Steam Deck and SteamOS
Bizmuth runs on a Steam Deck as a non-Steam game, from the Linux AppImage. Two library entries suit most people: one to play with, one to develop against. Both point at the same file and differ only in their launch options.
Library entries
| Entry | Launch options | Gives |
|---|---|---|
Bizmuth | --player | full screen, no menu bar, toolbar or status bar; the controller overlay is the only chrome |
Bizmuth (dev) | --debug-protocol both | the ordinary window, with DZRP on port 11000 and ADP on 11001; see ADP and DeZog |
Add the AppImage with Add a Non-Steam Game in Desktop Mode, then set each entry’s launch options in its Properties:
Bizmuth-1.0.0-beta2-x86_64.AppImage --player--player writes nothing back to the config, so the dev entry and the desktop keep their own window and view settings. --debug-protocol applies to the run it is given for.
Neither entry names a machine or an SD card. Whichever runs first and finds no ROMs offers first-run setup, from the overlay as well as from the window, and both entries then use the folder it chose.
The AppImage needs no extra flag on SteamOS. SteamOS carries the FUSE 2 library an AppImage mounts itself with, so --appimage-extract-and-run is not wanted, and it unpacks 43 MB into /tmp on every launch.
Controller overlay
Hold View (⧉) for half a second to open or close the overlay. The D-pad or left stick moves the selection, A chooses and B goes back. Its contents are on Controller Overlay.
Steam Input
Set each entry’s controller layout to a gamepad template. A non-Steam game gets whatever layout Steam chooses, and a desktop or keyboard layout presents key presses instead of a gamepad: Bizmuth then sees no pad, the overlay cannot be opened and the joystick does not move.
With a gamepad template, Steam presents the Deck’s controls as an Xbox 360 pad, which is the pad Bizmuth reads. View on the Deck is that pad’s Back button, which the overlay listens for. Steam keeps the STEAM and … buttons for itself; the overlay uses neither.
Icon and artwork
A non-Steam entry’s icon is set from its Properties in Desktop Mode. Steam rewrites its shortcut list from memory when it exits, so an icon written into shortcuts.vdf while Steam runs is lost.
Library artwork is read from Steam’s userdata/USER/config/grid/ folder, named by the entry’s app id: ID.png (920×430), IDp.png (600×900), ID_hero.png (1920×620), ID_logo.png and ID_icon.png. The id is the unsigned form of the signed number shortcuts.vdf stores, so -1754415742 is 2540551554.
⚠ Leave out ID_logo.png when the hero image already shows the icon. Steam draws the logo over the hero, and the icon then appears twice.