./play.it(6)

📦
version 2.35.2 · 6 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

🌸 ./play.it — the manual, bestie edition 💅

okay so you found the Games Manual page for ./play.it, which is the section 6 manual, and honestly? you're about to have a great time. sit down, hydrate, and let's get into it ✨

👑 NAME

./play.it — an installer for drm-free commercial games. yes, that's the whole vibe. no cap. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS

./play.it [--checksum md5 | none] [--collection-path path]
          [--compression none | speed | size | auto]
          [--config-file path] [--no-free-space-check] [--no-icons]
          [--no-mtree] [--output-dir path] [--overwrite]
          [--package arch | deb | gentoo] [--prefix path]
          [--tmpdir path] archive
./play.it [--collection-path path] [--list-packages]
          [--list-requirements] [--show-game-script] archive
./play.it [--collection-path path] [--list-available-scripts]
          [--list-supported-games] [--version]

like, three whole moods of invocation. pick your fighter 🦋

💖 DESCRIPTION

./play.it is free software that builds native packages out of installers that were made for Windows or Linux — and it's mostly pointed at the ones sold by stores that care about distributing games DRM-free. The whole goal here? A game you installed through ./play.it should be indistinguishable from a game you installed straight from the official repositories of your fave distro. literally the same. periodt. 👑

The games get installed globally on multi-user systems, so you're not out here duplicating the same install seventeen times like a chaos gremlin. 🙈 And the locations for save games, settings, mods, temporary files and backups are all standardized, with XDG Base Directory support. chef's kiss.

Packaging the games also makes your future life soooo much easier: updates, uninstalls, and handling whatever dependencies are needed — including integrated obsolete dependencies, for when a specific version is required. future you says thank you 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS

  • --checksum md5 | none — pick how we verify the archive's integrity.
    • md5 — md5sum verification
    • none — no verification at all, living dangerously 💀
  • --compression none | speed | size | auto — pick the compression method for the generated packages.
    • none — no compression
    • speed — a compression method that prioritizes compression speed
    • size — a compression method that prioritizes size reduction
    • auto — whatever the default compression method on your current system is
  • --prefix path — sets the game installation path.
heads up bestie: this one only accepts an absolute path. no relative nonsense. 💅
  • --package arch | deb | gentoo — choose the type of package we generate.
    • arch — .pkg.tar package (Arch Linux)
    • deb — .deb package (Debian, Ubuntu)
    • gentoo — .gpkg.tar package (Gentoo)
  • --no-icons — do not include game icons. bye icons 🦋
  • --overwrite — replace packages if they already exist. no fear.
  • --output-dir path — set the output directory for the generated packages.
  • --no-mtree — do not create .MTREE files in Arch Linux packages. And why would you want that? Because those files contain a hash of every file in the package, so creating them can be quite long when you're dealing with big games. it's giving slow. 😭
  • --tmpdir path — set the directory used for temporary files storage. The default value is: TMPDIR
  • --no-free-space-check — do not check for free space. (bold!! no guardrails!!)
  • --collection-path path — limit the search for game scripts to a given path.
  • --show-game-script — only display the name of the game script that would be used, without actually running it. just a peek 👀
  • --config-file path — set the configuration file path. The default path is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/play.it/config, or $HOME/.config/play.it/config if XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset. And what lives inside that config file? A list of additional command-line parameters that get passed to ./play.it as if they were given on the command-line. sneaky, iconic.
  • --list-packages — print the list of packages to build.
  • --list-requirements — print the list of commands required to build packages from the given archive.
  • --list-available-scripts — print the list of game scripts available on this system.
  • --list-supported-games — print the list of supported games.
⚠️ Warning: this operation can take several minutes. go make a snack. 🍓

🌈 ENVIRONMENT

  • PLAYIT_LIB2 — if set, this overrides the provided version of libplayit.sh.2 (and its supported games) with a local copy, for development purposes. (default: /usr/lib/play.it/libplayit.sh.2)
  • TMPDIR — the default place where temporary files are processed. (default: /tmp)
  • XDG_CONFIG_HOME — used in the configuration file's default path.

🧚 FILES

  • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/play.it/config — the default path to the configuration file. This file contains a list of additional command-line parameters that will be passed to ./play.it as if they were given on the command-line.

🔥 COMPRESSION

🐧 Arch Linux

When building packages for Arch Linux (with --package arch):

  • --compression speed — use zstd compression with the flag --fast=1.
  • --compression size — use zstd compression with the flag -19.
  • --compression auto — unsupported option. nope. not a thing here. 💀

🍥 Debian

When building packages for Debian (with --package deb):

  • --compression speed — use gzip compression.
  • --compression size — use xz compression.
  • --compression auto — rely on the default dpkg-deb behaviour. That behaviour can be controlled with the environment variables DPKG_DEB_THREADS_MAX, DPKG_DEB_COMPRESSOR_TYPE and DPKG_DEB_COMPRESSOR_LEVEL. See dpkg-deb(1) for more details on how these can be used.

🦋 Gentoo

When building packages for Gentoo (with --package gentoo):

  • --compression speed — use gzip compression.
  • --compression size — use xz compression.

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🫶 this edition of the Games Manual is from the Debian manual source, dated 2025-10-03, and it covers ./play.it(6). go build something iconic. mwah 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from