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./play.it is a libre software that automates the build of native packages for multiple distributions, including Debian and its derivatives, from DRM-free installers for commercial games. The generated packages are then installed using the standard tools provided by the distribution, like APT (or dpkg).
Native Linux games are supported, as well as games developed for other systems thanks to tools like Wine, DOSBox and ScummVM.
Contents
Installation
The following packages are all provided in the contrib section of Debian repositories:
play.it is required to use the core features of ./play.it;
play.it-adventure adds support for a collection of adventure games;
play.it-puzzle adds support for a collection of puzzle games;
play.it-strategy adds support for a collection of strategy games;
play.it-community adds support for a collection of games in multiple genres;
play.it-vv221 adds support for the favourite games of ./play.it author.
You can install ./play.it and all packaged collections at once with:
apt install --install-recommends play.it
Recent releases of ./play.it on Debian stable
The most recent releases of ./play.it and ./play.it collections can always be installed on Debian stable (and older Debian branches) using the upstream APT repository.
Usage
Assuming your game installer is called setup.exe, using ./play.it to install a game is a two-steps process:
Run ./play.it by giving it the path to the game installer:
play.it ~/Downloads/setup.exe
Run the apt command provided at the end of the process as root (or dpkg command on old Debian versions), it should be something similar to:
apt install /home/user/Downloads/game.deb /home/user/Downloads/game-data.deb
Common problems
Install i386 packages on a amd64 system
On a default amd64 setup, i386 packages can not be installed.
The following commands, that need to be run with the root account, allow the installation of i386 packages with their dependencies:
dpkg --add-architecture i386 apt update apt install libc6:i386
This needs to be done only once per system, after that all i386 packages should be installable.
See the following article for more details: Multiarch/HOWTO.
Find packages generated by ./play.it amongst installed ones
If you install many games over the time, you might lost count of the ones installed through ./play.it. The following command should help in finding them:
apt list '?obsolete?section(games)'
It does not list only ./play.it-generated packages, but includes all installed packages for games that are not available in any current APT repository. That list usually includes mostly games installed through packages generated by either ./play.it or game-data-packager.
Packages from that list can be uninstalled with apt, like any other regular package:
apt remove alpha-centauri alpha-centauri-movies alpha-centauri-data
Contact
Contact information can be found here.