Gameflow Deck

A Cross-Platform Retro gaming frontend designed for handheld and controllers. Focused on building a simple user experience and intuitive UI.

Warning

This app is actively in development, it doesn't have most of its critical features implemented yet. It will have an opinionated design and will be used as an experiment in discovering a good UX.

Features

• Cross Platform: Can run on multiple platforms. Built with web technologies and bun backend.
• Romm Support: Has integration with romm.
• Lightweight: It uses the existing system browser to launch the front end, so no need to include a whole web browser.
  • On Windows it first uses webview2 then your browser
  • On linux it uses WebKitGTK or a browser even from flatpak
  • Not tested on Mac yet
• Steam Deck Support: Extensively tested with the steam deck. It can use flatpak installed browsers.
  • Automatic Keyboard prompts
• Great for Controllers: The UI is inspired by the switch and works great with joysticks and dpads.
• Automatic Download Downloads roms from ROMM automatically
• Automatic Emulator Discovery Using the configs of the excellent ES-DE to discover installed emulators and launch games.
  • Easy fallback configuration with built in file browser.
• Responsive Layout Optimized mainly for the steam deck with responsive layout support and dynamic switching of inputs.

Screenshots

Goals

I want to build an open and free platform where you can play and discover new hidden gems from the past. I plan to add a free store where you can download all your needed emulators, the goal is to not have to leave the UI for anything. I really want to add matrix chat support in the app for engaging with your favorite community. Having access to so many nodejs libraries would make it quite straight forward.

Development

1. Install dependencies:

   bun install
   

2. Run in development mode:

   # Use 'bun run dev:hmr' for hot reload
   bun run dev
   

3. Build for production:

   bun run build:prod
   

   Builds will go in /builds/<platform>.

4. Additional Commands:

   • bun run mappings:generate converts the es-de configs into local sqlite configs with mappings to rom systems
   • bun run drizzle:generate generates sqlite migrations based on the app schema
   • bun run openapi-ts generated the openapi client calls from romm's API
   • bun run package:windows builds an package to be distributed on windows
   • bun run package:linux builds an AppImage to be distributed on linux

Tech Stack

• Bun for the backend
• React for the frontend
• tailwindcss for styling
• daisyUI for base theme
• Vite for building the frontend
• Tanstack router and query for navigation and data
• elysia for the APIs
• webview for launching existing system webviews instead of full browser if possible.