Ascendara

Less setup. More play.

Last Commit Build Status

🎮 About

Ascendara simplifies your game management experience by providing a seamless way to discover, organize, and test pre-installed games. No more hassle with extracting, installing, or moving files. The game library is powered by a custom webscraper, currently featuring titles mainly from STEAMRIP with plans to expand to more sources and is available on both Windows and Linux platforms.

🔗 Quick Links

Join the Discord for discussions and support
Submit feedback for Ascendara
Contribute to Ascendara
Read the latest changelog
Learn about Ascend
Check latest releases on Github

✨ Features

🚀 Seamless Downloads

Lightning-fast 2 click downloads for supported games. No browser needed.

☁️ Cloud Backups

Keep your game saves backed up securely in the cloud with Ascend.

🔌 Game Information

View game details, artwork, story information, soundtrack info, and more.

🌐 Browser Integration

Send supported game downloads directly to Ascendara from your browser.

🎨 Theme Customization

Customize Ascendara with different themes and visual styles.

🕑 Local Indexing

Search through supported games quickly using Ascendara's local index.

📱 Ascendara Companion

Check download progress remotely with encrypted communication on your phone and other computers.

🕹️ Big Picture Mode

Browse your library and launch games with a controller-friendly interface made for the couch.

💾 Ascendara Retro

Keep your older console games in their own library with artwork, setup memory, and easy launching.

🌍 105 Language Support

Use Ascendara in a wide range of languages from around the world.

See the 12 base languages

These languages come with the app by default:

English
Spanish
French
German
Italian
Chinese
Arabic
Hindi
Bengali
Portuguese
Russian
Japanese

Want to see the full list?

Afrikaans
Albanian
Amharic
Armenian
Azerbaijani
Basque
Belarusian
Bulgarian
Bosnian
Catalan
Cebuano
Chichewa
Chinese (Traditional)
Corsican
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Esperanto
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
Frisian
Galician
Georgian
Greek
Gujarati
Hausa
Hawaiian
Hebrew
Hmong
Hungarian
Icelandic
Igbo
Indonesian
Irish
Javanese
Kannada
Kazakh
Khmer
Korean
Kurdish
Kyrgyz
Lao
Latin
Latvian
Lithuanian
Luxembourgish
Macedonian
Malagasy
Malay
Malayalam
Maltese
Maori
Marathi
Mongolian
Myanmar (Burmese)
Nepali
Norwegian
Pashto
Persian
Polish
Punjabi
Romanian
Samoan
Scottish Gaelic
Serbian
Sesotho
Shona
Sindhi
Sinhala
Slovak
Slovenian
Somali
Sundanese
Swedish
Swahili
Tajik
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
Vietnamese
Welsh
Xhosa
Yiddish
Yoruba
Zulu

🖼️ Preview App Pages

Dropdown all pages

Home Page

Search Page

Download Game

Game Metadata

Library

Play Game

Downloads

Profile

📦 Install Ascendara

Ascendara is available for both Windows and Linux.

The installer always downloads the latest version. Older versions can be found on the GitHub Releases page.

The installer is also open source and available here.

Windows

Download Ascendara for Windows

Linux

Run:

curl -fsSL https://ascendara.app/install.sh | bash

🤝 Contributing

Contributing to Ascendara is the best way to get your desired features, bug fixes, or improvements into the official build! When your contribution is accepted, your changes will be prominently featured in the Ascendara changelogs, giving you recognition for your valuable input to the project. Learn how to contribute to Ascendara here.

📂 Project Structure

The Ascendara project is organized into the following main directories:

src/ - Core application logic and UI implementation

components/ - Reusable React components for the UI

- ui/ - shadcn/ui component library for modern UI elements

context/ - React context providers for global state management (authentication, language, settings, themes, tour)
hooks/ - Custom React hooks for efficient image loading and caching
lib/ - Utility libraries and helper functions
pages/ - Main application pages and screens (Home, Library, Downloads, Settings, etc.)
public/ - Static assets and public resources

- sounds/ - UI sound effects - guide/ - User guide assets

services/ - Service modules for external APIs and core functionality (Firebase, game info, downloads, analytics, integrations)
styles/ - CSS styling files for animations, menu bar, and scrollbars
translations/ - Internationalization files for 12 base languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese)

binaries/ - Prebuilt Python binaries for core functionality

AscendaraAchievementWatcher/ - Tracks and monitors game achievements
AscendaraCrashReporter/ - Automated crash reporting and diagnostics
AscendaraDownloader/ - Multi-threaded game download manager supporting various file hosts
AscendaraGameHandler/ - Game execution, process management, and runtime monitoring
AscendaraLocalRefresh/ - Game index scraper. No longer shipped with the app; the API runs it on a schedule
AscendaraNotificationHelper/ - System notification helper for download events

> ℹ️ INFO: The tools below are additional tools that do not come with the official build of Ascendara. Instead, they utilize Ascendara's tool installation feature to install these supplementary tools as needed.

AscendaraLanguageTranslation/ - Translation tool used to translate to the additional 93 languages
AscendaraTorrentHandler/ - Torrent download functionality

electron/ - Electron main process and IPC communication

modules/ - Modular IPC handlers and backend logic (configuration, Discord RPC, downloads, games, settings, system utilities, updates, window management, and more)

scripts/ - Development and build automation scripts for Windows/Linux builds, translation checking, and code statistics

🛠️ Running from Source

For detailed instructions, check out the Developer Docs.

Prerequisites

Before building, ensure you have all required dependencies. View full requirements.

Quick Start

⚠️ WARNING: Some API features like reporting and analytics services will not work on the public version of the app. Additionally, you will not be able to run games in development mode. Check the Developer Docs for more information.

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/ascendara/ascendara.git

Install Node Dependencies

Note: You can use any package manager you prefer, such as npm, yarn, or pnpm.

Using npm:

npm install

Or using yarn:

yarn

Configure Firebase (Optional)

Firebase is optional for development. If you have Firebase credentials, create a .env file:

cp .env.example .env

Then edit .env and replace the placeholder values with your actual Firebase project credentials from the Firebase Console.

> Note: Firebase will automatically initialize if credentials are detected. Leave the Firebase fields empty in .env to run in development mode without authentication features. The .env file is gitignored and will not be committed to the repository.

Install Python Dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run the Development App