Installing the game on Steam Deck

This is written in the assumption that you aren't very familiar with Linux or a Pc, as not every Steam Deck user is.

Anything done here is done in Desktop mode. To access it, hold the power button down, and select "Switch to Desktop". Once in Desktop mode, the icon on the bottom left, "Return to Gaming Mode", will do as it says when pressed twice.

• Controls to know: left Trigger to left-click; right trigger to right-click; right trackpad controls mouse movement; X button opens virtual keyboard.
• The bar at the bottom of the screen is the Taskbar, you find Firefox & Dolphin (blue folder icon) there. The Start/Application menu is accessed by clicking the button on the very left of the taskbar.
• "Path", refers to the location of something like "/home/deck/Downloads".
• "Dolphin" is the file explorer that Steam Deck normally has, the current path, or your location in your files, is at the top right and looks like: "> Home > Applications > Something". You can click on it to view the actual path and change it (don't forget to press the small checkmark at the right after typing a new path), or directly right-click it to copy or paste it.
• "Desktop", refers to the screen space above the taskbar when you aren't looking at another window like Dolphin or another game.

If you are looking to install an unstable version(prereleases, release candidates, etc), want to have multiple installations, or prefer to do so, head straight to Manual Install. Otherwise, for the easiest install, go to Automatic Install via FlatPak.

Installing the Game

Automatic Install via FlatPak

The FlatPak version, distributed on the Discover app, is a quick and easy way to install. But it isn't maintained by the VS developers themselves though, so u might have to wait occasionally if a new update to was released to the stable versions. Try installing the game manually if you'd like to play unstable versions(prereleases, release candidates), install multiple versions, or install a stable version that the FlatPak version hasn't updated too yet.

If you need steps to follow:

1. Open the blue shopping bag icon on your taskbar, that's the Discover App
2. Press the Search bar on the top-left and use the virtual keyboard to search for "Vintage Story"
3. There should only be one that exactly matches what you searched, press that.
4. Press the "Sources" button on the top right, and select the "Flathub (user)" version, then press "Install"
5. After it finishes installing, press "Launch" at the top-right to verify the game runs, and then exit the game.

Unlike the manual install, you won't need to separately install .NET, but in the off chance that this version doesn't launch correctly, go back to it's Discover page, press "Remove" and try to install the game manually.

You should add the game and data folder to "Places" for easy access:

1. Open the blue folder icon on your taskbar, that's the Dolphin App.
2. Right-click the "Places" text on the top-right, and press "Add Entry".
3. Right-click the highlighted text, paste one of the paths below, then click the box next to Label and name it accordingly. Repeat for the other path.
   • Game folder, only used to run the game, doesn't store world saves, mods, or settings (Example name: Vintage Story Game):

     /home/deck/.local/share/flatpak/app/at.vintagestory.VintageStory/x86_64/stable/adb5698fbbbe163d551960bec84f64ef352c5893f2b4e8762c09de4c8a9dd1ec/files/extra/vintagestory
     

   • Data folder, only stores the world saves, mods, or settings, works for every version (Example name: Vintage Story Data):

     /home/deck/.var/app/at.vintagestory.VintageStory/config/VintagestoryData

4. Now you can quickly access both folders by pressing the name you chose for it, found under the "Places" text.

You can run the game whenever through the Start menu, finding the game in Discover, or double-clicking the "run.sh" file in the game folder ("vintagestory"), but if you'd like to run the game from Gaming mode, make sure you have the path to your "vintagestory" folder copied (you can easily do so if you added it to your Places list by right-clicking it's name there and pressing copy), then head to Launching the Game.

Manual Install

This method is requires a bit more effort than installing the FlatPak version, but with this method, you can install unstable versions(prereleases, release candidates), multiple versions, or a stable version that the FlatPak version hasn't updated to yet. Although unlike with the FlatPak version, you'll have to manually install .NET, but follow these steps before you do that.

