cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/7416619

I’ve been trying to mimics the functionality of Steam with open source projects. For example using Playnite as my game library manager. One thing I’m having a bit of a hard time with is finding a substitute for achievement tracking. I know achievements aren’t for everyone but I find it helps motivate me to power through lulls in longer games and try out side quests.

The closest alternative I have come across is xan105’s Achievement Watcher. It started in 2019, got a fair amount of attention 2020 after being posted on /r/CrackWatch by the creator, was added to various piracy megathreads, and stopped development in 2022.

It was a bit of a challenge to setup.

Some steps were:

  • Grab my own Steam API so it could fetch data for the achievements.

  • Alter Windows 11’s notification settings so I could get the achievement unlocked notification.

  • Go through the steam_emu.ini files so I could find the correct directories (ex. \Users\Public\Documents\CODEX)

  • Using Achievement Watcher to generate the achievements.json and image files and placing them in the steam_settings folder of each game.

Even then I haven’t been able to get it working smoothly. For Cities: Skylines for example I can unlock achievements but I don’t receive a notification and they only appear after I refresh Achievement Watcher (Control + R). Most modern guides suggest using a Steam Auto Cracker but doing so appears to stop the game from working. I don’t know if this is because I am utilizing repacks or if there are multiple forms of DRM at work. I could easily be missing something.

I’ve read there are compatibility issues with Achievement Watcher and cracks from groups/people like TENOKE.

Considering I own the games I want to play without DRM I may just try to use Goldberg myself.

Some games like Fallout New Vegas allow you to view completed challenges in-game and I imagine there are mods out there that add some form of achievement/trophy/challenge system.

There’s also RetroAchievements for older games.

  • Corroded@leminal.spaceOPEnglish
    6·
    5 months ago

    I don’t even like connecting to the net with pirated games. Always feel I’ll get banned and I used game piracy to test drive them.

    Pirated games wouldn’t be associated with your Steam account so I don’t think you would be banned.

    Even using the Steam API I don’t think you would unless you were sharing it openly or were making an obscene amount of requests.

    That said I don’t know a ton about online fixes or using CreamAPI to unlock DLC for games you own so maybe it would be possible to get banned in that regard.