[Discussion] New month, new games. What are you playing on your Steam Deck? - May 2024
[Discussion] New month, new games. What are you playing on your Steam Deck? - May 2024
Sorry this post is a week late, been busy with real life stuff.
Stardew Valley --- for the thousandth time (new patches = new farm)
Hopefully one day we can get the they/them options.
Would be nice, but the amount of dialogue updates would be daunting for a one person operation.
Currently playing Mindustry, a factory management tower defense game. Very addicting. It’s free on flathub
+1, would recommend for fans of Factorio or shapez
Are you playing it with the onboard controls? Do you have any recommendations for making it feel better?
I want to get into Mindustry but the basic movement controls of the ship just don't feel inspired to me in the base game at least with the starting ship. I mean it makes sense, the focus is more on tower defense and automation, but is there a modpack or something that focuses the gameplay a bit more on the ship movement and combat?
Do you have any other advice for playing Mindustry on the Steam Deck? Which kinds of levels are best to start with and what kind of control scheme do you like?
I play with the built in controls, I use a slightly modified version of the mouse profile. I constantly switch between touch screen and trackpad control and I personally don’t have a problem with it.
I don’t think there are any mods that revamp the ship. The ship isn’t really that important for the game. In the mobile version the ship just flies on its own
I personally would start with planet erekir, it focuses less on defense and more on producing and commanding troops. Also I really recommend pvp.
Hades 2
After beating Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, I decided to revisit the previous game, Yakuza: Like A Dragon. I first tried playing YLAD a few years ago on my gaming PC, but the incredibly long, unskippable cut scenes were super frustrating. Infinite Wealth had some of that same problem, but the story clicked with me a bit more and I've fallen in love with the mix of heartfelt quirky gameplay.
Plus, the Steam Deck makes the long cut scenes way easier to deal with when you can just pause and sleep your console if you need a break.
Yeah, I know YLAD has a stretch of fights/boss fight/cutscenes that took nearly 2 hours without being able to save. The deck being able to sleep mid gameplay is the only reason I was able to make it through. YLAD cutscenes are also super sensitive to instability from undervolting, I kept having cutscenes freeze for me but it turns out that I needed to reduce my undervolting setting a little.
Great games though, I recommend them both.
Everyone always says balatro and i finally got it on sale and now i can't stop
I kept reading people say this, and then I ended up buying brotato, I don't know if it was a mistake or not
Did it have a good sale? I've been waiting for a sale (or the mobile version) myself.
Oh, its only 10% off right now
Tbh i didn't even look how high the discount was, i knew i wanted the game and it was 13$ so i just went for it lol
I'm just getting to the end of the Dragonborn DLC before returning to continue my first run through Skyrim.
Nice - are you playing with Mods?
I didn't know you could use mods on the steam deck. Are there any that make sorting through your inventory easier?
Currently started playing Kingdom Come Deliverance. Still trying out some graphics settings, but so far a good experience.
How does it play on the steam deck? Played it on PC and loved it but never completed the story. With 2 announced I’d love to jump back in
Loved it! I'll have to play it again since I bought all the dlcs. I think they recently announced kingdom come 2 so I'm pretty hyped
I want to play the Dead Space remake, but its like I'm watching a flipbook that doesn't move nearly fast enough :(
Slay the spire and Portal 2 are my current time sinks tho
Steam World: Heist. Tactical turn based shooter. Somewhere between Worms and X-Com, definitely on the lighter side. It's the same vibe as Steam World 1 and 2, but now the cowboy robots are in space. It's perfect for the Deck and easy to pick up for a few minutes at lunch or in between meetings.
How does this game compare to the more recent Steam World games?
Is Steam World: Heist a procedurally generated roguelike or a singleplayer game with a specific constructed sequence of levels?
It looks really good, I have heard good things about most of the Steam World games I just have never actually given one a try.
Heist has a story and preset levels. Each level is usually a different ship you have to board and clear. They're all connected by a sort of star map. The objectives for each level are preset. Though, the level layouts may be generated. I've rerun a couple and I remember the layouts being a bit different.
SteamWorld Dig 1&2 are platformers. I really enjoyed them. The gameplay for Heist is different but it still feels like the same quality.
