I recently had a hankering to return to one of my all-time favorite games: FUEL. I couldn't stop thinking: how cool would it be if I could revisit the game from the comfort of my Steam Deck?

That was my dream, but a few problems stood in the way:

1. FUEL was released in 2009 and was delisted from Steam in 2013. (Thankfully, I have a copy of it in my library, but we're talking about an installation build that is over a decade out-of-date at this point.)

2. FUEL still has Securom DRM.

3. FUEL still requires Games for Windows Live, which was also shut down in 2013.

4. FUEL is pretty mediocre unless you install the REFUELED mod.

So, I sat down with my Steam Deck and a hope and a prayer that maybe, somehow, I could get this game working?

Hurdle 1 wasn't even a hurdle. Proton is so damn good now. The game installed and ran flawlessly. I honestly never should have second-guessed it in the first place!

Hurdle 2 was also, surprisingly, a non-issue. Either the Securom servers are somehow still live and actually checked my CD key, or the dialog box lied to me as part of an offline fallback and told me I was cleared anyway (I'm thinking this is more likely?). Either way, I was happy.

Hurdle 3 was the first actual block. The game crashes when trying to pull up GFWL, which is pretty much what I expected -- the service has been down for over a decade now. Thankfully, there's an unexpectedly easy fix. Xliveless is a DLL that bypasses GFWL and lets the game boot (and save) without it.

Hurdle 4 isn't really a hurdle per se, but that's only because the Steam Deck lets you boot into Desktop Mode and get fully under the hood. I downloaded the mod, dumped the files in the installation folder, ran the mod manager through Protontricks, and then set up all of my mod choices. I then jumped back into game mode, and the game is flawlessly running -- mods and all.

I should also mention that I did all of this on-device. I didn't need to break out a mouse and a keyboard or transfer files from my desktop or anything. From the first install of the game to running it fully modded took me maybe ten minutes total? It was amazingly quick, and most of that time was me searching up information or waiting for the Deck to boot over and back between Desktop and Game Mode.

I realize that, in the grand scheme of game tinkering, this doesn't sound like a whole lot, but that's honestly the point. The fact that this comes across as sort of mundane and uneventful is, paradoxically, what makes it noteworthy. If we're keeping score here, I am:

• playing a 2009 Windows game,
• that was delisted in 2013,
• on a Linux handheld device in 2024.

I also:

• somehow passed the game's decade-old DRM check,
• bypassed the game's second DRM system that has been officially shut down for over a decade,
• modded the game in literal seconds,
• and did all that using only a controller -- while lying on my couch.

From a zoomed out perspective, I shouldn't be able to play this game. FUEL should be dead and buried -- nothing more than a fond memory for me. Even if I turn the dial a little more towards optimism, it really shouldn't be this easy to get up and running. I thought I was going to spend hours trying to get it going, with no guarantee that it ever would. Instead I was driving around its world in mere minutes.

I'm literally holding FUEL and its massive open-world in my hands, fifteen years after its release, on an operating system it's not supposed to run on, and on a device nobody could have even imagined was possible when the game released.

We really are living in the future. I remain in absolute awe of and incredibly grateful for all the work that people do to make stuff like this possible.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

New Thread

Server host: tildes.nore.gg
Dynmap: https://tildes.nore.gg
Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html
Tildes website extension (shows online status & location): Firefox (Desktop and Android) - Chrome
Verification site: https://verify.tildes.nore.gg
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMC

The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.

New Thread

I implore anyone who can think of a better way to phrase the title, please suggest it.

Essentially, I use a self-hosted MediaWiki which is where I write everything, but when I just have an 'idea', I have a private Discord channel that I submit the information to. It can be a picture, or a character idea, or an idea for a scene or a shop or whatever-- I just have a channel where I dump all of my ideas, and then when I have time, I go back through them, iterate, add them to my wiki (making them 'canon'), and then deleting the messages.

I would really like something else to do this, because Discord is obviously not meant for this. Unfortunately, the caveat is that it needs to be useable on mobile, because I'd say 80%+ of my ideas like this happen when I'm not at my computer.

My first thought was to set up and self-host a ticketing system-- something like Znuny, but outside of using Zendesk for work, I don't really know that much about them, and it feels like it might be overkill (on top of not working on mobile, I don't think). It has the benefit of being able to immediately have the data organized, so I can double-check to make sure I'm not repeating character names, or ideas, or anything like that.

So, with that in mind, what all are my options?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

NEW THREAD

Server host: tildes.nore.gg
Dynmap: https://tildes.nore.gg
Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html
Tildes website extension (shows online status & location): Firefox (Desktop and Android) - Chrome
Verification site: https://verify.tildes.nore.gg
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMC (currently at $60 of our $70/month cost)

The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.

NEW THREAD

This past weekend was EVO, the largest fighting game tournament in the world. This year the largest esports event in the world. Alongside all of world class international competition came a ton of trailers of what's coming next to the genre. Instead of just flooding the ~games group, I'm going to be compiling as much info as I can here.

Game DLC

Street Fighter 6 - Terry Teaser Trailer

Tekken 8 - Heihachi Mishima Trailer and Nike colab

Guilty Gear -Strive- Season Pass 4 Teaser Trailer

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising - Versusia Gameplay Trailer

The King of Fighters XV Special DLC | Vice and Mature | Trailer

Under Night In-birth II Sys:Celes - Uzuki Reveal Trailer

Pocket Bravery - DLC Character 1 Rick

Upcoming Game Info

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves | Kevin Rian

HunterxHunter NenxImpact Opening Movie and Meruem Trailer

Rivals of Aether 2 - Orcane Reveal Trailer

Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age - Damkina Trailer

New Game Info

SNK vs Capcom Chaos port

Someone on the server mentioned that they struggle with keeping track of converting MC usernames and Tildes usernames (and I do too at times). So if you are playing on the server comment your username for both Tildes and MC so that other players can reference who is who and just bookmark this thread

Edit: Tea mentioned that you can use the command /realname tildes_name and /fakename mc_name commands as well

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

New thread - https://tild.es/1hph

Countdown - Server will go live at 4pm Pacific time.

Connect your Minecraft clients to tildes.nore.gg once the countdown hits 0!

If you didn’t play on our last map you will need to verify your Tildes account to make changes to the map. The website for that is https://verify.tildes.nore.gg - but you’ll have to wait for the server to be up before you can use the form.

Edit: If you would like to donate to support the server we have a Patreon page here

New thread - https://tild.es/1hph