Hi y'all! It's MusicalMinerdude, comin' at you once again.

Seen some of my dev plays of Xeno Fighters R? Noticed I sometimes play on Steam Deck? Wha? XFR on the go?

If you want to also play XFR on the go, read on as I reveal my secrets to getting the game up and running on Steam Deck!

1. Turn on your Steam Deck and enter Desktop Mode. This is required to get this game onto Steam Deck.
2. Go to our game's itch.io page using any web browser and download the game. Do not use the itch.io client to download the game. It won't allow you, since we don't have a Linux build of the game yet.
3. Navigate to the "xeno-fighters-r-windows" ZIP in your Downloads folder.
   1. Do not extract the ZIP straight into the main Downloads folder! Trust me: not a fun mess to clean up!
      
   2. Click on the option "Extract, autodetect subfolder". This option will create a new folder with the same name as the ZIP file and extract the files there.
4. After extracting the contents of the ZIP file, go to the newly-created subfolder and rename the game's EXE. This is highly recommended, as Steam does not behave well with EXE filenames with white spaces in them. You can rename the EXE by deleting the white spaces, or replacing them with hyphens or underscores. Note that this step will not be needed once Team XF changes the game EXE's name to remove the white spaces in some way.
5. After renaming the EXE file, right-click it and hit "Add to Steam"!
   1. You can also add the game EXE to Steam from within Steam itself:
      1. Open the Desktop client. Do not return to Gaming Mode; it will not give you the following option.
      2. Click "Add a Game", then "Add a Non-Steam Game..."
      3. Hit "Browse..." next. The game's EXE will most likely not show up in the program list by default.
      4. Use the file browser popup to navigate to the "xeno-fighters-r-windows" subfolder, then double-click the game's EXE (remember, make sure there are no spaces in its filename first!).
      5. Hit "Add Selected Programs" and proceed to step 6 below!
6. After adding the game EXE, we will want to make sure it can actually run on Steam. We will use Proton for this.
   1. Navigate to the Steam Library instance of Xeno Fighters R in either Desktop Mode or Gaming Mode. Click on the gear icon and go to Properties. Then, choose the Compatibility menu.
   2. In the Compatibility menu, check the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" box. The drop-down list provided will allow you to select a compatibility tool. These are the Proton versions available:
      1. Basic Proton: To my memory, just the latest version of base Proton provided by Steam should do if you want to save a little time.
      2. GE-Proton: Want maximum compatibility? I highly recommend the latest version of GE-Proton. Here are two methods to install:
         1. ProtonUp-Qt: Install this application from the Discover store to manage your compatibility tools in Desktop Mode.
         2. WineCellar: This is a plugin offered for download in the Decky Loader suite of Steam Deck plugins, if you're customizing your Deck further like me. (https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader to learn more about Decky Loader.) With WineCellar, you can manage your compatibility tools from the comfort of your system's Gaming Mode! It might even be a little easier to wrangle.
7. With basic Proton or GE-Proton chosen in the drop-down list, try running the game. If it works, you're done! Enter Gaming Mode and blast away! Feel free to rename and set custom artwork for the Steam instance as you wish, too. (Find my custom artwork here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Es0tPFmHidLJ0aKV6nUMfaPNiW6J0Sp-?usp=dri...)
8. When updating the game to a new version, follow the same steps as before! You can overwrite old files with the updated ones in the new ZIP, but I recommend moving any music mods out of the old game subfolder and deleting said game subfolder so you can create the new one with little fuss and move your mods back into place.

Now you have Xeno Fighters R on the go! You can battle the forces of BRES anywhere you please! See you out there, pilots...

-DISCLAIMER-

As of this writing, Linux support is not yet official. I can confirm a high potential level of accuracy running Xeno Fighters R on Linux/Steam Deck using the process outlined above. However, any bugs encountered on Steam Deck will have limited support. In cases like this, run the game in Windows and see if the same bug appears there. If the bug also occurs on Windows builds of the game, we can confirm it as a universal bug.