a-la-karte/docs/GAMECENTER.md

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.