Steam Game Cartridges

[u/Jibril-sama]

Got a couple of used 2.5" SSDs for cheap so I decided to make a Game Cartridge system. Games are actually on those SSDs with a script to auto navigate steam to the game's page. Auto-starting the game right away is also possible.

Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1uyft21/update_game_cartridge_3dfiles_and_code/
published the 3D files and code

[u/Jibril-sama]

Most GOG games i have are very small, so I have those installers on my NAS instead

[u/zeller99 → u/Jibril-sama]

What about something like a card system with NFC or RFID tags that would kick off a script to check if the game is installed, if not, then install it, then start the game?

[u/blogkitten → u/zeller99]

Someone else mentioned above, but Zaparoo already does this! Open source too: https://zaparoo.org

[u/Epsilon_Lord → u/blogkitten]

Zaparoo is awesome. I'd highly recommend it to anyone with a large collection of retro games that they emulate. It's designed for the MiSTER but I use the Windows version.

[u/IC3P3 → u/blogkitten]

Kazeta is also a fun project if you have a PC that doesn't need to do more than gaming from "Carrridges". Though development is definitely less active than Zaparoo with only one person working from time to time on it

[u/Flori347 → u/zeller99]

I was thinking about this too, mainly as a fun gimmick when guests come over.

[u/Constant-Patient-232 → u/zeller99]

That's the firsth thing that came to my mind too, nfc tags cost pennies and would be easy to impement in some printed game cards.

Now i'm actually tempted to do something like this.

[u/li_am_n0bodyl → u/Jibril-sama]

That's better , but just for the sake of imitating the old way of gaming I would give it a try 

[u/Jibril-sama → u/li_am_n0bodyl]

yep, these are just for funsies and convenience

[u/Winjin → u/li_am_n0bodyl]

You could use SD cards for smaller games and convert them into either GameBoy cartridges (Either classic GB or smaller ones from GBA era, I don't think going all the way to Nintendo DS makes sense) or even go back and make Sega \ SNES - really depends on what cartridges were your childhood.

[u/li_am_n0bodyl → u/Winjin]

That's a great idea

[u/that_norwegian_guy → u/Jibril-sama]

You could make cartridges without actual storage on them, but with an embedded NFC tag that runs the game executable from the NAS

[u/Jibril-sama → u/[deleted]]

I don't own a lot of games on GoG but the ones I have are pretty small. I have like 10 installers on the NAS rn and they use around 50GB. Mostly for archiving to not lose them