Hey folks,
our team has worked tirelessly for a year to bring you Crackpipe, the open-source, decentralized, and liberal alternative to conventional cloud-based game platforms like Steam and Origin. We’re thrilled to announce that Crackpipe is now available for everyone, and we’re delighted to share it with the community as an open-source project.
With Crackpipe, you and your friends can enjoy playing and tracking games on a shared file server, free from the restrictions of traditional platforms. Embracing “alternatively obtained” games, including DRM-free titles, Crackpipe offers a flexible and open approach to gaming - think Jellyfin, but for Videogames.
Take full control of your gaming experience with Crackpipe’s self-hosted approach. Explore your server’s game collection, securely download, launch, and play games, and monitor your playtimes and progress - all even when the server is offline. Compare stats and play states with other users on the server for added fun.
Our server features include automatic indexing of games, metadata enrichment with RAWG API, multi-user authentication, configurable logging, health monitoring, full-text search, filters, sorting, pagination, and a fully documented API. Crackpipe’s high configurability ensures it fits your specific needs.
Join us on this journey to embrace a more open, flexible, and enjoyable gaming experience for all. Try Crackpipe today and share your contributions, feedback, bug reports, and feature requests.
Link: https://crackpipe.de
You can also check out our launch at producthunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/crackpipe
UPDATE: here
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Lol, gonna be honest, it would be pretty hard telling my friends about this awesome thing I learned about called Crackpipe.
That said, it’s not really something I could do anyway. My ISP doesn’t let me host servers, and they’re the only ISP in my area without disgustingly draconian data limits.
Could you not use something like Tailscale to access it remotely?
Damn, a good point. I already use ZeroTier for this kind of stuff, I don’t know why I never thought of that.
As others have said, cool concept, awful name.
Bad name aside Windows only client support is a big letdown and makes the application useless to me.
My favourite part is 100% the name never change it
If you guys want this to take off in the US (and probably Canada too) you gotta rethink the name. If it doesn’t come off as vaguely racist it will come off as edgy for edgy’s sake. Low-brow and amateurish. Otherwise, it looks cool. Best of luck to you.
How tf is this racist?
I didnt say it was racist. I said it could come off (i.e. perceived) as racist. Mainly due to cracks stereotypical association with poor African Americans. But I think you knew that.
Due to racist propaganda in the US during the 80s and 90s. Crack cocaine was portrayed in the media as a “black” drug, and many of the news stories about crack were specifically about it’s effects on black communities.
While the name isn’t inherently racist, in and of itself, it does still carry some racial connotations behind it. Maybe it’s different these days for zoomers, but growing up during the “crack epidemic”, as it was called, and seeing the way it was covered in the news, I can understand why some people are resistant to the name.
Cool concept but the UI and icon designs are the turn-off for me. After I saw the screenshots and it was immediately no.
And I’m actually fine with the name, and I kinda see how it makes sense since its a pipe to your cracks (assuming pirated games…)
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I’ve always wanted something like that, very cool!
Any plans to incorporate customizable cloud saves? I’m envisioning listing files and registry keys, maybe fetch a starting point off PCGW to give users an idea of what to expect and whatnot.
Linux client support would be great too, the Steam Deck could make great use of this.
I love the chutzpah of it.
Creative commons isn’t a licence designed for code though, consider using the AGPL instead.
Do you even know what crack-pipe is? I suggest changing the name.
I love the idea. I think the UI can use improvement.
A bit useless if it only supports a legacy OS that doesn’t run games very well.
Which OS are you referring to?
Apart from the fact that Windows is still the number one gaming OS… sure.
I for one will not be using this to introduce my kids to gore simulators where you can see chunks of peoples’ heads blown off at your own hands, because it’s called crack pipe, and that is where I draw the line
I just think it’s a dumb name is all
Cool software.
Even as someone sympathetic to ‘privateers’ though…you gotta have more plausible deniability bro, workshop that name lmao
I’d be interested if there’s any plans for a Linux client
There are no plans for a native linux client right now, but there is an awesome community-driven approach to run it on linxu in our docs here
Same here. My current method is a self hosted website on my home network which showcases all available games, followed by a bash script download that will automatically generate the yml file for Lutris to fully install any of my 200+ games.
Whilst this is currently the best way I’ve found for my setup this app seems like the perfect thing to potentially swap to, if Linux was supported.
Would’ve been a hundred times funnier to call it crackpot.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong since I’m not familiar with all this, but would I be able to “upload and share” a game that I bought from GoG since GoG games are DRM free?
Yes. Just keep in mind that will likely break licensing for virtually any game you’ve legally purchased.