Steps to follow to install (if installing an update, simply delete the old version or overwrite all the files during step 8):

1. Open Firefox using the icon on the taskbar, then head to the downloads page on the Vintage Story website.
2. Find and download the version you want to install. (You'll be downloading the Linux version, as Steam Deck runs on Linux. For a previous or unstable version from the bottom of the page, the file type to download is "Linux tar.gz Archive (full)")
3. Open Dolphin, the blue folder on the taskbar.
4. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the file to, by default its the "Downloads" folder. If you are having trouble finding it, you can click the "Downloads" text under the "Places" List on the left of the screen.
5. Find the version you downloaded, it should start with "vs_client_linux-x64".
6. Right-click on the file and click "Open with Arc", the first option on the popup menu, a new window for Arc will open.
7. Wait for Arc to load the file, then click "Extract" at top-left. This will bring up another Arc window that looks similar to Dolphin, with the path at the top (like "> Downloads").
8. Click the path at the top and replace everything there with this path instead: "/home/deck/.local/share", without the quotations, then press the checkmark on the side. Or instead, right-click the path and then press paste, after copying the path given here first. Note: If you want to install Vintage Story in a different location, and you know what you are doing, use that path instead of "/home/deck/.local/share".
9. Once Arc finishes extracting, the game has been installed to the location you chose, and you can close the Arc windows.
10. Before moving on, you should add the location the "Places" so u don't lose the location though:
    1. In Dolphin, hover over the "Places" text on the left of the screen, right-click, and press "Add Entry".
    2. If the text isn't highlighted, double click the text in the box next to "Location", then type or right-click to paste the location you extracted the "vintagestory" folder to: "/home/deck/.local/share/vintagestory/" (if you chose a different location, find the folder, copy it's location and use it here)
    3. Next to label, you can call it "Vintage Story" with the version number, or however you want to call it.
    4. Now you can easily access that the "vintagestory" folder by pressing the name you called it u called it under the Places list.
       • You can also add another Places entry for the "VintagestoryData" folder (your world saves and mods are here), using this path instead: "/home/.deck/.config/VintagestoryData/"
       • If you rename the actual folder the Places entry links to, the entry won't update the path by itself, so either delete the entry and recreate it, or edit it.
11. Head to installing .NET, if you don't already have it. Otherwise, go to Launching the Game.

To install multiple versions, follow the steps above but only after renaming the old "vintagestory" folder, or rename the new "vintagestory" folder while extracting. Then follow any other steps for that installation, assuming that folder's name when "vintagestory" is mentioned.

Installing .NET

Manual Install

Keep in mind, .NET, and other packages such as it installed via this manner, will be wiped every time SteamOS(what steam deck runs on) updates. Using the script from Persistent Install to circumvent this is recommended.

Use the Start menu to search for Konsole, then type/paste in the following commands:

sudo steamos-readonly disable
sudo pacman-key --init
sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux
sudo pacman-key --populate holo
sudo pacman -S dotnet-runtime-7.0
sudo steamos-readonly enable

Here's a script that runs those commands so you can run it each time .NET is wiped: InstallDotnet.zip

Before you can run it, it's in a zip archive so you'll have to, right-click it, hover over "Extract", then press "Extract archive here". After you extract the script, right-click on the script and press "Properties". Go to the Permissions tab, and enable "Is executable", now u can double-click it to run, but you should instead right-click and press "Run in Konsole" to be able to see if any errors occur.

As long as no errors occurred after running those commands, .NET should be installed, and you can run the game now. To play the game in Gaming mode, or add a desktop shortcut, look to Launching the Game.

Persistent Install via Script

As SteamOS wipes packages like .NET when installed via pacman, this script uses distrobox to install it in a container where it wont be wiped. In simpler terms, it installs .NET in a safety box and lets you run the game inside said safety box. Although, keep in mind, there has been a case where the safety box itself, broke due to an update, so you'll have to redownload it. But don't worry, the script can be re-ran to setup the box again: VS_SetupScript.zip

Once you download it, you should find it in your Downloads folder (navigate to where you downloaded it using Dolphin). Before you can run it, it's in a zip archive so you'll have to right-click it, hover over "Extract", then press "Extract archive here". After you extract the script, right-click on the script and press "Properties". Go to the Permissions tab, and enable "Is executable. Without this, the script will not run, as the name of the toggle suggests, so don't forget to do this.

