r/desktops • u/uxxai • 20h ago
Windows LaunchMe ā Yet Another Game Launcher [AI/vibecoded, I'm sorry]
Hi. I made a game launcher. Yes, another one. The world needed a 47th, apparently.
Full disclosure: it's vibecoded. I wrote the prompts and the AI wrote most of the code. So yes, it's slop. But it's my slop, I use it every day, and I like it more than I'd like to admit. I know how to code tho.
## What it does
- One library for everything: Steam (with non-Steam shortcuts), GOG, Epic, Battle.net, EA app, Ubisoft Connect, Xbox PC, plus your own random `.exe` / `.lnk` / `.ps1` files
- Steam collections management: create, rename, reorder and add games, and it syncs back to the Steam client. Works offline too.
- Install games straight from the launcher: Steam (with progressbar on the tiles), plus Epic and GOG without their launchers (Legendary / offline installers). Uninstall from the game menu too...
- Pause your games: quick-resume style suspend and resume, console-like experience if you have a lot of RAM (experimental, don't sue me)
- Made for a gamepad, console style: Xbox, DualSense, DS4, Switch Pro, with an on-screen keyboard. Mouse and keyboard work too, and there's a separate windowed desktop mode
- Way too many layouts. Home screens and library views "inspired by" (definitely not stolen from) PS5, Xbox 360 Metro, XMB, Kodi-like, Netflix and others. Library views: grid, list, cinema, coverflow, shelf, and for no good reason also floppy disks, Switch cartridges and NES cartridges
- Artwork from SteamGridDB with OCR auto-crop for rectangle, plus ratings and metadata from Steam and RAWG (optional)
- Emulators: EmuDeck / ES-DE integration, grouped by console
- Glance: Steam news, upcoming releases and updates for games you own
- In-game overlay with FPS / 1% lows from PresentMon (experimental)
- Plugin system with an SDK (HowLongToBeat, etc.)
- An anime AI companion Yes, there's an anime companions that talks about your library, recommends games, roast your backlog and has its own Instagram-style feed. I know. I *know*. It's optional and I won't explain myself.
## Tech
C++20, Win32, Direct2D. No Electron and no HTML, so it doesn't eat 2 GB of RAM to show you 40 covers. That was the only rule I didn't let the AI break.
## The bad parts
- Windows only
- Some files are 2k lines long.
- Some of the docs were written by an LLM *for* an LLM
- Bugs: probably yes
## So...
Does the world really need another launcher? Probably not. Roast me anyway, and I'll probably make the repo public soon.
## EDIT:
Public now, dl, fork or contribute here: uxandai/launchme
Hunting bugs / fixing UI now.
PS long press for context menu, also you can change default behaviour to show details instead of running game directly. Forgot to change it in settings.
