I changed my Android launcher with a recreation emulation hub

EmulationStation has been top-of-the-line emulation frontends for years, and with the latest replace to the Android port of ES-DE Frontend, I needed to see simply how far I might push it. It presents a superb UI for emulation, however can it do extra? Can it exchange my predominant launcher on Android?

After testing it out for just a few days on the REDMAGIC 10 Professional, the reply is sure, it will possibly. Nevertheless, there are just a few enormous caveats to contemplate earlier than infusing your day by day driver Android smartphone with a retro console interface.

When you’re unfamiliar with ES-DE Frontend, it’s a paid app that brings all of your emulators and video games right into a unified UI. It’s a port of EmulationStation, which has been a mainstay on PC, Linux, and different gadgets for a very long time. As a result of permission necessities, it’s not obtainable on the Play Retailer, nevertheless it prices about $5 on Patreon, Samsung Galaxy Retailer, or Huawei AppGallery.

Importantly, it doesn’t emulate something. You’ll nonetheless must arrange RetroArch and any standalone emulators you wish to use individually. For me, that is all the time essentially the most time-consuming course of, nevertheless it’s important to get it proper for the perfect expertise. As soon as your emulators are configured accurately, the app can launch all your emulated video games from a single menu.

Fortunately, organising ES-DE is simple. I grabbed the APK from the hyperlink I used to be despatched after paying on Patreon, and the on-screen directions ran me via the fundamentals. As soon as completed, I imported all my ROMs, scraped field artwork, and selected just a few attention-grabbing themes.

That final one is vital as a result of there are tons of themes to select from. All of them give the expertise a distinct vibe, they usually’re all very completely different from any Android launchers I’ve used.

It takes some time to obtain every theme, however you may swap between them everytime you need. You can too customise each by growing font sizes, altering layouts from lists to grids, and so forth.

Nevertheless, one huge factor is lacking after this preliminary setup, and that’s, nicely, every little thing aside from emulators. I needed ES-DE to interchange my dwelling display screen, which suggests I want a option to entry all of my Android apps, too. There’s at the moment no method to do that natively within the app (though the dev has mentioned it might be added within the 3.2.0 launch), however there are just a few instruments that fill the hole.

First, I downloaded just a few XML information from this GitHub web page. As soon as added to the “custom_systems” folder within the ES-DE listing, they add a number of new platforms to the launcher. These embrace console hacks, the Swap/WiiU, and, most significantly, Android apps and video games.

After that, I sideloaded an app known as ES Launcher. This lets you choose which apps and video games you wish to seem inside ES-DE. You possibly can add your calculator, however for me, it’s all about including the hottest Android video games like Infinity Nikki. Don’t decide me.

The one factor left at this level was to vary my launcher within the settings, and bam, my telephone was now a bonafide retro gaming console, full with trendy Android video games and apps. The telephone launches immediately into ES-DE Frontend once I flip it on, however I can nonetheless entry the notification menu and settings by sliding down from the highest.

At first, this was nice. It labored identical to my Linux-based TrimUI Sensible Professional gaming handheld however with way more energy and flexibility. Nevertheless, the shortcomings have been apparent after I had used it for only a few hours.

Whereas ES-DE is nice for gaming, it’s merely less than the duty for different day by day makes use of. My greatest grievance is the dearth of contact controls, which is a big ache when the telephone isn’t related to a controller. I all the time flip the controller overlay off when utilizing ES-DE on Android-based gaming handhelds, so being pressured to make use of it was additional painful.

Plus, I needed to manually scroll via all of my recreation programs to get to apps. For checking my e-mail or opening WhatsApp, this was a chore. Saving them as favorites did assist because it created a brand new form of dwelling display screen with my most used apps. Nonetheless, I had to make use of the on-screen controls to open them and there aren’t any widgets to supply info at a look.

The opposite huge draw back is that ES-DE solely works in panorama. It does help sq. side ratios, that are discovered on many retro gaming handhelds, however nothing vertical. Because of this once I launched most native Android apps, I needed to flip my machine. Telephones (and Android, actually) clearly aren’t made for use in panorama on a regular basis, so it’s fairly uncomfortable.

Fortunately, a simple workaround mounted my complaints, and that’s Tasker. By organising an automation to modify my launcher to ES-DE any time a controller is hooked up, I can skip a step when it’s time to do some gaming. It is a best-of-both-worlds method, though it isn’t a lot sooner than merely opening the ES-DE app once I want it.

However in the end, it’s unbelievable how far this EmulationStation Android port has come. Whereas I wouldn’t suggest utilizing ES-DE Frontend as your predominant launcher, regardless of how devoted you might be to retro gaming, it’s an absolute should for Android-based gaming handhelds just like the Retroid Pocket sequence or Ayaneo Pocket Evo.

And who is aware of? Possibly after just a few updates, will probably be prepared for the principle stage. Something that gives a substitute for the samey look of Android skins is greater than welcome in my e book.