Picked up warhammer Boltgun during the fps sale. Never been into warhammer or played this style of game before but loving it so far. Also playing Stardew Valley on a new farm for the 1.6 update
Picked up warhammer Boltgun during the fps sale. Never been into warhammer or played this style of game before but loving it so far.
a mysterious figure in a trench coat strafe jumps out of the alley way so fast you can barely catch a glimpse of them before they shoot a rocket at their feet and launch over your head. Before you can react they are gone.
Wait! it looks like something fell out of their coat when they leaped by!
On the ground is a semi-intact cd-rom jewel case with video game artwork showing some unreal tournament-like ripoff game you have never heard of with the title Xonotic
Do you:
a) immediately go home and install Xonotic on your Steam Deck
or
b) attempt to strafe jump after the mysterious figure
I recently have been trying to play through all of the final fantasy games in chronological order. (Mainline games). Playing the gba dawn of souls currently. Playing through ff1
Heard mixed things about Fallout 4 new update for the deck. I decided to try it out with the default settings. Happy to report that it works great, I'm getting stable 60 (at least up to Concord) and it looks nice.
Pseudoregalia. It's a 3D platformer/Metroidvania that mimics PSX/N64 graphics. I'm only a couple hours in, but so far it's fun. The controls are buttery smooth.
Playing Prince of Persia the lost crown! It plays amazing on the steam deck!
Switch games with yuzu and the other one that I don't know how to spell besides that super hot and super hot mine control delete
I learned this week-end that Vita3k runs great on the Deck and that game compatibility has tremendously advanced, so I'm doing WipEout 2048 right now :D
Mr Sun's Hatbox (maybe my GotY?)
Dragons Dogma 1
I'm really interested in Mr Sun's Hatbox actually, I've played some of his previous games and they were really good. I take it you recommend it?
Definitely! The gameplay loop of action <-> base management is super cool. You end up feeling attached to the characters you've leveled high, so the missions feel high stakes even though losing characters isn't really that punishing in actuality.
I thought the game looked too chaotic in the trailers, but it allows you to play methodically if you want to.
Ur-Quan Masters Mega Mod, Talos Principle 2, and Pictopix.
Is Talos Principle 2 any good? I got stuck on the latter puzzles in the Road To Gehenna expansion and didn't want to progress in case TP2 needs knowledge of this expansion.
I'm getting annoyed with the constant crashes of Workers & Resources (Industrial Planning, Construction and Management Game). It is by far my favourite game at the moment, but the game is very unstable on Linux, which can be very frustrating. I'd really like to learn more about troubleshooting compatibility layers and start options.
Minecraft runs smooth with Prism Launcher, which doesn't even have this annoying credential-loss bug like on the official launcher. Why would anyone map shift to pressing the stick in Minecraft? Proper crouching is but so important to edge-work and digging down.
I tried to start playing mc on the deck but I don't really understand how to make changes to the controller setup. I'll have to sit down and read it properly and try again next time I get the urge.
Every game added to your steam deck's steam library (whether it is an official steam game or simply a shortcut to a game you installed some other way and are just linking to steam (right click on game or application in desktop mode and click "add to steam")) has a set of controller profiles associated with it. Your steam deck starts off with some basic templates for steam deck onboard control schemes like Gamepad Layout or WASD and Mouse Layout that map the onboard steam deck controls to what most defaults are for that type of software or game.
You can search for community layouts very easily in the steam deck's controller menu, and you can go into the settings and start changing things by simply opening up the controller layout menu and clicking edit layout. You have control over all of the buttons and inputs on the steam deck and there is a simple menu system that allows you to walk through settings for everything on your deck (buttons, joysticks, touchpads, triggers etc..).
It might seem overwhelming at first, but the good thing is that manyyyyy popular games already have controller mappings that a steam deck user in the community uploaded to steam. Just go into the community layouts tab and browse a couple steam deck layouts, try them out quick and pick the one that feels most intuitive to you and then just go. Later down the road you can get your hands dirty and tweak the little things if you want (and I promise it really isn't that overwhelming).
