Ukrainian GameDev specialist and technical director Vitaliy Tarnavskyi introduced VARTA, a plugin for Steam Deck that shows the origin of a game even before its purchase and helps find projects by Russian developers in the library or wishlist.
Ukrainian GameDev specialist and technical director Vitaliy Tarnavskyi introduced VARTA, a plugin for Steam Deck that shows the origin of a game even before its purchase and helps find projects by Russian developers in the library or wishlist.
Steam Deck is a portable gaming console from Valve, and Decky Loader is one of the most popular unofficial platforms for installing plugins and expanding the capabilities of the device.
The author talked about the launch in Threads.
The idea for the project arose during a discussion of the capabilities of Steam Deck.
«It all started with the question: is it possible to do on Steam Deck what plugins on PC do in the browser? And as it turned out, it is possible. I wanted to see on Steam who actually owns the game, BEFORE buying it. Especially on Steam Deck, where no one wants to go into the browser and Google the studios separately,» he explained. Tarnavsky wrote.
According to him, VARTA’s main goal is to give users more context about the games they buy.
«I wanted to see on Steam who actually owns the game before buying it. Especially on Steam Deck, where no one wants to go into a browser and Google the studios separately,» the developer explained.
VARTA works as a plugin for Decky Loader, a popular Steam Deck extension system. Once installed, users see the corresponding badges directly on game pages.
In addition, the team added a separate wishlist scanner. «Now you don’t have to check it all by hand. I clicked a button, waited a bit, and got a list of questionable games. And you can remove them with one click,» Tarnavsky noted.
If a game isn’t in the database, you can submit it for review directly from Steam Deck. The database is updated automatically, so users don’t have to manually install updates or download new lists.
In parallel, the team launched the VARTA.GAMES website, where you can view database statistics and submit games for moderation from a computer or smartphone. «We just wanted to add a little context to the Steam Deck. And it seems we succeeded,» the author concluded.
