Some HTML5 games like those made in Godot have trouble running when directly opened locally.

Right now, the itch.io client seems to just download the files and extract them to a directory then opens it directly from there. My suggestion is, when the user tries to launch a downloaded HTML game, spin up a local web server in that game's folder and load the path

http://localhost:<somerandomportforthegame>

in the pop out window instead. Of course when the game is closed, the local web server should be terminated as well.

Hey there,

Can you link to a game that isn't working?

The app doesn't "just open the directory" using the file: protocol - it registers a custom protocol that serves the game's files, see:

• v23 codepath: https://github.com/itchio/itch/blob/v23/appsrc/tasks/launch/html.ts#L216 (the current stable version)
• v25 codepath: https://github.com/itchio/itch/blob/master/src/main/reactors/launch/html/itch-in... (next version)

If you link me to a game I can investigate further :)