The starting controller layout templates can't be deleted/written over, so you don't need to worry about messing anything up either, you can always just start again from the very decent templates and defaults.
Note: If you add a non-steam game to steam so you can play it in gaming mode, make sure to rename the added game (which probably has an ugly name taken right from the name of the file .exe or whatever) to the exact name of the game. So if the non-steam game you added shows up in your library as Minecraft_v12.4_shaders or something you would want to rename it to Minecraft and then ALL of the community layouts will show up for you. An additional benefit to this is if you use the utility from Decky Loader called SteamGridDB then when you open up the settings to give your non-steam game some nice looking artwork and icons in the Steam Launcher, all of the community made steam compatible artwork for that game will show up automatically for you to select. Fast and quick, no text input needed for search, it is fantastic.
(Side note: if it is a windows program you are adding, make sure to go into the gear and set force compatibility to proton experimental, this tells the Steam Deck to run the program with proton instead of trying and failing to run it as a normal Linux program)
Press STEAM > Go to controller settings (proper, not just the layout display) > Either press on the current layout to look for a different template or press on Edit layout
I've mostly been playing a F2P game called Minion Masters. It's a card game, but the cards come alive in 2-lane combat like a tiny auto-battle MOBA. It has short game lengths (6-10 min are typical), is generous with F2P players (I've paid $0 so far), and has enough strategic (deck building) and tactical (card playing) depth to stay interesting throughout.
It plays great on the Deck without any configuration, even though it's "unsupported". I suppose some of the card text might be a bit small for some, but that's only relevant in the deck building screen where you can easily zoom in on cards. There's a UI option to read your partner's cards in 2v2, but I've never felt the need to. By the time you're good enough at the game to react to your partner's hand, you'll already know the cards well enough that you don't need to read them.
I should maybe add that I got a bunch of free cards when they had free DLC to celebrate the release of the game on Android, so idk if my F2P experience is typical.
I have played this one a little bit on the Steam Deck and I really liked it too! The gameplay is immediately intuitive and fun and the 2v2 mode looks like it would be a blast with the right friends.
"Yellow taxi goes vroom" is delightful to play on the Deck.
It looks great, I've been looking at getting it since the second wind video on it.
Finally managed to get my hands on a Deck this last week. Been having a blast with both Hades 2 and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.
I was a bit worried with Pathfinder since it's not verified, but I figured the controller scheme would be functional since they have a console version. So far I've been quite impressed with how smoothly it controls.
Yeah I usually don’t worry about non-verified games not working. It happens but the overwhelming majority of the time non-verified games work fine.
What to look out for is when a game is verified not to work.
I just found Super Woden GT 2 an amazing Retro-Indy-Racer.
Fallout 4 with the hype around the show and the sale, I finally picked it up. The survival mode is very fun.
Also with the shutdown of the eShop, I finally hacked my WiiU and extracted images of my games. And with that I started a new play through of Xenoblade Chronicles X.
XCX is such a blast, and it works so well on the Deck.
I've setup up emulation and have had a blast playing Everybody's Golf 6 for the PS3. It is such a chill game. Golf games are really underrated and everybody's golf does a great job of cartoony arcade game mixed with just enough real golf to make it interesting. Perfect on the Deck.
Yeah golf games are weird, I didn’t grow up playing golf and thus had zero connection to the aesthetics of golf, the wealth associations with it or the game itself.
Then I fell in love with disc golf and realized the game of golf (whether it be little bitty balls or discs) is an amazing way to dissect your psyche like you are some scientist in a lab pushing an animal to its mental limit except it isn’t fucked up because the animal is you.
Still most golf games… just realllllly don’t do it for me.
I think my favorite so far is honestly the phone game Mars Golf because it is a golf game that embraces the zen of golf. It recontextualizes what golf is in a way that makes it far more broadly appealing in my opinion.
How does Everybody’s Golf 6 compare to other golf games? Do you have any other recommendations? I am interested in anything from Turbo Golf (not golf lol) and Golf With Friends to realistic golf simulators, it is more a matter if the game is rewarding to master or not.
