WPR 0.0.18-alpha

WPR is a Windows Phone 7/8 game runner that re-hosts XNA (and, increasingly, Silverlight) titles on modern Windows desktop and Android. This is a fork of the original WPR — heavily modified to target .NET 8 + Avalonia 11.3.9 with a runtime shim layer that lets unmodified game .xap packages run against modern .NET.

Status: work-in-progress. The main branch is not guaranteed to build or run cleanly at any given checkpoint. Active development happens on per-feature branches (currently fix-zuma-revenge).

Screenshots

What's new in this fork

Since branching from upstream WPR:

• .NET 8 / Avalonia 11.3.9 port. Replaced the legacy Avalonia 0.9/0.10 UI stack; rebuilt the desktop and Android entry points (WPR.UI.Desktop, WPR.UI.Android).
• Silverlight runtime (initial). Added WPR.SilverlightCompability, a from-scratch reimplementation of Silverlight 4 / Windows Phone XAML controls on top of Avalonia. Layout, gestures and the Panorama / Pivot parallax state machine are written in-tree (no Silverlight parser dependency). Currently boots a small set of Silverlight XAPs — see the compatibility table below. Launched via SilverlightLauncher.LaunchAsync.
• Persistent achievements. Per-game achievement progress is now seeded at install time (XnaAchievementSeeder scrapes TrueAchievements once and populates a SQLite DB) and stored across runs.
• Refactored shim layout. WPR.SilverlightCompability's source tree now mirrors the upstream Silverlight namespace hierarchy (one C# file per type, file path matches the real namespace) — see CLAUDE.md for the convention.
• Per-game debug logs. ApplicationLaunch mirrors Trace/Debug output to %LocalAppData%\WPR\Apps\<ProductId>\wpr_game_debug.log so silent-crash games leave a diagnostic file.
• Keyboard accelerometer. Bind keys to simulate phone tilt for games that use Microsoft.Devices.Sensors.Accelerometer. The Controls page (sidebar) lets you set the four tilt directions, adjust sensitivity, toggle the in-game tilt overlay, and live-preview the synthesized reading. Orientation-aware: in landscape games the screen-relative intent (W = "tilt up the screen") is rotated into the device-portrait frame the WP7 sensor contract expects.
• Startup health-check & explicit Avalonia init logging on both desktop and Android targets.
• FontAwesome icon provider registered in the AppBuilder; main app list now populates on launch (was waiting on search input).
• Android target rebuilt against Avalonia 11; min-SDK raised; SDL2 + FFmpeg bindings included via Java bindings projects.

Architecture

WPR runs a Windows Phone game's original assemblies, IL-rewritten at install time to redirect WP/Silverlight/XNA API calls to in-tree shims.

.xap / XNA folder
      │
      ▼ LibraryScanner          (discovers packages)
      ▼ ApplicationInstaller    (unpacks to %LocalAppData%\WPR\Apps\<ProductId>)
      ▼ ApplicationPatcher      (Cecil-rewrites every .dll; leaves .dll.original)
      ▼ XnaAchievementSeeder    (populates SQLite achievements DB)
      │
      ▼ (user clicks "Run")
      ▼ XnaLauncher  →  ApplicationLaunch.Start  (XNA games via FNA)
      ▼ SilverlightLauncher.LaunchAsync          (Silverlight XAPs)

Project layout (Src/):

Project	Role
Core/WPR	Install/launch/patch pipeline, models, EF Core DB
Core/WPR.Common	Logging, paths, configuration
Core/WPR.SilverlightCompability	Silverlight 4 / WP XAML re-impl on Avalonia
Core/WPR.WindowsCompability	System.Windows.* shims (Application, BitmapImage, IsolatedStorage, …)
Core/WPR.StandardCompability	System.ServiceModel / WCF-lite shims
Core/WPR.XnaCompabilityPatch	XNA-side shims layered on top of FNA
Core/Microsoft.Phone	Microsoft.Phone.* (Shell, Tasks, Marketplace, Scheduler, …)
Core/Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices	Gamer profile, achievements, leaderboards
Core/Microsoft.Device.Sensors	Accelerometer / Compass
Core/System.Device	System.Device.Location
UI/WPR.UI	Shared Avalonia UI (views, view-models, launchers)
UI/WPR.UI.Desktop	Windows entry point (net8.0-windows10.0.17763.0)
UI/WPR.UI.Android	Android entry point
ThirdParty/fna	FNA (XNA reimplementation)
ThirdParty/Icons.Avalonia	Vendored Projektanker icons, patched for Avalonia 11.3.9

See CLAUDE.md for the in-depth build/install/patch workflow, including the rule that patcher table changes require reinstalling affected games (the IL rewrite happens once at install time).

