Update Log v1.2
Nostlan is a high quality front-end launcher for video game emulators! Available on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Supports Dolphin, Cemu, Yuzu, mGBA, DeSmuME, Citra, MAME, PCSX2, RPCS3, and Xenia.
Download the latest version of Nostlan and if you enjoy the app please make a donation, any amount of money is appreciated. Support the development of Nostlan on patreon to gain access to premium features! New user? Read more about Nostlan
New image databases and major user experience improvements. Premium features announced.
Nostlan can now automatically download high quality cover art for the majority of your games! This update required a lot of behind the scenes work, writing scrapers for FlyerFever, The Cover Project, and gamefaqs to get direct links to images and storing them in the game database files.
Arcade game flyers for MAME are from FlyerFever these images are hosted by Tumblr. Be warned, if you have the full MAME library all of these images will require 13GB of disk space! It's totally worth it though, a lot of this artwork is incredible. Take a look at this screenshot. MAME arcade cabinet artwork is downloaded from Mr. Do's Arcade.
Most PS2 and GBA game artwork is downloaded from The Cover Project and gamefaqs.
This update adds several new features that will improve the user experience. There are two new options in the pause menu: rescan game library and recheck for images. A rescan should be done if you've added new games to your game library. Nostlan will check for available game artwork images for those games. Rechecking for images will rescan your game library and recheck for available images for all your games. If you are a previous user of Nostlan, you should do a recheck for all of your game libraries to get missing images.
Need to adjust settings in the emulator app without loading a game? The Reset button on the main game library screen now does just that! Power will start the emulator with the selected game.
I've made an ease of use change that several users have suggested. The entire overlay covers, not just the buttons, are clickable. Now you can haphazardly drag the mouse to the corner and click without having to precisely move it over the little buttons.
I've made it easier to add your own images. Images can be .png or .jpg. Put your images in emu/nostlan/{sys}/{game.id}. You can access this folder by clicking on the game's box twice in Nostlan and then clicking on "ImgDir". Front cover box art is prioritized in this order: box, coverFull, cover. Note if you've used Nostlan before, the old location of images was emu/nostlan/{sys}/{game.id}/img, your images will be moved automatically to emu/nostlan/{sys}/{game.id} by the new version of Nostlan when it tries to load them.
Nostlan now remembers your most recently played game for each individual emulator. Nostlan will auto-scroll and place the game controller cursor on it when you load the corresponding game library. This is a necessity for the large MAME library. Filter searching for games will be the next feature I will work on!
When I created Nostlan I wanted to make box art the primary, practically singular, focus of the UI. In my opinion, many other frontend apps waste a lot of screen space on metadata, menus, descriptions, or just plain empty space. I don't need a paragraph long description of Super Mario Sunshine but I would like to see the game's box art, game disc, manual, etc. in all their glory. I wanted to capture some of those physical aspects of console gaming that most frontends don't replicate. That's why most most of the theming in Nostlan is based on the console's hardware. For the next step in this design I've been working on an open box menu. I need some help making images for all supported systems though.
Controller profiles are now assigned automatically by controller type: xbox, ps, or nintendo. The default profile will be used if the connected controller's gamepad id is not one of those types.
If there's a major or minor update available Nostlan will open the latest update log for you.
Nostlan is no longer an "experimental" project and is ready for public use! If something is wrong with the app or if you have any questions please email me mailto:qashto@gmail.com or write up an issue report on Github. What do you think of the premium features I have planned?
Support the development of Nostlan on Patreon to gain access to these upcoming features!
Coming Soon:
- UI for save file management
- cloud saving with Nostlan will automatically sync your emulator game saves and save states to a folder in Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. play across multiple devices without losing in-game progress!
Milestone Goals:
- single click to install emulators/updates
- database of Dolphin texture packs
- batch install and auto-update texture packs for Dolphin
- easy way to mix and swap texture packs for Dolphin
- create custom themes
Hi my name is Quinton and this is the part where I beg you for money! Even though I decided to make this project open source and free to use, it still took a lot of work and a long time to develop. If you appreciate my work so far and will continue to use Nostlan please donate an amount of your choosing. If everyone that downloads this update gave me even $1 I would really appreciate it. I spent upwards of 200 hours on this update. Cloud saving is coming soon for Patreon supporters. Thank you!
Support on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/qashto
Donate via Paypal:
https://www.paypal.me/qashto/20