Oops, looks like the “New” tab I added in the previous release didn’t actually, you know, work…
It’s fixed now, and I’ve started adding in more games. At the time of writing the current total is 112 games! Wee!
If the new games don’t show up in your client, try selecting List->Reload List in the menu.
News:
Note that the “New” tab doesn’t appear if there aren’t actually any new games added. As you might guess, I’m adding this because I soon plan to add more games 
. I have about 100-ish games lined up, and many more within easy bookmark reach. The goal is total 400 games or more by the end of January!
Note: the first time you run this version, ALL games will be marked as “new”. This is normal and only happens on the first run.
The next alpha is out. News:
The game info box isn’t quite as beautiful as I had hoped for, but it works for now.
Also note the empty space below the text box reserved for the game screenshot. The screenshot viewer is in place, but the backend for downloading, resizing and caching the shots isn’t quite there yet. This has to be done in a separate thread or it will slow the entire app down to an unusable mess. So that’s what we’re doing for the next release.
Here’s a screenshot:
To download, get the installer (4.1 Mb exe), or just run your existing version to auto-update it.
This release adds tabs, to deal with the increasing number of listed games. Installed games are now put in a separate tab, and when you click a game to install you are moved to the “Installed” tab to see its progress.
Each tab remembers its position and search/sort settings independenty though, so switching tabs won’t disturb your browsing.
The program now also consumes much less CPU while idle (ie. while games are running), which is always a good thing. Here are some comparison screenshots (click to enlarge):
Old version:
New version:
You can download it here. If you’ve already installed the tiggit client, it will update itself to alpha021 automatically next time you run it.
Merry Christmas!
We’ve been busy, dear reader. A whopping 65 new games has been added over the last couple of weeks, almost tripling our list size from 36 up to 101! All are freeware, many of them are really high-quality games, and all are installable and playable with one click with the tiggit client.
Since the majority of our list is now new I won’t list all the new games here, instead you can find them all on the browse games page.
There are plenty more games to be added. I think I can find at least 200-300 more decent-quality free games just browsing through my current bookmarks, and we’ll probably get up to 500-600 in total before we start exhausting the supply of low hanging fruit. If you feel like helping out in finding more games, post a comment below or shoot me an email.
In the mean time, I will be doing some work on the code. The current client doesn’t give any info about games at all, beyond the title. So you have to parallel-browse the game list on the website to know what you are installing. This will be fixed soon. I will also add in tab sorting (separating installed from non-installed games, for example) and fixing some performance issues. Hopefully there will be a new release soon!
Ah, how time flies.
There haven’t been much in the way of updates the last couple of weeks. That’s partially because I’ve been doing some mental work on the entire concept of tiggit, what it is and what it’s supposed to do.
Yes, we’re still at a level where that needs to be figured out
So far I’ve been going for a “game shop with free games” kind of angle. But I’m realizing that creating a full blown steam clone from scratch is gaping over a bit too much, even if you cut the “shop” concept down to a bare minimum.
Although the idea of an “open source Steam” IS pretty cool, there’s simply too many things to manage and set up to get to that point – it’s just not a good place to start.
So in short, this means we will focus only on freeware (and open source) games, for now and for the foreseeable future. At most we will add free demos as part of the mix at some point later.
This also gives us a much clearer overall mission: simply to gather up the world’s best free PC games in a huge list, and then make it easy to search, install and play.
On the coding side, I have been working on a few updates to the interface. It’s not much, but so far searching and (limited) sorting in the client actually made it into a silent release about a week ago. The client should auto-update to include this automatically.
This sets the stage for a bit more volume in the number of games. I tend to add them in batches, setting aside whole day or two to just add games. The next goal will be to get up to 100-150 games or so, from the current anemic 38.
I have also been working on a tab system (to keep installed and non-installed games separated, among other things), but I haven’t pushed those commits onto GitHub yet. In case someone actually decides to check out the code at this stage, I don’t want them to get broken code!
I have opened up for anyone to add their own games to Tiggit. You can find instructions here: http://tiggit.net/adding
The process is still a bit involved; it requires creating and editing a config file called a tigfile. It also involves hosting all the files yourself, at least for the time being.
Tigfiles are text files you host and update on your own server. The concept is heavily inspired by RSS files: you just update the descriptor file on your own server, and everything else is taken care of for you through a network of syndicated links. The idea is that this can be used to push automatic game updates and other news to users with minimum effort.
I love RSS. And as far as I know there aren’t any similarly flexible open standards for software update syndication – so I guess it was time to invent one 
Next up is to actually implement game updates in the client. At the moment, updating a tigfile with a new game version will only affect new downloads, it won’t cause already installed games to update. There’s also a host of other necessary client updates that have piled up, so I’ll be working on those in the same batch.
The first release of tiggit is finally done!
A tiny bit about the release itself: We are still deep in alpha-land – in case my copious warnings on the front page didn’t make that obvious , but the first release is ready to be downloaded and tested by anyone interested. It has so far been tested on Windows 7 and Vista.
Here’s more or less what you get:
I’ll get back to more of the hows, whys and whats of this project in time. The next couple of things I’ll be working on is to open the database up for user-added games, and some client features and source code cleanup.