flatpak.

Please join us if any of these topics is something you would like to see added to ./play.it soon ;)

Until then, enjoy this new release guaranteed without bugs, uh… with less bugs than the previous one, and remember that DRM are a nuisance that should never be tolerated in any way or form!

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Original announcement, on our blog

Will CD-ROM support pave the way somewhat for me to import my StarCraft and Diablo II discs?
(Hmm... I don't remember if they are protected somehow)

Short answer: Yes ;)

Long answer: I already have .deb packages for both games, but they are built from the old installers Blizzard used to provide before they linked all games to their Steam-like mandatory downloader/launcher. I still have Diablo Ⅱ CD-ROM too here (multiple copies of each actually) so it is part of my plan once we have working CD-ROM support. StarCraft on the other hand, I do not think I ever got my hands on a CD-ROM for this one, but it should not prevent adding support for it.

About the copy protection, it was active in old versions of these games, but at least for Diablo Ⅱ is removed with an official update. ./play.it will probably do nothing about copy protection, meaning that games that used to expect the CD-ROM in the drive will still expect it when installed via ./play.it.

I too have two copies of each, and I wanted to try some network play.
Sadly, my optical drives are failing and I don't run Windows anymore. I have a significant pile of disks I wanted to play still, but would prefer if my next machine was not encumbered by large drives. So if I could dump ISOs there it would be nice.
Sadly, my amateur and naive attempt was foiled by copy protection!

Game fixes

- Wing Commander 2: Fix work-around for intro stuck on first speech

Game updates

- Crypt of the NecroDancer: Add support for GLFW 2.x → 3.x wrapper
- Cryptark: Use system-provided Mono runtime
- Cultist Simulator: New installers supported
- Deponia: Drop dependencies on obsolete ffmpeg libraries
- Opus Magnum: Use system-provided Mono runtime

Game fixes and updates

- Caesar 3: Enforce minimal permissions on Julius binary
- Terraria: Use system-provided Mono runtime
- Into the Breach: Add support for gog.com installer

New game

- Man O' War: Corsair - Warhammer Naval Battles

HO thanks, another good game playable on Linux.
and my thanks don't go to the developers of Evil Twin Artworks!

Thank you vv221 you've invested a lot for us again :-D

You mean this studio who decided that a Linux version is better as a Steam exclusive?

To be fair I got Man O' War: Corsair for free, developers/editors who pull this kind of trick do not deserve my money. I'm looking at you THQ Nordic, and your bullshit move of making the Linux version of Desperados 3 a Steam exclusive!

Ho !!!
The Linux version of Steam is Native?
I thought it wasn't on GOG out of laziness, because of a Protonic version that worked well for Linux players on Steam?
And Desperados 3 is the same ?
It's worrying, GOG doesn't care about us, and Steam absolutely wants us back.