Hi! I'm trying to play this game on the Steam Deck by adding it as a shortcut in Steam and using Proton (it's the most straightforward way to run Windows games on SteamOS). Unfortunately, the itch version of the game gets confused by this, and tries to invoke the Steam version instead, which just opens the Steam store page since I don't own it there. Is there a workaround, or a fix you can make?
Thanks in advance! The web demo plays very well, by the way :)
Hi there. I know this is very late, but I'll put the explanation here for others! We're not directly supporting that route, Steam Deck via Itch. What I can say is that the steam_appid.txt file is what should stop the game attempting to connect to steam - if detected where the executable runs (i.e. in the same folder) and with the value inside it present. I'm not sure how that interacts with Proton, I'm afraid, but it might be worth looking at where Proton thinks it is running and ensuring the file is in the same place!
Haha, thanks for the reply! That was one of the first things I tried, but renaming steam_appid.txt didn't change anything. I decided to take another look just now, though; turns out what does it is the presence of Steam.exe in `C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam` under the Wine prefix, regardless of how you actually launch the game! Steam will always copy some stub binaries there if you use it to start a game with Proton.
Fortunately, the workaround is still pretty simple:
Amusingly, if you leave steam_appid.txt intact in the game's folder, Steam will pick up on it and appear to behave like you're playing the Steam version, with an entry for it in your library that says "Running" and everything! It doesn't magically give you a Steam copy or even change anything in the game itself at all (there are no achievements, it doesn't change your Steam profile, and the game's library page has a "Purchase" button instead of "Play"), but it is funny nonetheless. Steam is an intricate beast for sure.
Edit: So it turns out leaving the appid file has another side effect, but only in the Deck UI (and possibly standard Big Picture on other devices, I haven't checked): the controller uses the input scheme that is set for the Steam version of SOLAS, not the non-Steam shortcut. Unfortunately, if you don't own the game on Steam, Steam won't let you modify the controller config for that version (you can access the config screen in the Deck UI, but any change you try to make is silently discarded). Woops!