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March 2026: A Culinary Experience

The RetroDECK Team have been hard at work stirring the development cauldron.

Highlights

News

  • Community Showcase: Decky Plugin - RetroDECKY
  • Development Update: 0.11.0
  • Publication Pipeline Changes
  • RetroDECK Epicure
  • RetroDECK Countertop

Community Showcase: Decky Plugin - RetroDECKY

RetroDECKY Icon

Link: GitHub: RetroDECKY

Screenshots

RetroDECKY in-game menu RetroDECKY Adventure Art RetroDECKY Hotkey overview

RetroDECKY Hotkey Explination

About

RetroDECKY is a newly released 3rd party and nonofficial Decky plugin developed by community contributor Teppichseite.

This is an extremely early piece of software and should be considered to be in an pre-alpha stage and is not yet out on the Decky plugin store and additional features are planned.

If you have suggestions for Teppichseite or would like to contribute, please submit feedback or issues on the project's GitHub repository or on the RetroDECK Discord.

Features

Read more on the project GitHub page.

  • Running Game Actions - Displays hotkey actions specific to the currently running game.

  • Running Game Information - Displays data from ES-DE such as artwork, covers and metadata.

  • Hotkey Triggering - Execute hotkey functions through Decky menu buttons instead of keyboard hotkeys, button combos or radial menus.

  • Boot into RetroDECK - A function to automatically start RetroDECK when Steam launches in Game Mode.

  • PDF Manual Viewer - Read game manuals without leaving the game session.

RetroDECK Team Comment

RetroDECKs design philosophy is that all functionality should be contained within RetroDECK itself, you download it and you get it all. Nonetheless, the team actively welcomes community contributions such as RetroDECKY, which introduce fresh ways to enhance and tinker with RetroDECK.

We closely follow its development and provide ongoing feedback to Teppichseite or any other developers pursuing new projects.

Development Update: 0.11.0

We have begun development on the upcoming major update, 0.11.0.

This release is currently in active early development, with the team adding new features, improvements and several unexpected things.

Remaining Rewrites

With the release of 0.10.0b, RetroDECK underwent a comprehensive architectural overhaul, transitioning to an internal modular component structure. As part of the roadmap toward 0.11.0, we have begun working on the remaining things that were not included in the initial rewrite.

This work will be covered in greater detail in future blog posts.

This month we will focus on: Publication Pipeline Changes

Publication Pipeline Changes

Several build and publication pipelines were intentionally left unchanged due to time constraints and other priorities in 0.10.0b. These remaining pipelines are now being modernized as part of the work leading up to the 0.11.0 release.

So, what’s changing?

Previously, we maintained two release variants of RetroDECK:

  • Stable (Flathub releases)
  • Cooker (bleeding-edge nightlies)

With the updated publication pipeline, that number will increase to four:

  • Stable
  • Epicure
  • Cooker
  • Countertop

RetroDECK Epicure

RetroDECK Countertop Icon RetroDECK Countertop Configurator Icon

Epicure: A user who cultivates refined taste and appreciation, eager to savor even the smallest preview of the latest culinary experiences, an apéritif of what is yet to come.

RetroDECK Epicure is a new testing branch designed to bridge the gap between the Cooker and Stable releases by leveraging the flathub.beta repository intended for testing users.

Installation and updates are streamlined: users simply install RetroDECK Epicure from the flathub.beta repository. Updates are then delivered automatically through Flathub via your software center, such as Discover, Bazaar, or GNOME Software.

Unlike Cooker, which focuses on bleeding-edge changes and new features. Epicure is built on the Stable branch while automatically integrating the latest pre-release or unstable builds of individual components.

The goal is for Epicure to follow an automatic biweekly release schedule.

This approach provides testing users with access to newer component versions while maintaining a reliable and stable base. However, if a component introduces major changes, automatic builds may temporarily break for that component until they are addressed in a subsequent Epicure update.

Epicure serves a dual purpose:

  • To support users who prefer more bleeding-edge, less stable component versions (with all the risks that entails, as this is still a testing branch).
  • To expand the tester base to identify and report issues earlier in the release cycle before they reach the Stable branch.

RetroDECK Team Comment

We decided on a green and yellow logo that symbolize ingredients that are not yet fully cooked and are being prepared over an open flame.

RetroDECK Countertop

RetroDECK Countertop Icon RetroDECK Countertop Configurator Icon

Countertop: a self-directed chef. One who brings their own ingredients, crafts their own masterpiece and refines their recipe with the ambition of one day contributing to the final buffet.

RetroDECK Countertop is a development branch based on Cooker and intended for developers.

It is a minimal, stripped-down build of RetroDECK that includes the RetroDECK Framework, ES-DE, and a set of development tools.

Countertop excludes the standard bundled components, providing a lightweight environment for experimentation, tinkering, and integration work.

It serves as a practical sandbox for developers who wish to prototype and test new components within the RetroDECK ecosystem without repeatedly downloading the full RetroDECK package with all components included.

This streamlined "Mini-RetroDECK" should enable faster iteration and more focused development within the RetroDECK environment.

RetroDECK Team Comment

We chose a white logo to symbolize a blank slate, an empty canvas or a white marble kitchen island ready for ingredients.

That is all for now

There are more features and improvements in the works, which will be shared in future blog updates!

As always, if you want to help with development, join the 💙-i-want-to-help channel on Discord, or reach out to us on Matrix or other socials.

A big thank you to everyone for your continued support 🦈.

// The RetroDECK Team

Category Link Description
🌐 Website retrodeck.net Official RetroDECK homepage
💬 Discord Join Discord Discord community chat
💬 Matrix Matrix Room Open Matrix community space
💬 Lemmy Lemmy Community RetroDECK community on Lemmy
💬 Reddit r/retrodeck RetroDECK subreddit
📖 Wiki RetroDECK Wiki Official documentation and guides
❤️ Donations Donations & Licenses Support the project and view license information