Now you can double-click on the script to run it, it'll open a Konsole window to show you what's going on and occasionally need your input. You should only have to press the A button once, when it asks you for the Vintage Story directory, to select the default directory. If you installed the "vintagestory" directory to a different location, or renamed the "vintagestory" folder, you'll want to press the X button to bring up the keyboard and type in the path to that folder. (Alternatively, find the folder in Dolphin, right-click the folder, copy the location. Then head back to the Konsole window, right-click inside the window, press paste, and press the A button)

After you run the script, in the same folder, a new script called, "DB_VintageStory.sh", should be there. I'll refer to this as the game script for simplicity. This is what you will run instead of "run.sh". you should rename the game script to add the version of the game it runs and create a folder to place it in:

1. Right-click any empty space in the Dolphin.
2. Press "Create new", then "Folder".
3. Give the folder a name, I'll refer to this folder as "VS_Gamescripts", but u can name it whatever you want.
4. Drag the game script into "VS_Gamescripts", and move that folder wherever you want.
5. Optional, but recommended: drag the original setup script into this folder too

You can rerun the setup script in the future to reinstall the entire safety box in the off chance it does break after an update, or to get a new game script. When it creates a new game script, it'll ask you for the "vintagestory" folder's path, but you can give it the path of a different folder, to get a game script for a different version. But you don't need to do this when you update the game, as long as you overwrite the original "vintagestory" folder with the same name and location.

You'll want to create a desktop shortcut for it, or add this script to Steam instead of "run.sh" (to play in Gaming mode), both of which are explained in Launching the Game.

Launching the Game

If you installed the game manually using the official downloads, don't forget to install .NET!

You'll need to know or copy the path to the "vintagestory" folder of the installation you want to launch. Here's the default paths if needed, but if you renamed the "vintagestory" folder, you should edit these paths accordingly:

• FlatPak Install:

  /home/deck/.local/share/flatpak/app/at.vintagestory.VintageStory/x86_64/stable/adb5698fbbbe163d551960bec84f64ef352c5893f2b4e8762c09de4c8a9dd1ec/files/extra/vintagestory
  

• Manual Install (unless you chose a different path):

  /home/deck/.local/share/vintagestory/
  

Playing in Gaming Mode

In order to play from Gaming mode like other games, you'll need to add "run.sh" to Steam before returning to Gaming mode (Skip Step 1 if you already have your "vintagestory" path copied):

1. Open Dolphin, if you already have the "vintagestory" folder of the version you want to add, in the "Places" list, right-click it and copy the location. Otherwise, find and enter the "vintagestory" folder of the installation you want to add, then right-click the path at the top, and press copy. Exit Dolphin.
2. Use the Start menu to find and open Steam, then go to the Library tab.
3. Press "Add a Game" in the bottom-left, then "Add a Non-Steam Game".
4. Press "Browse", and right-click the path at the top, then press "paste".
5. Find and press "run.sh", then "Open".
6. Now you can use the gear icon on the left to open the properties menu to change the name and icon.
7. To set the icon: press the blank box next to the name and, like before, paste in the path. Press "assets", press any of the "gameicon" files, and then hit "Open".
8. Optional Desktop Shortcut: You can create one directly from Steam now that you've added the game to it. Press the gear icon while on the library page for run.sh, go to "manage" and then "Add desktop shortcut".

Creating a Desktop Shortcut

If you already plan to play the game in Gaming mode, follow those steps first, as you'll be able to add easily add a shortcut from there.

If you downloaded the FlatPak version, you should already have a shortcut available in the Start menu. Simply open it, search for "Vintage Story", right-click it, and add shortcut. Otherwise, you'll have manually create a desktop shortcut (Skip Step 1 if you already have your "vintagestory" path copied):

1. Open Dolphin, if you already have the "vintagestory" folder of the version you want to use, in the "Places" list, right-click it and copy the location. Otherwise, find and enter the "vintagestory" folder of the installation you want to add, then right-click the path at the top, and press copy. Exit Dolphin.
2. On your Desktop screen, Right-click in empty space.
3. Press "Create New", then "Link to Application".
4. Replace "Link to Application" to any name you want for the shortcut.
5. Switch to the Permissions tab, and enable "Is executable".
6. Switch to the Application tab.
7. Next to Program, type in "Bash", and next to Arguments, type in "run.sh".
8. For Work path, right-click and paste in the directory you copied earlier.
9. To set the icon, go back to the General tab, press the white window icon next to the shortcut name, then "Browse". If you aren't in the "vintagestory" folder, right-click the path at the top, then press paste. From here, press "assets", press any of the "gameicon" files, then "Open" at the bottom-left.
10. Press OK, and the shortcut should run the game when you double click it.