The Story Behind Aniki ReMake

I'm French and grew up with consoles in the 90s.

That “plug & play”, smooth, controller-first experience is something that has always stayed with me.

My job has nothing to do with coding or development. I work in a completely different field, and everything I’ve built around Aniki comes from curiosity, experimentation, and a lot of time spent learning on my own.

Aniki ReMake does not generate any income. I work on it entirely in my free time.

The only financial support I receive comes from Ko-fi donations, and I sincerely thank everyone who buys me a coffee. I drink a lot of them while working on the project.

When I moved to PC, I quickly realized something was missing.

The power was there.
The freedom was there.
But the experience didn’t feel like a console.

Playnite became my “home” on PC because it was the closest thing to that feeling. But despite the quality of the available fullscreen themes, none of them fully matched what I was looking for.

Some were excellent, but there was always a detail, a feeling, or an approach that didn’t completely align with my vision.

It all started with existing themes.

I really liked Remix by Zeroantix and Ubiquity by Red Schism. Each of them had strong and interesting ideas, but not necessarily the same ones.

So I started modifying Remix to integrate some of the ideas I liked from Ubiquity, while also trying my own ideas step by step.

At first, it was very simple:

• changing colors
• adding logos
• adjusting some visual elements
• testing ideas without really knowing where I was going

I then shared this modified version with the Playnite community under the name Aniki Remix.

The name was intentionally simple: it was Remix, but with my vision — my “Aniki” version.

To my surprise, the theme received a lot of positive feedback and support. That’s what motivated me to keep going.

I had no background in development.

I never took any courses.
I learned by observing, testing, making mistakes, and starting over.

I spent a lot of time analyzing other themes, understanding how certain elements were built, trying to reproduce ideas, and then adapting them in my own way.

And of course, I also spent a lot of time crashing Playnite.

Sometimes a single mistake in XAML was enough to break everything. One misplaced comma, an unclosed tag, a wrongly placed element… and nothing worked anymore.

But that’s also how I learned.

The Playnite community and several theme creators helped me a lot with advice, ideas, and feedback.

Over time, I started to better understand how XAML works.

And at one point, I thought:

Aniki Remix is great, but now that I understand how things work better, I could probably build something more advanced.

That’s how Aniki ReMake was born.

The name comes directly from that idea: remaking Aniki Remix, but better.
A more advanced, more ambitious, more animated version, closer to what I originally had in mind.

Aniki ReMake was no longer just a modification of an existing theme.
It became a project with a clear direction:

• recreating a console-like experience on PC
• building an immersive interface
• improving controller navigation
• giving the theme a strong identity
• focusing more on animations and transitions

When I released Aniki ReMake, I once again received a lot of support and positive feedback. That pushed me to keep improving the theme and learning more.

With Aniki ReMake, animations became a key part of the theme’s identity.

But animations come at a cost.

On lower-end systems or handheld devices, the theme could become too heavy.

That’s when the idea for Aniki Lite came up.

The name was, once again, very straightforward: an Aniki theme, but built with a “Lite” mindset.

The goal was different:

• a lighter interface
• a cleaner, more minimalist design
• better performance
• an experience better suited for lower-end systems and portable devices

Aniki Lite allowed me to explore a different approach: less flashy, but more direct, smoother, and more accessible.

Managing two projects at the same time with limited free time meant making choices.

So I decided to focus mainly on Aniki ReMake.

This led to a major evolution of the theme with version 2.0, and later an even more ambitious step with version 3.0.

Today, Aniki ReMake continues to evolve with the same goal as day one: turning Playnite into a true modern console-like experience on PC.

Aniki ReMake was never meant to be a commercial project.

It’s first and foremost a passion project, built entirely in my free time.

It was born from frustration, curiosity, and the desire to create something better.

I started with simple color changes, and little by little, through trial and error, crashes, and support from the community, the project grew into something much bigger.

And if Aniki still exists today, it’s also thanks to the users who supported it, tested it, gave feedback, and encouraged me to keep going.

A big thank you as well to those who support the project via Ko-fi. Your coffees really help keep the energy going during long work sessions on Aniki.