[HOW TO] Install and play games

[AZorin]

Play games with Steam

1. Open the Zorin Menu and click on "Software".
2. Search for "Steam installer" and select it from the search results to click "Install".
3. Open the Zorin Menu and go to "Games" → "Steam".
4. Log into your Steam account. If you don't already have a Steam account, click "Create new account" and follow the on-screen instructions.
5. Browse for the games you want to install and download them from the Steam Store.
   

If the game you wish to install is not available natively as a Linux/Steam Play game, you may be able to run it using Steam's built-in Windows game support.

1. Open Steam and click on the "Steam" menu in the top-left corner of the window → "Settings" → "Steam Play".
2. In the "Advanced" section, click the checkbox titled "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" and press "OK".
   
3. When prompted, press the "Restart Steam" button.
4. Search for and install your desired game from the Steam Store.

You can check which non-Linux/Steam Play games are compatible with this option on a website called ProtonDB .

Play Windows games with Lutris

Lutris is a central game manager which allows you to install games from multiple platforms easily: Windows games, GOG, retro emulators, the web, Linux games and more.

1. Open the Zorin Menu and click on "Software".
2. Search for "Lutris" and select it from the search results to click "Install".
3. Open the Zorin Menu and go to "Games" → "Lutris".
4. Log into your Steam account. If you don't already have a Steam account, click "Create new account" and follow the on-screen instructions.
5. Press the search icon in the top toolbar to find your desired game from the Lutris.net library.
   
6. Double-click on your desired game and follow the on-screen instructions to install the game.
7. After the installation completes, simply double-click on the game from the Lutris home screen to start playing it.

Other Windows games

If the game you wish to play is not present in either Steam (with Windows game support) or Lutris, please try installing it using Windows App Support (with Wine) by following the instructions on this topic.

[swarfendor437]

Hi, if you have Wine installed (latest) and gCDemu (gnome CD Emulator) and K3b burning software you can.
This is what I did to get Homeworld running on Zorin 15.

1. Homeworld needs the disc to be present in order to run - this is where the emulator comes into play.
2. First though, put your game CD into the Optical Drive and make a note of what it is called - from memory, the disc for Homeworld had the label of 'NEW' - so I browsed the virtual C:/ partition in Wine and created a new folder and labelled it exactly as the CD. I then copied all of the contents of the CD into this folder. I then right clicked the entire contents of the new folder to make sure that the permissions of each folder could be exectuable.
3. Next create an emulation image in gCDEemu (CDEmu) and then burn it in K3b as an io file - but my memory is slipping but there is something you need to choose to do in k3b to do this - basically what this does is enable the image to be mounted when you launch the program so you don't need to have the CD in your Optical drive - hope this helps. I did the same with BlackHawk Down which came free with an nVidia graphics card, along with Aquila battle game, but the graphics weren't as good in Linux as Windows for the Aquila title.

[swarfendor437]

I only ever played Homeworld online once ... in Windows - and within 10 minutes another player took my 'handle' (game name - [and not swarfendor437 I hasten to add!]) From a YouTube video I watched a few months back the issue is with playing online games in Linux whether it be Steam or Lutris - I think it was EA Games was the culprit - because there is a delay in Steam/Lutris, EA thinks you are cheating and bans you from online games.
Whilst on the subject of games, https://archive.org has some interesting titles:

https://archive.org/details/clearancebin