[Discussion] What are you playing on your Deck? - August 2025

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Look Mum no Computer - It's a truly crazy game described as a Twin-stick shooter ARPG, and I guess that's right, but the coolest thing is that the music is controlled by your own gameplay and equipment, the devs even included an in-gane synthesizer.
Reminds me of the old Spectrum games from bedroom programmers.
- Nice! I bought this but I haven't played it yet. I'm still playing Rob Scallon's Fretless, it's also music based. All the attacks and defenses are tied to the music, it's hard to explain. It's a turn based RPG during battles, but it's also so much more. Highly recommend.
  Funny, both games are made by musical YouTubers, but that's not a diss, it's a compliment. Games made by real people, with a vision for how they wanted it made.

XWVM. It's awesome! I finally destroyed the Death Star for the first time without using cheats.
Frog Detective is next on my list.
- Oooh XWVM is awesome! I've seen it and am thoroughly impressed but haven't dared to try it on Linux yet, let alone on the Deck.
  Could you write a blog or a post here of how to get it to work on plain SteamOS?
  
  Could you write a blog or a post here of how to get it to work on plain SteamOS?
  No, don't have the energy. And it's honestly trivial. Download and extract. Add binary to Steam if you want to play it in game mode. Then just show it where you have the game data of the original game.

I've been playing Nightreign with friends, mostly using the seamless coop mod to allow 2 players. The game just updated with to allow 2 players natively, so we'll have to decide if we want to keep using the mod for the rare times when we have 4 people. Overall it's been really fun, I've enjoyed it a lot.

A little Final Fantasy Tactics, No Man's Sky, as always, but mostly it has been BitCraft Online. I have not found a great controller setup for it, but it plays great with keyboard and trackball.

Colin McRae Rally 04 - I finally set it up on my deck 2 or so weeks ago and that has been my main game on the device since then. It required a little bit of control tweaking but other than that it runs and plays great.
Awesome battery life too though that's to be expected with such an old game.
- How is that one compared to other rally games? I have a copy but haven't gone through the trouble to figure out the install. With regards to comparisons, I currently have:
  WRC 4, 7, 10, Generations
  Sebastian Loeb Rally Evo
  V-Rally 4
  Old School Rally
  Rush Rally Origins and RR3
  Dirt Rally and DR 2.0
  RSF Richard Burns Rally (haven't tested this on the deck)
  I've really enjoyed WRC 7 and 10 on the Deck. 4 is decent but kind of arcade, very easy. Sebastian Loeb Rally should be sim, but the physics are a bit wonky. And V-Rally 4 is sort of simcade, leaning arcade, but rather fun.
  Most of these, orther than WRC 4 can be a bit hard on the battery, so something that looks and plays well without being a battery hog would be nice.
  
  I haven't played most of the games on your list (either at all or in a while), doubly so on the Deck, so my perspective is a bit limited. Sorry.
  CMR04 is on the simcade side of things. Definitely more realistic than Old School Rally, should be relatively close to Rush Rally 3 or Richard Burns Rally (maybe slightly less realistic than those). I think Codemasters found a nice middle ground in terms of driving model with this game. It's definitely one of the best rally games from that era at least.
  In terms of battery life, I'm able to squeeze between 5 and 6 hours on full charge with this one.

Having a lot of fun with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands! Works very well on the Deck!

Descenders. That fun bicycle game was just on sale for 5 bucks and offers plenty of content.

I just finished Crysis and Crysis: Warhead. Crysis took the c1launcher mod to start, Warhead just needed the env vars.
Hope I'll have the energy to dive back into Death Stranding soon. If not, I'll have another shot at MGS1. Last time I got to the sniper duel (on my phone with RetroArch and an old Xbox controller) and then when I got my Deck, the save refused to load. Been long enough that I wouldn't mind starting over.
I never played the original MGS series, first I got into it was MGS: Peace Walker on PSP, absolutely loved it, got hundreds of hours in it, then did a bit of MGS V but never finished that either.

I have been having a lot of fun going Toxicarl runs with nanny paws in Dungeon Clawler, so I'm probably gonna continue doing that for a while.

Fields of Mistria.
Just finished up "Last Time I Saw You", ehh I think it's the weak one in the "Until Then & Space For The Unbound" untrilogy.

I'm in the middle of Ikenfell (nearing the end I think). Dabbling a bit with Aim for the Ace!(Ace o Nerae!) for the SNES. Holy crap, the graphics on this one are mind blowing for a SNES game, an actual 3D camera that follows the ball.
Also in the middle of Armored Core 3 (PS2) but sidelined it for now, can only play so many games at once and I'm stuck on a mission that annoys the hell out of me (the one where you unlock the Karasawa).
Outside of the Steam Deck, wife and I have been enjoying Across the Obelisk and WH40k: Rogue Trader.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. It's testing my thumbs, but it's really good so far. Beautiful pixel art and animation, too.

Playing the Final Fantasy 7 rebirth for a while now. I'm not really enjoying it, they just don't make good final fantasy games anymore.
The game plays at solid 30 fps but the graphics can become severely blurred at times.

Twisted Metal (1995) via Duckstation. Installed using Emudeck.
Playing normal difficulty, abused save states on the first character, Sweet Tooth. But after that stuck to only saving in between levels or level password.
Playing the characters in order from Sweet tooth moving right, on the final rooftops level atm with Crimson Fury.
Game obviously is janky as hell but its deep in terms of learning curve. I'm more familiar with TM2, but always want to play through TM1 at some point.
Also watching the cut FMV endings on youtube after beating each character. They're delightful.

Basic answer but I've gotten back into Powerwash Simulator recently. Perfect game to play on the Deck whilst listening to podcasts at the end of the day.
- Also been trying to set up Minecraft with the Legacy4J pack and Midnight Controls to relive my nostalgia for Legacy Minecraft.

I'm going to be starting Hollow Knight or Baldurs Gate 3 soon!

Recently it's been AutoRogue

Taking a break from GTA4 to play HuniePop which is just a fun little match 3 puzzler with occasional anime tiddies which is good for little 10 minute bursts which is 90% of my available playtime at the minute.

Coral Island
Feels a bit like a more grown up version of the whole farm / lifesim genre games. Though I don't think they did anything new or groundbreaking it's a very solid game, very wholesome and it's not giving away stuff for free so it doesn't feel too easy.
The features feel thoughtful and like they came either directly from the audience or they at least listened to what people annoyed in other titles.

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