Lamplit v0.5.0

Highlights

• Stay on a game and its trailer plays behind it.
• About this game: what it is, who made it, screenshots.
• Your captures: the screenshots you took in a game.

Added

• Trailers: stay on a cover for 2.5 seconds and the game's trailer from Steam plays behind it, muted, its first
  minute on a loop. Any input stops it at once. Settings > Sound > Trailers: Off, Muted or With sound (40%
  volume). Trailers need Find art online, and don't play with Reduce Motion on, while a game runs or while
  Lamplit isn't in front.
• About this game, in a game's menu: Steam's description, the developers and publisher, the release date, genres and
  up to eight screenshots. Cross shows a screenshot full screen. Lamplit keeps the details for seven days. It needs
  Find art online and a Steam match for the game.
• Your captures, in a game's menu when you have screenshots of the game: up to 60 that Steam, Game Bar and NVIDIA
  saved, newest first. Cross shows one full screen, and Left and Right move through them.

Install

Download Lamplit-setup.exe below and run it. It installs Lamplit for your Windows account
only and doesn't ask for admin rights.

This build isn't code-signed yet, so Windows shows "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then
Run anyway. If Smart App Control is on, Windows blocks the installer and offers no way to run it.

All changes: CHANGELOG.md

Lamplit v0.4.0

Highlights

• Updates in Lamplit install once you're done playing.
• Start when I sign in is a switch, with no admin prompt.
• Restore Lamplit's changes from Settings or when uninstalling.

Added

• Settings > Check for updates: choose Check or Download and install to download a newer version from GitHub.
  Lamplit checks its signature and installs once no game is starting or running and Lamplit is in front. It then
  starts again by itself. Automatic checks are on by default, at most once every 24 hours after a start. They only
  show whether an update is available; nothing downloads until you choose it. After a version change, "What's new"
  shows three highlights if Lamplit has a previous version recorded.
• Settings > System > Start when I sign in is now a switch. Lamplit registers and removes its sign-in task without
  an admin prompt. The switch reads Task Scheduler, so a task removed by hand shows as off. Repair Steam's background
  service is a separate step that still asks Windows once for admin rights. Removing a task made by 0.3 or earlier
  may also ask once.
• Settings > System > Restore Lamplit's changes, held to confirm: restores quiet mode, Steam's Guide button setting
  and DevTools flag, and removes the sign-in task. It turns quiet mode and Lamplit's automatic Steam changes off.
  Each step shows its result and what needs attention, such as opening Steam with its DevTools port or closing
  Ubisoft Connect. Older versions did not save every Steam setting's original value. Uninstalling runs the same
  restore first and keeps the saved settings if a step cannot finish.
• Settings > System > Save a report: preview a plain-text file, then save it to Downloads for an issue. It includes
  Lamplit and Windows versions, the screen, controllers, stores, selected settings and recent warnings and errors.
  It removes paths, account and device names, and replaces current library game names with ids. Nothing is uploaded.
  The bug report form asks for it.
• Exit to Windows in the power menu, held to confirm like Restart and Shut down.
• Settings > Sound > Interface sounds: Off, Quiet or Normal. The dock follows the same choice.
• Two hints to get started: the button that opens a game's menu, and how to come back from a game. Each stops once
  you've done it, or after it has appeared on three starts.

Fixed

• Epic's new launcher (in preview since 14 October 2026): games appear and start, and Lamplit waits for sign-in,
  as with the original launcher. Not yet checked against a real install of the new launcher.
• Valve's new Steam Controller can navigate Lamplit over USB, Bluetooth and its receiver, alongside Steam, without
  changing its mode. Steam Input's virtual copy is still left out. Not yet tested on real hardware.
• When a store's game list cannot be read, such as while it is being written or its database is locked, Lamplit
  keeps that store's games from the previous scan.
• Lamplit remembers which TV or soundbar to return sound to, even after a restart.
• A damaged settings file is kept as .damaged. Lamplit uses the previous good copy when available, recovering
  saved settings such as favourites and hidden games. Each save keeps the previous good copy as .bak.
• After Change art, the screen's colours follow the new art at once.
• Alt+F4 closes Lamplit again. On current Windows 11 builds, Lamplit ended with an error as it closed, and its
  supervisor started it again at once.

