goldberg-ach-fix

goldberg-ach-fix

Make Steam-emulator achievements actually work — generate a correct steam_settings/achievements.json (real Steam API names, icons and descriptions), un-break Achievement Watcher, and get live desktop notifications when you unlock.

🇵🇱 Po polsku, w skrócie: jeżeli grasz w grę na emulatorze Steam (Goldberg / gbe_fork — folder GSE Saves) i osiągnięcia nie wyskakują w grze ani nie pokazują się w Achievement Watcher — ten program to naprawia. Pobiera prawdziwą listę osiągnięć ze Steama (z nazwami i ikonami), wgrywa ją do gry, i odblokowuje grę w Achievement Watcher. Uruchom: achfix fix --game "<ścieżka do gry>" --key <klucz>.

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The problem this solves

Cracked / DRM-free builds ship with a Steam-API emulator (Goldberg or its active fork gbe_fork). The emulator needs a file, steam_settings/achievements.json, that tells it which achievements the game has. When that file is missing, incomplete, or uses the wrong achievement names, two things break:

1. In-game: the overlay never pops an achievement, because the game calls SetAchievement("ACH_SOMETHING") and the emulator's schema doesn't contain that exact name — so the unlock is silently dropped and nothing is written to your save.
2. In Achievement Watcher: the game either never appears, or appears with no icons / wrong names. Worse, Achievement Watcher auto-blacklists an appid (cfg/exclusion.db) the first time its schema fails to load — e.g. before you added a working Steam Web API key — and then silently skips it forever, even after you fix everything else.

This was exactly the case for ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies (appid 2863680): the shipped achievements.json used fabricated names like the_whole_sick_crew instead of the real Steam names like ACH_TOGETHER_AGAIN, had no icons, and the appid had been blacklisted by Achievement Watcher.

What "fix" does

achfix fix rebuilds the schema from the authoritative source — Steam's own GetSchemaForGame API:

• writes a correct steam_settings/achievements.json with the real API names the game actually calls, so unlocks land both in-game and in your save file;
• downloads every achievement icon (locked + unlocked) into steam_settings/achievement_images/ and references them locally;
• recovers human-written descriptions for hidden achievements (which the public API leaves blank) by matching display names against any existing file;
• removes the appid from Achievement Watcher's blacklist and restarts it so it re-scans.

Install

Requires Node.js 18+ (uses the built-in fetch). No npm dependencies.

git clone https://github.com/<you>/goldberg-ach-fix
cd goldberg-ach-fix
npm link        # optional: makes `achfix` available globally

Or just run it directly with node bin/achfix.js <command>.

Get a Steam Web API key (recommended)

Grab a free key at https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey and pass it via --key or the STEAM_WEB_API_KEY environment variable. Without a key the tool falls back to a keyless endpoint that returns less data (often no icons/descriptions).

Usage

achfix fix --game <path> [--appid <id>] [--key <steamWebApiKey>] [--lang english]
achfix watch
achfix list --game <path> [--appid <id>]

Fix a game

achfix fix --game "C:\Games\ZERO PARADES - For Dead Spies" --key ABCD1234...

• --appid is auto-detected from steam_appid.txt inside the game folder if omitted.
• The tool finds every steam_settings folder sitting next to a steam_api(64).dll (gbe_fork loads that one first) and writes to all of them, plus backs up any file it overwrites as achievements.json.bak.
• Pass --no-aw to skip the Achievement Watcher steps.

Live notifications

achfix watch

Watches every emulator save root (%APPDATA%\GSE Saves, %APPDATA%\Goldberg SteamEmu Saves, CODEX/RUNE public docs, …) and shows a Windows toast — with the achievement's icon — the moment a new one is earned. Zero dependencies; the toast is fired through WinRT via PowerShell.

Check progress

achfix list --game "C:\Games\ZERO PARADES - For Dead Spies"
# App 2863680: 3/55 unlocked
#   [x] The Whole Sick Crew
#   [ ] Good Tourist
#   ...

How it compares to Achievement Watcher

Achievement Watcher is a great, full-featured GUI tracker — keep using it. This tool is complementary and focused on the part Achievement Watcher can't do for you: repairing the emulator-side schema so the game and the tracker have correct data in the first place, and un-stranding games it has already blacklisted. Run achfix fix once per game, then let Achievement Watcher (or achfix watch) track it.

Supported emulators / formats

Schema generation targets Goldberg / gbe_fork (steam_settings/achievements.json). The watcher additionally understands the common save shapes (earned/earned_time, Achieved/UnlockTime) used by Goldberg, gbe_fork, CODEX and RUNE.

File locations reference

What	Where
Emulator schema (per game)	<game>\...\steam_settings\achievements.json
Icons	<game>\...\steam_settings\achievement_images\
Unlock save state	%APPDATA%\GSE Saves\<appid>\achievements.json
Achievement Watcher blacklist	%APPDATA%\Achievement Watcher\cfg\exclusion.db
Achievement Watcher schema cache	%APPDATA%\Achievement Watcher\steam_cache\schema\

License

MIT. Not affiliated with Valve, Goldberg, gbe_fork, or Achievement Watcher. Use only with games you own / are entitled to.