Steam sign-in, Join Game and invites

01Before you start

• Start Steam and sign in before (or while) the game runs. If you start Steam after the game, the SIGN IN THROUGH STEAM button appears within about 10 seconds.
• Your Steam account should own Ace of Spades. Accounts without it fall back to a test app and can't join players who own it.
• For Steam's Join Game to launch BattleSpades when it's closed, the BattleSpades aos.exe must be the one in Steam's Ace of Spades folder, alongside steam_api64.dll and BattleSpadesSteamBridge32.exe.

02Sign in through Steam

1. 01
   Wait for the button

   The sign-in screen shows CONNECTING TO STEAM... while it talks to Steam.

2. 02
   Press SIGN IN THROUGH STEAM

   Your Steam name becomes your in-game name. No browser window is involved.

03Let friends join from Steam

While you host a match, your Steam status reads Hosting <map>, <mode>. Your friends can then:

• Right-click you in the Steam friends list and choose Join Game. If BattleSpades is already running, it leaves their current match and joins yours; if it's closed, Steam starts it and joins after they sign in.
• Type steam:<id> into Direct Connect. The loading screen shows the exact line: "Friends can join with steam:<id>".

04Send a Steam invite

• Open the Steam overlay (Shift + Tab by default), find your friend and choose Invite to Game.
• In a Match Lobby, Invite Friends opens the Steam overlay's invite picker when AoSPlay isn't reachable.
• Accepting an invite works even if the game is closed: Steam starts BattleSpades and it joins the lobby after sign-in.

05Fix: Steam is running but nothing Steam works

Symptoms: the SIGN IN THROUGH STEAM button never appears, or Join Game and invites do nothing, even though Steam is open.

This happens when an old no-Steam copy of Ace of Spades (a Steam emulator) or a Steam crash left Steam's registration pointing at a program that has closed. BattleSpades deliberately won't edit your registry to fix it.

1. 01
   Quit BattleSpades

   Close the game completely.

2. 02
   Fully exit Steam

   Use Steam → Exit (or right-click the tray icon → Exit). Closing the window isn't enough.

3. 03
   Start Steam again

   Wait until you're signed in.

4. 04
   Start BattleSpades

   The Steam button and Join Game should work again.

If you want to confirm the cause, BattleSpadesClient.log (next to the program) contains a line starting "Steam is running (pid …) but its registration names pid …, which has exited".