Install

Download Lamplit-setup.exe below and run it. It installs Lamplit for your Windows account
only and doesn't ask for admin rights.

This build isn't code-signed yet, so Windows shows "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then
Run anyway. If Smart App Control is on, Windows blocks the installer and offers no way to run it.

All changes: CHANGELOG.md

Lamplit v0.3.0

Added

• The in-game dock: holding PS over a game (View and Menu on an Xbox controller) opens a small dock along the bottom of
  the screen instead of the whole home screen. It springs open out of a pill on the bottom edge and folds back into it,
  what it shows fading as it goes; with Windows' animation effects off, it fades in and out where it is. It holds the
  volume, the sound output, quiet mode, NVIDIA's stats, Home and Close game, and shows the game with its cover and play
  time, the batteries and the time, in the colours of the game's art. On Windows 11 22H2 or later, with transparency
  effects on, it rests on Windows' own glass: a live blur of the game behind it. Holding Cross on Close game asks the
  game to close, and the dock offers Force close, held the same way, when the game isn't responding. The folded dock
  also shows for a moment when the headset turns on or off, a controller connects or disconnects, or a battery runs low.
  It is Lamplit's own window above the game, and over a game in exclusive full screen holding PS brings the home screen
  as before. Settings > Overlay and pop-ups switches it off. It moves on the home screen's springs and draws its icons:
  Close game shows an app window with a cross rather than the power symbol. Lamplit's log has a line on how smoothly
  each of the dock's animations ran.
• A screensaver. After a few minutes without input, while Lamplit is in front and no game runs, generative art covers
  the screen, so a still home screen can't mark an OLED TV: seven scenes drawn with WebGL2 (Gallery, Drift, Dunes,
  Ocean, Ink, Nebula and Aurora), coloured from the art of your games, and finished with a soft bloom, a filmic tone
  curve and depth of field. Gallery shows your covers in a dark room with a glossy floor, and Drift turns one game's
  hero art into another's through thousands of points of light; over the other five a game's logo or name drifts
  faintly. A new scene comes in every minute and a half or so, in a crossfade, through the dark parts first, through
  drifting noise or pushing in, and after an hour it fades to black. The first press only ends it. Lamplit gets the
  screensaver ready in the background while it sits unused for a moment, or as Settings > Screensaver opens, and keeps
  its art between shows, so it comes and goes without a stutter. Settings > Screensaver sets the delay (Off, 2, 5, 10
  or 20 minutes; 5 by default) and shows it now. Without WebGL2 it shows a moving gradient.
• ui/screensaver/preview.html shows the screensaver's scenes in a normal browser, for working on them.
• Battle.net: its installed games, from Battle.net's own list. Lamplit starts Battle.net, waits until its log says it
  has signed in, and asks it to start the game. A game too new for Lamplit's list of launch codes opens on its page
  in Battle.net, where you press Play.
• The Amazon Games app: its installed games, from the app's own list. They start through the app, which Lamplit
  starts first.
• itch.io: the games the itch app installed, from its own list. They start as the itch app would start them: the
  exe and arguments the game's launch manifest (.itch.toml) names, else the exe the app found, so the app doesn't
  have to run. Of several, the one you picked in the itch app goes first. A game the itch app runs in its sandbox
  starts through the app's launcher, itch-setup --run-game (itch 26.20 or newer), so it stays in the sandbox, and
  so does a game that asks the app for an itch.io API key, which only the app hands out. So does a game that may
  still need prerequisites the app installs before starting it, such as a VC++ or .NET runtime: on its first start
  from an install, and while its manifest names one not yet installed. So does a game you set a command template for
  in the itch app (arguments, environment variables or a wrapper). A game installed from two of its downloads
  starts from the one you used last, as the itch app starts it.
• The three stores have their own choice in Find's store filter, and their apps show in Settings > Stores. Battle.net
  and itch.io games carry the store's logo; the Amazon Games app has no logo Lamplit can use, so it shows its name.
• A game's menu (Options, or Menu on an Xbox controller) lifts the game's cover out of the row toward you, blurs the
  rest of the screen, and opens beside the cover with the game's details and choices.
• Change art, in a game's menu, for when Lamplit matched the wrong game on Steam's store. It shows what Steam's store
  finds for the game's name as covers to pick from, and the search can be edited on the on-screen keyboard. "No art,
  show the name" shows the game's name instead, and "Back to automatic" undoes the choice. The choice is kept in
  games.json, so it lasts through restarts and new scans.
• Add a game by hand, from Settings > Add a game, or with Cross on the empty home screen when Lamplit found no games:
  one of the installed programs Lamplit didn't take for games, or an exe found by browsing the PC's drives and
  folders. Name it on the on-screen keyboard, which has Shift and the signs game names use, then choose its art.
  Lamplit starts it from its exe, like a game outside any store, and its menu has Remove from Lamplit.

