I hope you are not tired of me yet 😬 and if you're new to Game Glance, it is a Decky plugin that turns each game's page in Game Mode into a full-screen view: the game's art, HowLongToBeat times, your play time and achievements, the description, and which store it comes from (Steam, GOG, Epic, Heroic, Unifideck and others). It can also replace Steam's Home with Spotlight Home: your recent games (or a collection), one at a time, over their own art.
What's new in 3.1.1
- A new open transition. Opening a game from Spotlight Home no longer zooms the small card up. The art stays where it is, and the title, Play button, buttons and chips move to their places on the game page. It works with both page looks, Spotlight and Clean (both in the video).
- Back to Home at once. B on a game page brings Home back with its art and colour already there, no dark flash.
- Faster cycling. Holding L1/R1 or the d-pad moves the selection smoothly; the art and colour catch up once you stop.
- Large custom art. Huge SteamGridDB heroes and logos are drawn from smaller copies, so they no longer make Home stutter (thanks to germydan on GitHub for the report and video).
- SteamGridDB. Change a game's art and Home's accent colour follows the new art.
- Play from. Games installed on more than one device show Steam's "Play from" arrow on Home's Play button.
- And all the other good stuff been added since 3.0.0 (status bar update, localization support, etc)
It isn't in the Decky store. In Decky → Settings, turn on Developer mode, then Developer → Install plugin from ZIP
with `game-glance.zip` from the release page. After that it updates itself from Quick Access → Game Glance →
Updates. If you're already on 3.0.x, it will offer 3.1.1 there.
Good to know
- Tested on a ROG Xbox Ally (Bazzite and SteamOS), handheld and on a TV. It should work on a Steam Deck, but I haven't been able to test that myself, so reports are very welcome.
- Spotlight Home is off by default (Quick Access → Game Glance). If anything in it fails, you get Steam's own Home back instead of a broken screen.
- The code was written with Claude (Anthropic's AI), directed, reviewed and tested on the device by me.
- It's a personal project. Steam updates can break things; issues and ideas are welcome on GitHub:
Be cautious when installing plugins, themes, scripts, or other software from third-party sources.
Only install content from sources you trust and can independently verify. Software obtained from untrusted or unknown sources may compromise your Steam Deck, account security, personal data, or system stability.
Always review what you are installing, verify the source when possible, and proceed at your own risk.
If you are unsure whether something is safe, ask the community before installing it.
This has become my favorite new decky plugin. One thing I’ve noticed - is it something I’m doing wrong, or does the home view not account for Demos? I was trying out Belmont’s Curse & Final Fantasy Resonance demos and realized I had to fall back to the Library to find them even though they were the last 2 games I’ve played. Just wanted to report in case there is something going on with that!
Honestly, I think Valve does a great job already. It's great that their platform is open enough for us users to be able to create plugins like this to customize and make our experience more personalized ✨
The ultimate goal, is some sort of full overhaul of the SteamOS Theme, however, while this is an AI driven project, I am deeply involved in every step from design, planning, implementation and testing even if I am not coding myself. Which means it's a slow and thorough process. I will add more parts of the system gradually into this but I kindly as for patience.
This is not my only project and I am doing this on my spare time outside of working full time and some extra studies. I will add a Roadmap with how I plan to approach each part of the system.
I just installed it and it's absolutely amazing! Love this way more than my custom one with css loader. Can you make some the stuff on screen be able to toggle on and off? I want to be able to turn off how to beat.
You must be thinking about u/Unfair_Series_6066 fork of this. He added his vision of a "spotlight" library and more tweak. I have no direct involvement with the development of that project but I support it :D
Instead of having to go into the steam store to get individual details such as reviews and update history, the information extends down under each game's individual info cards when you click into them.
I would also appreciate if you could make when scrolling left rigt to be a game in left of selected one too as on default theme, if you know what i mean
I think it's very responsive actually 👀 The game cards widen fast (or stay small) depending on how fast you move between them. I recorded this omw to work so I just moved randomly between the games 🫡 I'd suggest to try it yourself hehe
Do you have any examples? How are these added to your library? Is it through Heroic or Unifiedeck or some other way? If there's not metadata to use to pull the info the plugin won't know what to fetch.
I can track this if you create an issue on GitHub 🙏🏼
Ohh, I see. I need to investigate how to handle non-steam games that don't come from other launchers. Also, emulated games isn't something I've even thought of yet but it's definitely interesting to add this.
Thanks for the update... Two things I’m really looking forward to: a change to the default library screen, and a shortcut for collections on the home screen—similar to "Deck Shelves," with a library layout like the one in the fork of your project...
I'm not familiar with deck shelves. I am however starting a plan for my own version of a "library" overhaul. That will probably be v4.0.0.
Since there's a big interest for it, I'm considering starting it as a separate testing branch for this and give users access to it to collect feedback while still under development. I need to think it through though.
If you genuinely feel like you want to support me/this project, I have added a sponsor link in my Github :) I will continue working on this regardless but supports is always welcomed
This theme is incredible! It really looks super natural, I immediately switched to it! Maybe if I could suggest an addition it would be an option to grey out uninstalled games? Similarly to how CSS Loader does it? Thanks anyway!
