Launching Godot Games on Steam Deck from the command line via Remote Shell
For some reason, my Godot game would no longer launch on the Steam Deck. I could hear it running as if it were running in the background, but the screen kept showing the Steam Deck’s UI.
Since it’s all Linux I figured it should be possible to just drop to the command line and launch a game from there. Linux typically uses the DISPLAY environment variable to tell the application where its output should be shown. And it turns out, it worked exactly as expected.
In the Steam Devkit Management Tool, there’s a
Remote Shell
button.
Once the shell is launched, I was curious about the OS:
Last login: Sun Jul 3113:40:302022 from 10.10.1.10(deck@steamdeck ~)$ uname -aLinux steamdeck 5.13.0-valve15-1-neptune-02197-gf6ec7ad3762a #1SMPPREEMPT Thu, 26 May 202219:57:25+0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
The location where Steam keeps its games is somewhat hidden:
(deck@steamdeck ~)$ls /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/ Age2HD RiME'BattleBlock Theater'RimWorldCarrion rocketleagueControl'Sea of Thieves''Deep Rock Galactic'"Sid Meier's Civilization V"'Disco Elysium''Skyrim Special Edition'"Don't Starve Together"'Stardew Valley''Elite Dangerous''Steam Controller Configs''Fable Anniversary'Steam.dllFactorioSteamLinuxRuntime'Fury Unleashed'SteamLinuxRuntime_soldier'Neon Abyss''Steamworks Shared'OutwardStickFightTheGame'Proton 7.0''Super Meat Boy''Proton - Experimental'TerrariaRBSValheim'Red Dead Redemption 2'
But a devkit game won’t be found there. It’s in the “devkit-game” directory instead:
And it’s running. Launching games via the command line works well, and this may be great for debugging slightly more complex issues during launch, especially when attaching a debugger, or even when passing arguments to trigger specific scenarios on an actual device.
We can take this up to another level. How about sharing your PC’s mouse and keyboard with the Steam Deck? Let’s go.
I use an app called barrier. It allows you to share your mouse and keyboard with multiple devices. I use it, because I tend to have my laptop and Macbook sitting next to my PC, and it makes working across all devices very convenient. It’s a mix of a multi-monitor and multi-computer setup. Concept Your …
The Terrain3D addon for Godot lets you create and manage 3D terrains within Godot. It looks quite promising for making landscapes, hills, valleys, and other natural environments. The addon provides tools for sculpting the terrain, and you can paint different textures like grass, dirt, or rock, and blend them smoothly. It also supports features like …
Years ago I purchased a game dev bundle on HumbleBundle. Part of that was a sound library called Pro Sound Collection. It’s pretty comprehensive, whether RPG or FPS, there are sounds for a ton of use cases. I might as well use them for something. Luckily for me, the sound collection is pretty well organized. …
A little while ago, I created a type of AudioManager to make it easier to work with sound files in bulk: Rather than assigning audio streams by hand, I was doing it programmatically; reading the contents of a directory and using load() to get the resources. It worked great and saved a lot of time …
Launching Godot Games on Steam Deck from the command line via Remote Shell
For some reason, my Godot game would no longer launch on the Steam Deck. I could hear it running as if it were running in the background, but the screen kept showing the Steam Deck’s UI.
Since it’s all Linux I figured it should be possible to just drop to the command line and launch a game from there. Linux typically uses the DISPLAY environment variable to tell the application where its output should be shown. And it turns out, it worked exactly as expected.
In the Steam Devkit Management Tool, there’s a
Remote Shellbutton.Once the shell is launched, I was curious about the OS:
The location where Steam keeps its games is somewhat hidden:
But a devkit game won’t be found there. It’s in the “devkit-game” directory instead:
To run a game, go to the devkit directory where your game is and run it from the command line:
In Linux, output goes to the device specified via the DISPLAY env var. When connecting to the Steam Deck via shell, that is missing, hence the error.
Let’s run it again, with the DISPLAY environment variable set to the first device:
And it’s running. Launching games via the command line works well, and this may be great for debugging slightly more complex issues during launch, especially when attaching a debugger, or even when passing arguments to trigger specific scenarios on an actual device.
We can take this up to another level. How about sharing your PC’s mouse and keyboard with the Steam Deck? Let’s go.
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The Terrain3D addon for Godot lets you create and manage 3D terrains within Godot. It looks quite promising for making landscapes, hills, valleys, and other natural environments. The addon provides tools for sculpting the terrain, and you can paint different textures like grass, dirt, or rock, and blend them smoothly. It also supports features like …
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