Changed

• The home screen asks less of the graphics card, so its menus keep up at 120 Hz on a card running at its middle
  speed. The background holds still for the half second a panel takes to open or close, a pause too short to see,
  and the game menu's blurred background is drawn once as the menu opens rather than on every frame. The game menu
  opens without a stutter, its art for the blurred background made small away from the screen's own work, and on a
  4K TV it closes smoothly also once the graphics card has slowed to its lowest speed while the menu was open.
• The clock is now a status capsule, top right: the controllers' and the headset's batteries, the volume, a moon
  while quiet mode is on, and the time, as the dock shows them. Settings grows down out of it, and the capsule stays
  as Settings' header. Settings is only as tall as what it holds, each section has an icon, and opening a section
  slides it in from the side, Back out the other way.
• What can't be taken back is held, as the dock's Close game: Remove from Lamplit, Restart, Shut down, and Close game,
  which the game menu now offers while its game runs. Holding Cross fills a ring round the choice's icon, and it
  happens once the ring is full; let go before, press another button, or switch to another window, and nothing
  happens. Each says beforehand what it does ("Closes Titanfall 2", "Lamplit forgets it. The files stay."), and
  Restart and Shut down name a running game that will close. Sleep and Hide this game can be undone, so one press
  does them. A mouse holds from button down to up.
• A game's menu grows out of the lifted card: a sliver on the card's edge widens into the menu, and its rows fade in
  as it does. Under the game's name one line says its store, when it was last played and for how long, and the
  folder sits dim at the bottom. Play (or Back to game) is lit and comes first, every choice has an icon, and
  Favourite is one choice that fills its star. Change art opens in the same panel, which grows from the menu's size
  to its own, and the card fades from one cover to the next as you move through the choices. The background keeps
  drifting under the menu, so Change art closes without a stutter.
• Find works on the line above the row instead of in a panel over it. The search field stands there, with a chip for
  the store and one for the sort beside it and how many games the row holds. The keyboard grows up out of the field,
  and the store chip opens a list of store logos upward. A search already set widens from its pill into the field and
  goes back into it. The row stays in full view below as the results, the game's details fade while you search, and
  one focus ring moves across the keys and the chips.
• On the starting screen, the step that may need you carries what Cross (A) does as a chip on its line, Show the
  window or Open Steam, as well as in the hints, and a click on it does it. Each step's mark is one of the shared icons
  rather than a text character.
• Messages on the home screen are pills, as the dock's news, each with an icon. One about a game stands on the line
  above the row and names the game; any other shows at the top right, under the clock. Neither covers the games.
• Everything on the home screen moves on one set of springs, named for what they move. A step along the row no longer
  overshoots its place; Settings, Find and messages open on one spring and close on a quicker one; the game menu's card
  lifts a little past its place and settles, and lowers without.
• The home screen's icons are drawn in the dock's style, with thin round strokes: the search field's glass, the
  controller's buttons and Add a game's drives, folders and programs.
• Settings, Find, the game menu, Change art and messages are drawn on one glass: the same fill, rim of light,
  shadow and corners. The glass is a little darker over bright art, so text on it stays readable.
• With Reduce Motion on, Settings, Find, Add a game and messages fade in place rather than sliding, the covers move
  without overshooting, and the end of the row no longer bumps.
• Add a game opens inside the Settings panel rather than as a second panel over it: Settings moves out, the panel
  widens, and Add a game comes in. Back returns to Settings on Add a game. On the empty home screen the panel grows
  out of the "No games found" line, and goes back into it.
• Lamplit coming forward over a running game (holding PS, or the dock's Home) no longer appears at once: the home
  screen settles in under a veil in the game's colours, on the game. From the dock, the veil first comes over the game.
  Back to game does the reverse: the home screen eases out under the veil befo...

