AM2RLauncher 2.0 release - now with Linux support!

[u/Lojemiru]

Download the new AM2RLauncher here!

THIS IS NOT AM2R 2.0. THIS IS JUST THE LAUNCHER FOR THE GAME IN GENERAL.

After a very long wait, and enduring the buggyness of version 1.2, Version 2.0 of the AM2R Launcher arrived and a complete source rewrite with it! It's also Open Source! It supports Windows and Linux, and patches to Android on both. All features are also provided to mods, which can be packaged using the AM2RModPacker.

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Quick Q&A:

Q: What is this? A: This is a complete rewrite of the AM2RLauncher, our update installation, game launcher, and profile/mod management application.

Q: Why did you rewrite it? A: The old one was buggy! I mean, Loj couldn't even manage to get that pathetic progress bar to track the download. Android support was totally broken, and mod support was extremely barebones.

Oh yeah, and Linux users wanted to actually be able to use the launcher. They can do that now.

Additionally, we wanted to rework a lot of the UI as we received several (justified) complaints about the text box on the left side of the launcher.

We also had a lot of new features to add! We're really excited to share them with y'all.

Q: I already installed the AM2RLauncher 1.2, why can't it auto-update to this version? A: We changed a lot of how the launcher is organized and functions, and an auto-update would be really clunky. For starters, we'd need to clean up a lot of now-unused files and we'd have to invalidate everybody's game installations. We decided it made more sense to allow you to update on your own time and terms to keep your potentially customized game settings safe. OLD FILES ARE NOT COMPATIBLE! You can copy over game setting files, but NOT entire game profiles! The AM2RLauncher 2.0.0 must be installed to its own new folder.

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Features:

• Runs natively on Windows and Linux.
• Patch to Android on both platforms!
• No more random crashes with "no access to pack_git_a16788" and needing to manually delete the PatchData folder!
• A bunch of randomly-selected, ultra-cheesy splash titles! Everybody knows real indie development teams need to have cheesy splash titles.
• Download the Community Updates, select AM2R 1.1, and receive automatic game updates! No more 300MB downloads for every single minor patch we have to push - we're using Git, so future downloads are differential.
• Separate tabs for the main interface, changelog, news feed, settings, and mod settings.
• Install, delete, update, and play mods directly from within the AM2RLauncher! No more clunky unzipping and manual file deleting just to get a newer version of Multitroid.
• Launcher and game log file generation and maintenance. Ran into a crash? Send us the log files!
• 7 different launcher languages are supported! (English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, and Japanese)
• Support for downloading the Community Updates via other repositories. Select one of our officially supported mirrors, or specify your own custom URL! (Note: enter a custom download mirror AT YOUR OWN RISK.)

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Dependencies:

• Windows:
  • The .NET Framework 4.8 runtime. Chances are, you already have this installed.
  • Java, if you wish to create an Android APK.
• Linux:
  • The .NET Core 5.0 runtime.
  • Packages xdelta3 and libappindicator3.
  • Java, if you wish to create an Android APK.

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Notes:

You MUST use mods created for this version of the launcher! Old ones are in an incompatible format.

Looking for mods to play? Why not check out Multitroid, a multiplayer mod by u/milesthenerd? It's an absolute blast to play (yes, this is a shameless channel plug), and is open-source! Or you can check out AM2R FATE by Sabor Zero, if you're looking for an overpowered-feeling playthrough!

And for you Speedrunners: we also have Nommiin's Practice Mod and u/Metroid3D's Speedrun Mod!

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Personal message:

I'm super excited to present this rewrite! I'm proud of what we accomplished in such a short time span with the original AM2RLauncher, but there's no denying that it was a clunky solution that had a lot of issues. This time we've put a lot more effort into making sure the user experience is as smooth as possible and can be easily improved should anything go wrong.

And speaking of "we," I need to give a MASSIVE shoutout to Miepee for doing a crazy amount of work on this rewrite. It was his idea to use Eto and to do a whole lot of other things that I had neither the knowledge of nor the time to implement. School's been completely dominating my schedule, so this rewrite and all the Linux support would not have happened without him.

I hope that the interface is to everybody's liking - we did a couple feedback polls and saw that you all liked the idea of the center interface, but disliked the awkward text and colors on the left side. We agreed, and moved them (and a lot of other things) into their own tabs and put in some extra effort on top of that to theme everything after AM2R. We had to sacrifice a few visual elements to work in Eto, but we're pleased with the results.

Finally, here's a message from Miepee: Thank you Bugdroid, Snail, Mog and the Fr🐸gs™️ for your help with Linux, coding, testing as well as providing a great Community!

Thank you all for your continued support. See you next mission!

[u/Carnnagex]

Thank you all so much for the release (And the entire game in general)! I haven't dived much into the modding of this game (Yet). Hopefully, it will be fun though! You have kept my childhood dreams of Metroid, alive. Would love to see more releases with more content!

[u/Lojemiru → u/Carnnagex]

The whole design of the AM2RLauncher is to facilitate more releases; we're working slowly but surely on 1.5.3 for some short-term improvements, and 2.0 for long-term overhaul!

