./play.it

./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 dpkg or APT.

Native Linux games are supported, as well as games developed for other systems thanks to tools like Wine, DOSBox and ScummVM.

Installation

Debian repositories

play.it is provided in the contrib section of Debian repositories.

Git repository

When installing from git, running make install as the current user installs ./play.it only for the current user, while running it as root installs it system-wide.

You can provide an alternative installation prefix with make -e prefix=/opt/play.it install, default prefix is /usr/local if the command is run as root, $XDG_DATA_HOME otherwise (defaults to $HOME/.local/share if $XDG_DATA_HOME is not set).

Stable version

git clone --branch 2.11.3 --depth 1 https://forge.dotslashplay.it/play.it/scripts.git play.it.git
cd play.it.git
make
make install

Development version

git clone --branch master --depth 1 https://forge.dotslashplay.it/play.it/scripts.git play.it.git
cd play.it.git
make
make install

Usage

Using installed version

Assuming your game installer is called setup.exe, using ./play.it to install a game is a two-steps process:

  1. Run ./play.it by giving it the path to the game installer: play.it ~/Downloads/setup.exe

  2. 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

Using scripts from ./play.it website

/!\ ./play.it can be used without being installed. This is not the recommended method if your distribution provides packages for it.

Up-to-date ./play.it scripts can be download from its website, these are the same that are provided by the master branch of the git repository.

To use these scripts on a system that does not have ./play.it available, follow these steps:

  1. Find your game on the website, go to its page;
  2. Download in a same directory the two files provided on the game page, one is the ./play.it library (libplayit2.sh) and the other a game-specific script (with a name similar to play-game.sh);

  3. Install the scripts dependencies listed on the game page;
  4. Run the game script by giving it the path to your game installer as its argument, this should be something similar to:

    ./play-game.sh ~/Downloads/setup.exe
  5. Wait until the script ends its process by giving you the apt command to run as root to install your game (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

Contact

IRC channel

Some ./play.it developers can be reached on IRC, channel is #play.it on server chat.freenode.net.

E-mail

A contact e-mail for feedback can usually be found in each ./play.it script, as well as the library. Open one of these files with any text editor to see the contact e-mail.