mvmOS 0.37.0-beta: one shell for every game window
Every game in mvmOS is played on its own public page in Game Hub, and until now
each game had to build the desktop window that sends you there. This release
puts that window in the system itself. A game app now says what it is called and
what it looks like, and the shared launcher does the rest: the title, the one
line about what the game is, the button that opens it full screen in its own
tab, and the space for whatever belongs to the person who runs the server rather
than to a player.
That split is deliberate. A game is played where the accounts, the scores and
the invitations are, which is the public Game Hub page — that is the only place
anyone other than the single session logged into this desktop can play at all,
and on a phone it is the only place a game gets the whole screen. The desktop
window is what the owner of the installation sees: settings today, and whatever
a game needs to be configured with tomorrow.
Game Hub is now treated as the requirement it always was. A game window opened
on an installation without it no longer shows a Play button that leads nowhere.
It says plainly what is missing and offers to install Game Hub on the spot,
asking first about the server component that comes with it, and it checks again
on every render — so the moment the install finishes, the same button turns into
Play.
Two games that use this launcher, Stonehold and Tower Defense, are released in
the Store today and need this version.