The launcher for players

This page describes what your players see and do in the launcher.

Signing in#

If Players must sign in to use the launcher is on in your launcher design (the default), the launcher opens on a sign-in screen in your design. Players sign in with the email and password they set on your player portal. Accounts belong to your studio: the same email at another studio is a different account.

Under the sign-in form, the launcher offers:

• Create an account, when Open sign-up is on under Players (see how players get an account). It opens the sign-up page of your player portal in the player's browser; after confirming their email, the player signs in to the launcher. When sign-up is by invite only, the launcher says instead that players should ask your studio for an invite.
• Forgot password?, always. It opens your portal's password reset page in the browser.

Both open your portal on app.deltaship.dev (not a custom portal domain), after the player confirms. A change to the sign-up setting reaches launchers within a minute, without publishing again. When the launcher is offline, neither link shows.

The launcher keeps players signed in and renews their session in the background. If they sign out, or you disable them, they sign in again next time.

The library#

The library lists your games. For the selected game, the main button reads Install, Update or Play. While installing or updating it shows progress, speed and time left, with Pause, Resume and Cancel.

If the game has more than one channel, players can switch between them, for example between Release and Beta.

In the Vanguard design#

If your launcher uses the Vanguard preset, the library is a shelf of large game tiles over your key art, and Play (or the download progress, with Pause and Cancel) sits in the bar along the bottom with the channel switch and the status line. Patch notes and news are in a panel at the side.

Players can use the arrow keys like a controller's d-pad: left and right move along the shelf or the bottom bar, up and down move between the top bar, the shelf and the bottom bar, and moving past the last game opens the news panel. Enter selects. In Arabic, left and right are swapped to follow the reading direction. The mouse, the Tab key and screen readers work as usual. Sign-in, settings and the update-required screen use the same full-screen style with large buttons, and the arrow keys work there too: up and down move through the page, and in a text field left and right move the cursor.

Settings#

The settings screen, from the library sidebar, has:

• Install location and the free space on that drive. The location can be changed before a game is installed. To move an installed game, uninstall it and install it again.
• Channel, when there is more than one.
• Verify and repair: checks every file against the release and downloads again only what is damaged or missing. From launcher 0.5.1, when it ends, the launcher says what it found: "All files verified", or how many files it repaired; it also keeps the last result, so players and support staff can see when the files were last checked. Verify and repair is always here, whatever your launcher's layout shows.
• Uninstall, after a confirmation. The game's files are removed; saves and settings the game wrote to its folder are kept.
• Downloads and Game updates. See Downloads and updates.
• Language, when your studio offers more than one. See Languages.
• Sound, when your launcher has sound. See Sound.
• Sign out.
• The launcher version, Check for updates, and links to your support page and studio links.

Downloads and updates#

• Download speed limit: no limit (the default), 1, 5, 10, 25 or 50 MB/s, or a custom value from 0.1 to 1,000 MB/s. The limit covers everything the launcher downloads at once, and a change applies straight away, including to a download in progress.
• Game updates: Update automatically (the default) or Ask me. - With Update automatically, the launcher downloads updates in the background while it has nothing else to do. It looks shortly after it starts, then every 30 minutes. - It never updates while a game it started is running. An automatic update that is under way pauses when the game starts ("Paused while you play") and carries on when the game closes. - A download the player started is not paused. - With Ask me, nothing downloads until the player presses Update.
• Advanced, Downloads at once: 2, 4 (the default) or 8. More can be faster on a fast connection; fewer leaves more of it for other apps.

These settings are kept for each user account on the computer. Patches stay small either way: only what changed is downloaded, and every download is verified before it is used.

The launcher only knows about games it started itself. A game started some other way, for example from its folder, does not hold back automatic updates.

Sound#

From launcher 0.8.0, your launcher can have interface sounds (short, quiet clicks when players point at and press buttons, and a sound for Play) and music, if you turn them on in your launcher design. Without them, the launcher is silent and players see none of the controls below.

• Nothing plays until the player turns it on. The first time the launcher opens with sound, a small notice asks "This launcher has sound. Turn it on?" with On and Not now. It does not block anything, and it does not come back once answered. Until the player chooses On, no sound is downloaded.
• The speaker button in the title bar turns all sound on and off at any time, on every screen. Players can reach it with the mouse, the Tab key or the arrow keys, and the M key does the same (except while typing in a field).
• Settings, Sound: Interface sounds and Music switches, and a Music volume slider, each shown only when your launcher has that kind of sound.
• Music fades in, loops, and fades out while a game the launcher started is running, while the launcher is minimised or hidden, and when the player turns sound off. When you give a game its own music, the music changes as players switch games.

These choices are kept for each user account on the computer.

In the Nova design#

If your launcher uses the Nova preset, the library is a panel at the side, news and patch notes float on the other side, and Play (or the download progress, with Pause and Cancel) sits in a dock under the game's title with the status line and your studio links. Everything works with the mouse, the Tab key and screen readers; the up and down arrow keys also move through the library and into the dock. On systems set to reduce transparency or motion, the panels turn solid and nothing animates.

Languages#

The launcher is available in English, Arabic, Spanish, French, German and Brazilian Portuguese. It opens in the language of the player's computer when that language is available, and players can pick another one under Settings, Language. Their pick is kept on that computer. Other Portuguese variants use Brazilian Portuguese.

Right-to-left#

In Arabic the whole launcher is laid out right to left: the library sits on the right, text aligns to the right, and arrows point the other way. The play button and progress controls keep their usual shapes. Version numbers, sizes, folders and email addresses still read left to right.

What you write stays as written#

The launcher translates its own interface, not your content. Game names, news, maintenance notices and patch notes appear exactly as you wrote them, whatever language the player chose. Each one keeps its own direction, so a post written in Arabic reads correctly in an English launcher, and the other way around.

Choosing languages for your studio#

Your signed launcher configuration can limit which languages players can choose and set the language to use when the player's computer is in a language you do not offer. Without a limit, every supported language is offered and English is the fallback.

Language controls in the launcher builder are coming soon. Until then, every launcher offers all supported languages.

Playing offline#

An installed game can always be played, even with no internet, while your studio is paused, or when the latest release cannot be checked. The launcher says it is offline or temporarily unavailable and keeps Play available.