Lamplit v0.2.0

Added

• Store logos: in the store badge on the home screen, in a game's details, on the starting screen and in
  Settings > Stores.
• Settings > Power: sleep, restart and shut down. Cross asks once to confirm, and names a running game that
  restarting or shutting down would close.
• Play time for each game, on the home screen and in its details: Steam's own count for a Steam game, else the time
  Lamplit sees the game running.
• Favourites, which come first in the row, and hidden games, which leave it, both set from a game's details.
  Settings > Hidden games shows a hidden game again.
• Find a game: Square (F on a keyboard) opens a search with an on-screen keyboard, which narrows the row as you type.
  It matches the start of any word in a game's name, or its first letters, such as "rdr" for Red Dead Redemption 2.
  It also shows one store's games, and sorts the row A to Z. The home screen shows what narrows the row, and Circle
  brings every game back.
• Xbox controllers and others that work like one, read through XInput, and other controllers Windows knows (a
  DualShock 4, a Switch Pro Controller), read through Windows.Gaming.Input. Holding View and Menu for a second brings
  Lamplit over a game from an Xbox-style controller. The button hints show A, B, X and Y when one of these was used last,
  and Settings > Controllers lists every controller with its name, connection and battery. Not yet tested on real
  Xbox or other controllers.

Changed

• Triangle opens Settings also when the row is empty, so Power and Hidden games are always in reach.
• A held key repeats only the arrows, as a held button on the controller does.
• Lamplit keeps what it knows per game in games.json; the played.json of 0.1.0 is still read.

Install

Download Lamplit-setup.exe below and run it. It installs Lamplit for your Windows account
only and doesn't ask for admin rights.

This build isn't code-signed yet, so Windows shows "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then
Run anyway. If Smart App Control is on, Windows blocks the installer and offers no way to run it.

All changes: CHANGELOG.md

Lamplit v0.1.0

The first public release, free for noncommercial use under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.

Added

• A full-screen home screen with one row of covers for every installed game from Steam, the Epic Games Launcher,
  GOG, the EA app, Ubisoft Connect, the Rockstar Games Launcher and the Xbox app, and for games outside any store:
  folders in <drive>:\Games, installed programs that look like games, and games Windows' Game Bar has seen. Last
  played first.
• Cover, background and logo art from Steam's library cache, else from Steam's public store, which is also searched
  by name for games from other stores. Find art online switches the online part off.
• Launching that starts each store app a game needs (including the launchers some publishers add), waits for it to
  sign in, shows Steam's update progress, steps aside while the game runs and comes back when it closes.
• DualSense and DualSense Edge over USB and Bluetooth: navigation, holding PS to bring Lamplit over a running game,
  battery, the headphone jack, Turn off for a controller on Bluetooth, and the touchpad as a mouse.
• Logitech G PRO X 2 LIGHTSPEED: on or off, battery, sidetone and the auto-off timer. Not yet confirmed on a real
  headset.
• Sound settings: output, microphone, volume and mute, and sound that follows the headset and controller headphones.
• Quiet mode for Windows' notifications and tips, Game Bar, Ubisoft Connect and Steam, which puts every setting back
  when switched off.
• A switch for NVIDIA's performance stats overlay.
• Steam's DevTools port as a setting, off by default, for keeping the PS button out of Big Picture and for Steam's
  notifications in quiet mode.
• First-time setup with one admin prompt: a logon task that starts Lamplit at sign-in, and a repair of Steam's
  background service.
• A per-user installer. The uninstaller deletes the logon task and, if you tick the box, Lamplit's data.
• Keyboard and mouse controls.

Install

Download Lamplit-setup.exe below and run it. It installs Lamplit for your Windows account
only and doesn't ask for admin rights.

This build isn't code-signed yet, so Windows shows "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then
Run anyway. If Smart App Control is on, Windows blocks the installer and offers no way to run it.

All changes: CHANGELOG.md