I've really liked Everybody's golf so far. I used to play it on the PSP, but then thought I might as well get the most up to date version possible. This 6th version had plenty of recommendations online as one of the best. It has got just enough real golf (compensation for wind, ground type, ground slant, height, etc) and arcade elements (hitting curve balls or super spin, a variety of clubs and balls types to pick for added stats, etc). I'd recommend trying it out. You'll know after the first few rounds whether you're going to like it or not.
I've also really liked stick man golf on the phone. PGA golf gets plenty of recommendations online too, but I didn't want anything that was too realistic.
I've had a bit more free time these days and really wanted to play sea of thieves but they broke the game for steam deck the day after I bought it. I've been salty over it ever since (around a week now)
I’ve been salty over it ever since (around a week now)
Sounds like you have been rather unsalty landlubber!!!
but seriously fuck that ughh
Cat quest 2 - Carrion - Hades
Picked up Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor a few days ago and I'm now 20 hours in, really enjoying it. It's a very thematic translation of the original DRG into a survivor game. The terrain and mining are a great addition to the survivor formula, it's not only for resource collection but it also gives a new twist to the positioning puzzle. The game seems very well suited for more content so I hope that it will keep coming.
Playing through Tunic for the first time - loving it so far!
Tunic looks great, I've been waiting and hoping it will get a decent sale.
@Fubarberry Still into Balatro. Also getting into Minishoot Adventures and Hades 2 thanks to that surprise EA release!
Well, I think I might start an Amorous playthrough. Maybe this time I won't accidentally say the wrong thing to the wrong person and not have a backup save . Otherwise, I'll probably continue slogging through Baba Is You.
That, or try out one of the games in my library I've yet to touch despite having them for months.
I'm playing the invincible but I think it's one of those game which are a lot better on a big screen, I think I'll finsih it on desktop.
Wandering sword is pretty good but I think I'll switch the controls to mouse and keyboard since it's kinda annoying to use as joystick
Still have to decide on which big game to try, I have a lot of great indie games waiting for me. I have the resident evil 4 remaster to try so maybe I'll do that
After watching Nerd Cubed play Coin Pusher Casino, I also got hooked. Bit of a guilty pleasure, that. But, three things to recommend it, though:
- Realistic physics throughout make it quite a technically advanced game despite it probably all it took was a toggle in Unity.
- There's a native Linux port.
- Other than the initial outlay for the game the only resource you'll expend is your precious time alive. So, there's no freemium model where you pay to advance. And no payment for additional unlockable content.
You play tables to get credits, to get perks that make it more pleasurable (not to mention possible) to play tables, to ... The very essence of an RPG grind. And a bit of a skinner box.
Recently got into Hexologic and Harmony's Odyssey.
Playing oh so much Vampire Survivors. The number of unlocks just keeps going up, but it's keeping my ADHD brain engaged.
I've been playing some outer wilds, but new vegas is tempting me after watching the show.
I am honestly incredibly impressed with the show so far. My big question was how the power armor/steel brotherhood were going to be handled because there is a similar risk to warhammer 40k with the space marines or stormtroopers in star wars were the baddy fascist guys are the cool looking ones that look righteous so people begin to casually associate with that imagery.... which I don't think is bad in a vacuum I just think there is a responsibility in 2024 for artists to not make the system of fascism and conservative violent extremism look sexy lol.
There was a big risk of a bunch of business execs looking at the fallout pilot and saying "that t-60 power suit looks cool, make those guys the main characters/good guys" and the fallout writers would be left saying "but... om... I know they look cool but..." and the business executives would just start impatiently tapping their pencil while they wait for everyone to shut up hell up so they can go back to their yacht.
But nah, it is good and it is subversive so far in exactly the ways it should be. I am not a huge fallout video game fan (though I acknowledge the fallout series is undeniably a massive and well loved series in gaming, and for good reason) but I imagine fallout video game fans must be loosing their fucking minds right now with how much better the show is than it had any right to be in the way only someone who has spent decades as a fan of a game series (or comic book, or book, or whatever equivalent) could possibly appreciate.
Inspired by a true story:
“Hugo Boss began to produce and supply military uniforms for the Nazi Germany government, resulting in a large boost in sales.”