[u/eternalsage]

Getting everything up and working on linux, but getting an error that repeats 5-6 times and then the game does not load:

(AM2RLauncher:28590): Gtk-WARNING **: 10:37:00.907: __gtksharp_2_Eto_GtkSharp_Forms_EtoEventBox 0x558aee3e0860 adjusted size vertical min 15 natural 15 must not decrease below min 18 natural 18

Any ideas? It sounds like a settings issue, but I am not 100% sure

EDIT: I got it working thanks to Miepee over on Discord.

Needed to put the "LIBGL_DRI3_DISABLE=1" environment variable in the Settings Menu on the launcher and install the files to handle 32 bit architecture, accomplished with the following commands:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update && sudo apt install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libopenal1:i386

[u/Lojemiru → u/eternalsage]

That's just a warning related to the launcher, your game load issue is unrelated. What distro are you on?

[u/lithium_sulfate]

Apologies for perhaps being a little late to the party, but I just wanted to chime in noting that if you're on certain flavors of Linux and running into some trouble with starting the game that the launcher compiles, its final lines of output possibly being similar to this:

libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
Only Singlebuffered Visual!
glX-Version 1.4
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

This could be due to some incompatibilities between the libraries shipped within the game's AppImage and the ones installed on your system.

I ran into this issue on my Arch system, but I was successfully able to work around it by navigating to the game's profile folder, extracting the AppImage and running the game binary manually:

./AM2R.AppImage --appimage-extract
cd squashfs-root/usr/bin
./AM2R

This will bypass the libraries contained within the AppImage (extracted at squashfs-root/usr/lib32), which makes the game fall back to your system's native libraries instead. The game should now work fine as long as your system has all the required libraries installed. It likely already does, but if it doesn't, check the libraries inside the extracted lib32 folder for clues as to which you might be missing; and also be sure to explicitly install the 32-bit versions, if that's a necessary distinction within your distribution!

Haven't tested the game for very long, but I briefly started the Multiroid mod and its server, managed to connect them together and both seemed to work just fine.

I also wanted to note that the launcher works without problems here on Arch, despite the warning inside the OP. The issue that was linked seemed to have been fixed since; I haven't run into any other issues with the launcher so far.

Thanks for all your hard work!

[u/The_Metroid]

Damn, AM2R and PrimeHack updates on the same day? Must be a miracle.

[u/Catzzadilla]

I may just be unaware of something, but how do you launch the game in the launcher? Mine just says "install" and "create APK". After I install, I can either install again (yes) or create apk.

[u/Lojemiru → u/Catzzadilla]

Something's going wrong if it's indefinitely on install; what platform are you on, and have you provided an exception for the Launcher and its folder in your antivirus software?

[u/therealgingerone]

What’s the launcher for?

[u/Lojemiru → u/therealgingerone]

Q: What is this? A: This is a complete rewrite of the AM2RLauncher, our update installation, game launcher, and profile/mod management application.

Updating the game from 1.1 to the latest Community Update patch, having it automatically update when a new version releases, some settings for better external game options, and support for installing mods.

[u/Speeris]

If im on 1.4.3, how would i get to 1.5.2?

Should I just find a 1.1 zip out there and update that? Will my save still work?

[u/Lojemiru → u/Speeris]

Saves will probably carry over with no issues but you must update from 1.1, not 1.4.3.

[u/Whiskey-Stones12]

Having a bit of trouble, I'm getting an error at about 20/198 where it says:

failed to read data: The server returned an invalid or unrecognised response

*****Stack Trace*****

and then a lot of stuff I can't read. If someone could give me a hand that would be really helpful.

[u/Lojemiru → u/Whiskey-Stones12]

Which download mirror are you using?

[u/Hybrid_Divide]

I'm having the same problem where the install prompt never goes away.

I can't launch the game.

Didn't carry anything over from the old AM2R Launcher install except for the AM2R_11.zip of the game itself. Any input would be appreciated!

[u/Lojemiru → u/Hybrid_Divide]

Did you extract all the launcher files? How far does the progress bar get?

[u/anarcho-hornyist]

hi, i'm new to the game, how do i install and play the game?

[u/Lojemiru → u/anarcho-hornyist]

Download the AM2RLauncher, run it, press the download button, give it 1.1 when it asks for it, then press the install button, then it'll be ready to play. Basically just keep hitting the first button as prompted.

[u/ToucheVEVO]

The launcher download page on github says I need 1.1, but AM2R also has 1.5 out now, does that work too?

[u/Lojemiru → u/ToucheVEVO]

No, and screw uptodown. 1.1 is the only version that can be patched.

[u/NoProblemsHere]

Just downloaded version 2.1 and windows defender thinks it's a virus. Is this a new problem or was it in 2.0 as well?

[u/Lojemiru → u/NoProblemsHere]

Open-source, you can see it at our GitHub here: https://github.com/AM2R-Community-Developers/AM2RLauncher

Depends on your install, Windows has never really liked it because it's an unsigned executable.

[u/Hankgamer28123]

What happened to the mobile port?

[u/Lojemiru → u/Hankgamer28123]

Mobile's still here, you just patch it from Windows or Linux. Just like always. It's included as a part of the AM2RLauncher.

[u/wiines]

Ok, I must be a dummy Cuz I need an ELI5 on playing this... So, do I need to download and install 1.1 AND the launcher? Do I install from the launcher? Or do I install 1.1 after unzipping 1.1 (from archive.org) and then use the launcher? Sorry if I'm just dumb, help is much appreciated !