Auster

Is your drive where you install games automatically mounted by the system? In case something changed in your system, does it have the same path as Steam expects it to? And is the drive a separated storage? And though it may sound like a stupid question, I think it's important to ask also, are you sure it's on the storage you think it is?

Iirc, it's a quote from iCarly, but I remember a character that is the archetype of being dumb and brute saying in awe, after reading a book, that "it's like a TV in your head", or something of the sort.

But worth noting places like Lemmy and Mbin support images too.

I think that, while, yes, fragmentation hinders a system, it is also its saving grace, as it also stops a given family of systems from growing into what made the competition problematic.

Taking the Program Files folders as example, they have limited read/write permissions on Windows, so whenever possible, I try to install them onto a folder I make in the root of C:. But more and more, since at the very least Windows XP from what I could observe, Microsoft is training users into using only the users folder, and less and less programs give an option to install elsewhere, installing only on the Program Files folder instead. Meanwhile, on Linux Mint (my distro of choice), if AppImage (my to go medium of programs) isn't working well, I can always fallback to other means, such APT directly or downloading its .deb files then extracting them, getting from flatpak, compiling it myself, building a custom AppImage, running on a VM or emulator, or in the worst possibility, I make a dual boot between Mint and some other distro.

Also, although there are many package managers, from my experience, they usually work similarly. Some changes in syntax, options and names, but nothing outlandish. It would be, I think, like someone learning a close language to his/her mother tongue. And from experience, you can even organize installations in a more standardized way, although it will take some effort from your part to figure out how, since some adaptations may be needed (java 8 and sdl ptsd intensify).

And lastly, from what I can observe, stuff in Linux more often than not share logic or even methods with a lot other stuff in the system. Dunno if it's a bit of a bias of someone that's using Linux for a few years already, but the fragmentation usually feels superficial to me, with distros being more tweaks of the ones they stem from, and major changes being better observable when distros are sufficiently far apart.

If they use Android, perhaps the user could swap the system for a pro-privacy distro and never turn on internet, bluetooth and GPS?

None - all are multi-platform.

Deep Down Dungeons, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Quest of Dungeons and Tyrant's Blessing are turb-based RPGs, and Tyrant's Blessing specifically is a tactical RPG.

My recommendations:

• Anodyne (Google Play | Humble Bundle | Humble Widgets)
• Chloe Playtime (Amazon Appstore | Google Play)
• Codemancer (Itchio | Itchio)
• Dandara (Google Play)
• Deep Down Dungeons (Google Play)
• Defense Zone 2 (Amazon Appstore | Google Play)
• Downwell (Google Play)
• Final Fantasy VI (Amazon Appstore | Google Play)
• Final Fantasy VII (Google Play)
• Ittle Dew (Google Play | Humble Bundle | Humble Widgets)
• Jack Quest (Google Play)
• Lost in Dungeon (Google Play | Itchio)
• LYNE (Google Play | Humble Bundle | Humble Widgets | Itchio)
• Metal Slug (Amazon Appstore | Google Play)
• Metal Slug 2 (Amazon Appstore | Google Play)
• Metal Slug 3 (Amazon Appstore | Google Play)
• Metal Slug 4 (Google Play)
• Metal Slug X (Amazon Appstore | Google Play)
• Quest of Dungeons (Amazon Appstore | Google Play | Humble Bundle | Humble Widgets | Itchio)
• Tallowmere (Google Play | Itchio | Steam (free DLC for paid game; comes with an APK))
• The Liar Princess and The Blind Prince (Google Play)
• Tyrant's Blessing (Google Play)
• VVVVVV (Google Play | Itchio | GitHub (though code is FOSS, assets aren't and you get from the paid version))

Didn't quite follow 3DS emulation development, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it would seem mostly done. Only StreetPass and multiplayer seem to be a question mark currently.

Afaik, without power being a concern, pretty much anything until the PS3 that ever got an emulator for it, no matter whichever "host system" (borrowing VM thermology) it got released for, can be emulated on modern computers and systems.

Biggest caveats I can think of would be the options available, and how to run them.

For example, I try to avoid Retroarch when possible, since, to me, too many systems in one interface are a limiting factor, but the only stand-alone emulator that can decently run (imo) the Metal Slug games, of which I love, was some old Windows build of an arcade emulator, so I have to run it within Wine. Similarly, if you wish to run Java Phone games, afaik, you need to run them on a Java Phone emulator for the PSP within PPSSPP.

And on another example, PC-98 emulation is usually accessible only through Retroarch, but it doesn't seem to be able to mount multiple disks at the same time, and some games need that, so, from what I could find, either you need to figure out how to use DOSBox-X as a PC-98 machine, or you need to figure out how to compile Neko Project II Kai for recent systems.

Old PC games that require Windows' hardware acceleration and/or 3D libraries may also be problematic to run due to VMs' development for old system being rather slow. Android also seems to be finicky, with either emulators being full of ads, privacy issues, moody compatibility with proper VM softwares, or taking a comically large space in Android SDK's in-built emulator.

And progress on emulators for newer systems such as PS Vita, PS4 and Xbox One are slow, progress for Switch appears to be halted thanks to Nintendo, and heard iOS emulation is possible but it is still elusive to me.

So, to sum up, most of the times, even if with varying results, from what I tested and from what I saw being reported, most systems can be run, but may take some case-by-case setting up and testing.

If you want to gradually move away from closed and/or paid software, afaik, the only way is through unlocking the bootloader and uninstalling programs through there.

Alternatively, there is the nuclear option, to replace the whole system, and start from zero with a distro as close as possible from AOSP. Worth noting it also requires unlocking the bootloader.

About the tool, thanks. I'll keep it in mind.

About Heroic, it allows installing several versions of a few forks of Wine, Proton and Proton-GE included, and it's installed on a folder specific from Heroic, instead of installing on the whole system.

Alternatively, or perhaps even concurrently, you can have a Proton instance without having Steam installed. Dunno how it works on Lutris, but besides being able to install Proton manually, you should also be able to install a few different versions of it through Heroic too. Dunno other means for that but probably are.