Build & run

Recommended:

1. Open Src/WPR.sln in Rider (or VS 2022 17.8+).
2. Build → run WPR.UI.Desktop.

Target frameworks:

• Desktop: net8.0-windows10.0.17763.0
• Android: net8.0-android (set up via the system .NET SDK + Android workload — see CLAUDE.md for the SDK version pitfalls on this dev box)

CLI build (for quick edit-verify)

The full-solution dotnet build hits NU1202 on Avalonia.Android if the workload version doesn't line up. To verify a small edit on a leaf project:

dotnet build <project>.csproj -c Debug `
    -f net8.0-windows10.0.17763.0 `
    -maxcpucount:1 -nodeReuse:false --nologo

The -maxcpucount:1 flag avoids an MSBuild CS0006 race; the explicit TFM skips the Android leg.

Game compatibility

See the interactive Compatibility List — searchable / sortable / filterable, with box art.

Runtime types supported

The installer recognises three .xap flavours (ApplicationType.cs):

Type	Status	Notes
XNA	Working	Main path; runs on FNA via the WPR.XnaCompability shim layer.
Silverlight	Experimental	Boots a small set of XAPs through the in-tree WPR.SilverlightCompability Avalonia re-impl.
ModernNative	Not supported	C++/CX + WinRT apps ship as native PE binaries — out of scope.

Known limitations & TODO

• Desktop game-launch regressions following the .NET 8 / Avalonia 11.3 upgrade.
• Android target sometimes shows a white screen instead of the app UI.
• Several patcher entries from legacy WPR are still missing — game-specific errors above (IsolatedStorageSettings2.Contains, GamerProfile.GetGamerPicture, etc.) are usually missing shims, not bugs in the runner itself.
• Silverlight runtime: only a handful of controls + the Panorama/Pivot machine have been implemented; LongListSelector, WrapPanel, PhoneTextBox, PerformanceProgressBar, GestureService / GestureListener and several default styles (ButtonStyleLight, DarkThemePanoramaStyle, PhoneApplicationPageStyle) are still TODO.
• README + Wiki translation (RU / CN).
• Long-term: explore a port to MAUI for unified multi-platform.

Reinstall vs. rebuild

A common gotcha — patcher changes do not affect already-installed games:

• Shim implementation change (any .cs under WPR.*Compability, Microsoft.*, System.*): rebuild only. Installed games pick up the new behaviour on next launch.
• Patcher table change (ApplicationPatcher.cs — new entries in Patches / MemberPatches): rebuild and reinstall the affected games. The IL was rewritten at install time; new redirects don't apply retroactively.

Tech notes

• Newest Rider / VS 2022 (17.8+) recommended.
• Targets net8.0-windows10.0.17763.0 — Windows 11 recommended; Windows 10 may need the 17763 (1809) baseline or newer.
• Desktop runtime pulls in FAudio.dll / FNA3D.dll / SDL2.dll / FNWP72.dll / ffmpeg.exe (shipped next to the executable).
• Per-game install data lives under %LocalAppData%\WPR\Apps\<ProductId>, with a <game>.dll.original sibling kept for re-patching.

Update History

Moved to the wiki — see Update History.

Credits

• mediaexplorer74/WPR — the fork this one is based on; foundational Avalonia port work, Android target groundwork, and the long-running RnD that made everything downstream possible
• Tyler Jaacks — net5/6 → net8 upgrade
• Hector47 — online services groundwork

Related forks worth looking at

• TylerJaacks/WPR — branches net8_upgrade and dotnet_upgrade carry useful work
• Hector47/WPR — master has GameServices ideas
• yangzhongke/Windows-Phone-Emulator — Silverlight 4 prior art for WP control reimplementations (defers to the Silverlight XAML parser, so not transplantable here, but the C# for Panorama/Pivot/Transitions is a useful reference)

::

AS IS. No support. Developers / geeks only — DIY mode.