# Gamecenter track (Launcher + Game Center)

## Goal

The gamecenter track evolves A-La-Karte from “a launcher” into “a launcher + game center” suitable for a **fully integrated, console-like experience on KDE**.

Key ideas:

- The UI becomes a client of background services.
- Launching and monitoring games is handled by a daemon.
- Runner resolution (Wine/Proton) is handled by a runner manager service.

## Architecture (high level)

### UI (A-La-Karte)

- Displays the library and settings.
- Requests launches via the Game Center daemon instead of launching processes directly.
- Surfaces daemon/service errors to the user.

### Game Center daemon

- Manages game sessions (launch/stop, running state, concurrency policy).
- Tracks/monitors sessions so Steam/Lutris URL-based launches can still be managed.
- Intended to be activatable via DBus/systemd.

DBus service (planned/implemented on the gamecenter branch):

- `org.kde.GameCenter1`

### Runner manager daemon

- Manages “runners” (e.g. Proton, Wine, GE builds):
  - install/uninstall
  - inventory listing
  - resolve launch specs deterministically
  - prefix lifecycle helpers

DBus service (planned/implemented on the gamecenter branch):

- `org.kde.ALaKarte.Runner1`

## Branches

- `master` / `legacy`
  - Launcher-focused baseline.
- `gamecenter`
  - Experimental daemon-based direction.

## Status

This document is intentionally a living overview. Detailed API docs / roadmaps should live in separate documents as they solidify.