GameImage - FlatImage Game Packer

GameImage - FlatImage Game Packer

About

https://github.com/ruanformigoni/gameimage/assets/18180693/7690e65a-aed9-4bfa-aa98-3ffd57e20e65

Game emulation is on the rise, with years of contribution from the community and now with Valve's portable handheld, the steam deck. The fragmentation with several platform emulators is daunting, especially since it requires repetitive configuration for the first time or if the config files go missing. GameImage is a tool to pack a runner (such as an emulator), a game, and it's configs in a single flatimage.

Advantages:

[x] Simplicity:
- [x] No need to install an emulator or wine to run your games, they are downloaded as images and packaged with the game.
- [x] Each game config/saves are in the same folder as the flatimage by default, which simplifies backups.
[x] Usability: get your game running with a double click on a fresh linux install, no dependencies required.
[x] Storage: Smaller file sizes than loose files, since the images uses a compressed filesystem.

Supported Package Types

Showcase

Install

Download the latest gameimage.run file in the releases page.

https://github.com/ruanformigoni/gameimage/assets/18180693/208c41dd-2454-484a-a30f-8b711e94b41b

download video

Tutorials

FlatImage

The key advantages of flatimage are:

Flatimage packs everything the application requires to run in a single file.
Subsequently, the generated file works on linux distributions without, expecting any libraries to be available on the host.
Flatimage runs the application on a containerized environment, it only allows the application to access what is necessary for it to work (such as sockets and devices).
Flatimage is read-write, you can create a flatimage that stores your saves in the image itself, that way, instead of having back-up one file (wine+prefix+game data) and one directory (saves), you just have to backup one file. Flatimage grows automatically to accomodate your save data, you can still use the previous method with flatimage, as well as others listed in

Known Issues

General

Avoid using NTFS formatted hard-drives.

Ubuntu 24.04

Recent changes to apparmor broke portable bubblewrap applications such as gameimage, to work around these issues you can use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apparmor-dev/apparmor-sru
sudo apt update
sudo apt install apparmor

Disclaimer: This project does not endorse piracy, buy your games and console to use this software.

ruanformigoni / gameimage

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