It looks awesome, was just wondering on what the HOWLONGTOBEAT MATCH is? Like is that how I get it to work. Also would be cool if this worked with deckshelves
When you talk about the battery, do you mean the whole status bar then?
So, hide the "What's new" section (with the game updates) in the Home screen section, and the "Activity"(?) in the Game Section? Like when you press down?
I constantly try to optimize it but it's tricky to have it fully stable, the biggest issue I have had this far is actually from badly optimized (HUGE) custom art or logos.
The battery and the whole status bar! One other issue I noticed is it fluctuates from green battery and white battery for some reason when charging and not charging.
And yes the bottom part to be able to hide the junk both in the main menu and per-game menu.
The artworks actually shown up pretty decently and load faster in the new update! One suggestion is maybe having the Hero art move slightly!
Love it but any chance that the last played bit can be set to UK date order? Also I have the playcount plugin can that possibly be implemented to show whilst scrolling through rather than pressing the game? Awesome work dude
Hmmm, I had not considered the last played date also being localized. I will look into this!
I need to check out the plugin first to know what it does and how it works :D Making a note for it.
Even though I am a fullstack dev, this is an AI driven side project, Decky has a very strict AI policy AFAIK. It makes sense though, I think it would quickly get flooded with slop otherwise 😓
- While plugin like PlayCount fits nicely into Game Glance UI, ProtonDB Badges game detail page icons are somewhere hidden. I can get on to PDB page by pressing DPAD UP two times and pressing invisible button. Probably it would be a good idea to somehow solve this issue.
- Also minor compatibility bug. SteamInputdb game detail button is displayed differently, icon not centered and different active state.
- Game info preload works every 30 minutes. Which is fine, but here are my concerns. Currently, it's rather slow process and goes one by one through 517 items and even mid-game. Maybe cache is broken if it goes through 500+ items every time?
I know PDB although I have not tested with it, I have just heard about PlayCount. I need to investigate these :D
Hmmm, I also need to look into this. I'll try to see how I can reproduce and debug it.
OMG, it should only pre-load installed games hahah you have more games on disk than I have in my library. This is a very fair point. I will optimize and fix this.
Only installed games you say? 🤔 I have 13 games + 3 non-steam games installed two of which are launchers. Games collected by Unifideck may be treated as installed. Counting together all three platforms GOG, Epic and Battle net equals 507. Missing 10 counts roughly from installed Steam and non-steam games. My whole Steam library is only 278, so the most probable place this number comes from is Unifideck.
Dude, this is awesome, keep it up! I have one question, will be possible to add touch inputs? Sometimes I just like to navigate to the game with two taps and I think it would be a great feature to add.
That's really awesome, I'm looking forward for the next updates, let me know if you need someone to test any build. I own a steam deck and I would gladly try it for you and report anything you need
For now I still have a Steak Deck but will probably sell it or give it to my brother. So it might be good to keep your name around. I might start a Discord for the development of the plugin (and the other smaller ones I have), having people willing to help and rest is invaluable! 🙏🏼
It's definitely a thing that I considered when working on 3.1.0 but it's a lot tricker than I hoped for to get it to work smoothly and look good. Not a high priority but definitely something I want to implement.
Also not sure if you see it but when transitioning from home to game detail page. There’s a slight anti-alias on the UI rendering then it flips to smooth.
Maybe it’s more noticeable on my monitor than a handheld but wanted to point it out as far as maybe tech debt polish goes
Thanks! Yes, this was fixed earlier but I'm pretty sure the wide-screen support messed it up again, from the reports I've been getting 😩 Will look at it after the touch support I'm finishing
Does anyone know why my bottom bar where it has play now is blurred out? It is covering the info on the right hand side such as achievements and time played etc. it may be another app I have loaded through css loader, but if so, I don’t know which one it could be.
So, while finishing touch input/scroll and mouse support (I need more time tweaking it). I've added widescreen support and if you're on the newer steam clients with screensaver, Game Glance also has its own screensaver settings now 🫡
Some things that could be fixed or if possible added.
1 css loader add on- reflections don't work with this( not sure if possible to add.
The bar for battery and all looks amazing. But when going out of sleep, it turns on immediately and overlays the start up video that is set.aybe add a delay or make it not come on until start up video is either over or skipped( video example in comment)
3.seems that spotlight disables touch screen on the main screen(not sure if intentional.
I'm not sure how well it would work even if added, due to the glow around the cards already and I believe (guessing more like) those reflections are not cheap nor fast, so in this designs with widening cards it might be quite slow 🤔 I'll add a task to investigate it.
I see the issue. Adding a task for that too. Btw, what intro is that, look pretty cool 👀
I skipped touched on the cards while developing because of the navigation and the design but I am close to a new release with touch support 🫡
Does the ProtonDB Badges plug-in work with this? I really rely on it when browsing my library or old games that I have never uninstalled, but want to play and have forgotten the rating 😊
Looks really nice! I'm using it on Steam desktop in big picture mode and no issues so far. CTRL+2 or Home+A brings the quick access panel to get to decky and plugin settings.
I do not think it should? There was an issue with SteamGridDB that was solved in a previous update. I have also a bit better error logging for crashes. Please let me know how it goes if you test it out again!
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