Playing

When you press Play on an installed game, the game takes over the whole window. On the start screen, in the pause menu and at the end, a bar at the top shows the game's name, the reminder "Esc: pause and menu · F11: full screen" and the Leave the game button, which takes you back to the Library. While you play, the bar is hidden: it comes back when you pause.

Start screen#

Before each match you choose how to play.

1. Pick the difficulty: Easy, Normal or Hard. Each game decides what changes between them.
2. If the game supports more than one player, pick the mode: Solo or With bots.
3. If the game is for several people on the same computer, pick how many under Players on this device. See Several players on the same computer.
4. Press Play.

Below are your best marks on the chosen difficulty and the Controls drop-down.

Solo or with bots#

In With bots, the game fills the match with other players that it drives itself. They are not people: everything happens on your computer.

The mode selector only appears in games that support more than one player, such as Green Light Circuit and Red Light, Green Light.

During the match#

What you see on screen (counters, stopwatch, messages) is put there by each game. At the top right there are always three buttons: sound, full screen and pause.

The controls are in Controls.

Pause#

Esc or the pause button stops the match and opens the menu:

Below is the Controls table with what each key, touch button and gamepad button does in that game.

Open world#

Launcher 0.4.0 opens open-world games: worlds of cubes that build themselves, where you break and place blocks. It ships one, Open Valley.

Open Valley opens its own menu when the match starts, to pick the mode:

During the match, the second action (Q, which this game names "Menu / down") opens the game's menu, which is not the pause menu of Esc:

With a gamepad, you move through both menus with the D-pad and select with A, the same way as in the Library. The buttons to break, place and pick a block are in Controls.

What you build stays on disk, together with the rest of the game's progress: History and progress. An open-world match you leave halfway adds to Time played and not to Games finished.

Several players on the same computer#

A game can declare that it is played by several people on the same computer, from 1 to 4. The launcher says so on the game card, in the On this computer row:

The number and the way the screen is shared are decided by the game.

Choosing how many play#

1. Open the game. The start screen shows Players on this device, with the buttons 1, 2, 3 and 4.
2. Pick how many people are going to play.
3. Press Play.

Below the buttons, the panel explains how the controls are shared: "With gamepads, one each. Without gamepads, two people share the keyboard: one uses W A S D with Space, E and Q; the other, the arrow keys with right Shift, Enter and right Control."

Gamepads and a shared keyboard#

• With gamepads for everyone: one each, up to four. The launcher hands the game every connected gamepad.
• If there are not enough gamepads: the first players use the keyboard. Two people fit on the keyboard, each with their own half.
• With three or four people you need gamepads for the ones who do not fit on the keyboard. If one is missing, the match says so: "Connect a gamepad for player 3".

There is a single pause for everyone: Esc stops the whole match.

Online: not available yet#

Launcher 0.4.0 has no online matches with other people. There are no rooms, and no button that leads to one.

If a game declares that it supports online matches, its game card says so in the Online row: "Not available yet: online rooms are not open". A game's description may mention the online mode because the game is prepared for it; today that game is played solo, with bots or by several people on the same computer.

What is missing: Roadmap.

End of the match#

When the game ends, the end panel appears:

• The result: Victory, Defeat or Match over.
• Your mark, labeled Score or Time depending on how the game is measured. Up to 0.3.0 that label repeated the name of the table.
• New record, or "Rank N on your board" if the mark made it into the best ones.
• Play again, Change difficulty and Exit.
• The table of best marks on that difficulty.

What it looks like: Import a .ggx. Each table keeps ten marks per difficulty and is local: History and progress.

Full screen#

F11 toggles full screen at any time. The game's full screen button works too.

To make every game open that way, check Play in full screen in Settings.

Language, volume and name#

The game uses the language, the volume and the name you have in Settings. The name is the one that shows on your tables.

Next#

• Controls
• Import a .ggx
• History and progress