Sideload

A desktop launcher for web games, built around a controller.

Three.js, React Three Fiber, Babylon, PlayCanvas: games that already run in a browser, played from the couch instead of a tab. Every game streams when you launch it and runs sandboxed, so nothing is installed and nothing is left on disk.

Playing needs nothing but the launcher. Publishing needs an invite token: there is no sign-up, so ask @DRNKNDev for one. If you don't have one yet, the rest of this still tells you what publishing involves.

Installing the launcher

Download the latest .dmg from Releases. Each release has notes saying what changed. macOS on Apple Silicon only, for now.

Builds are signed and notarized, so Gatekeeper opens them without complaining. After that the launcher keeps itself up to date: a new version downloads in the background and is applied when you next quit, so you should not need this page again.

Publishing a game

Publishing runs through a CLI. There is nothing in this repository to build or run.

npx sideloadplay --help

That is the whole install. Nothing to add globally, nothing to configure. The command reference, the sideload.json shape, and the artwork requirements are on npm, and this file does not repeat them.

Working with an agent

npx skills add DRNKNDev/SideloadPlay

That installs the skills in this repository, for coding agents that follow the Agent Skills format.

skills/sideloadplay/ prepares a listing. Ask an agent to prepare one and it can write sideload.json, produce the artwork that references, and run sideload validate until the listing passes. It teaches the rules up front rather than letting you find them one failed check at a time.

skills/sideloadplay-controller/ adds controller support to the game itself. The ordinary Gamepad API is all the launcher hands a game, but four things about it are not obvious: no user gesture is needed, only one pad slot is ever filled, gamepadconnected carries a plain Event, and three buttons never arrive because the launcher keeps them. It also covers what makes a pad feel right rather than merely work — a radial dead zone, delta-time scaling, analogue triggers, and stick aiming that does not depend on pointer lock, which a controller player may never grant. Reach for it when controller input behaves differently inside the launcher than in a browser.

Neither one signs in, publishes, or asks for your invite token. Only sideload login touches that, and only by reading it from standard input. The first writes listing files; the second changes your game's code.

Reporting a problem

Open an issue. A launcher crash, a failed publish, a listing that renders wrong: all of it belongs here.