ScreenPlay

Considering how important computers are in our lives right now, what would life be without desktop wallpapers? In short, extremely boring. That's exactly why all OSes, Windows included, offer us the option to change the desktop wallpaper, as well as the color schemes and GUI themes.

Even though we take them for granted, wallpapers are an essential part of our lives. However, you can take things to a whole new level and use something called "animated desktop wallpapers."

If you love the idea of adding motion to your desktop wallpapers, then you'll absolutely love ScreenPlay.

ScreenPlay is a free, cross-platform, and open-source app for displaying animated wallpapers, and is most probably the best alternative to the popular and paid utility called Wallpaper Engine.

For starters, it's easy to install (via Steam), it looks modern, and it's not just limited to animated wallpapers (we'll come back to this point a bit later).

The main issue with animated wallpaper apps is resource management. We won't lie, if you happen to have an old computer with limited RAM resources, then you'll feel a small loss in performance when ScreenPlay is active. However, this effect is literally unnoticeable on any decent modern computer or laptop.

The app also supports HDR and 4K wallpapers, and is very nicely optimized for high DPI screens. Ultra widescreens and high frame rate monitors (144Hz) are also supported.

With the basics out of the way, let's talk about the features. The app can display animated wallpapers, widgets, and even use your own videos or web content as wallpapers. In short, you can create video wallpapers by importing and converting them, or you can "code" them using QML and HTML5.

You can pick an aesthetically pleasing animated wallpaper from the huge collection found on the Steam Workshop, or you can upload your very own creations. When it comes to widgets, you can also create them from scratch without requiring you to have programming skills using QML.

In terms of configuration, the app allows you to choose the volume for your animated or video wallpaper, as well as the playbackrate and the desktop fill modes (Cover, Stretch, Fill, Contain, and Scale Down). Last but not least, the app is localized in multiple popular languages, and it boasts two GUI themes (Light and Dark).

ScreenPlay is a fine example of what a community driven project can be. It offers almost all the features of other paid apps of this sort (except backgrounds do not interact with your mouse movements, for example), while still allowing you a great deal of freedom when it comes to expressing your creativity.

Resource impact is minimal, customization is pretty good, the collection of wallpapers is decent, and it looks modern. Overall, a very nice app for running animated wallpapers on your computer free of cost.