My laptop is old enough to vote, and therefore anything beyond Stardew Valley made it collapse, but it works great for my daily tasks. However, after trying a Switch recently (I consider the Lite to be the perfect handheld, size wise), I got an itch that could only be scratched with more games.

I found a second hand Deck for a reasonable price and I CAN’T BELIEVE I WAS MISSING SO MANY THINGS.

Particularly I’ve been amazed by No Man’s Sky, because I can see other players!!! And visit them!!! I can’t do that on Switch!

I’m also enjoying Witcher 3 and Rimworld!

Discovering that the SD can be used as a computer too, with all the bells and whistles has been very fun.

My one and greatest complaint is its size… I get that it’s necessary to add such a big amount of buttons, but my fingers are getting a full workout trying to remain in position.

Still, amazing, amazing machine!!

(Y’all can feel my enthusiasm levels by counting the amount of “!” In this text)

  •  TerkErJerbs   ( @TerkErJerbs@lemm.ee ) 
    25•13 days ago

    I’m closer to 50 than I want to be and getting a deck almost a year ago has been so much fun. I have a pretty capable desktop and game on Linux sometimes but now I’m actually getting into games in a real way on the deck because it’s so easy to pick up and put down at any time. Also finding a renewed love for platformers and other game types that I haven’t touched in decades.

    I think part of what hits so good is Steam as a company seems to really give a shit about players and it shows. Been using a Steam controller I got off Craigslist for almost 10 years and it still works perfectly. I’ve never even considered buying a console because it all seems so exhausting and profit driven and locked down in dumb ways. Having this little portable Linux machine opens a whole new thing.

  •  supersquirrel   ( @supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ) 
    4•12 days ago

    Discovering that the SD can be used as a computer too, with all the bells and whistles has been very fun.

    A useful side note on that, the desktop app “store” is Flathub

    https://flathub.org/

    I recommend Konqueror as a good file manager/web browser hybrid that you can run fullscreen in gaming mode on your Steam Deck if you add it to steam as a non-steam game.

    https://apps.kde.org/konqueror/

    I recommend CoreKeyboard as an alternate touchscreen keyboard to Steam’s for when you are in desktop mode or can’t use Steam’s keyboard for some reason.

    https://flathub.org/apps/org.cubocore.CoreKeyboard

    If you want file sync, try out Syncthing/Syncthingy, it is like DIY cloud file storage but it is actually really easy to set up.

    https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.zocker_160.SyncThingy

    Inkscape is a great vector image editor that runs really nice in fullscreen/gaming mode on the Steam Deck

    https://flathub.org/apps/org.inkscape.Inkscape

    Kdenlive is a fully featured video editor that runs really nice in fullscreen/gaming mode. You can record clips and then edit them right there on the deck which is really handy once you learn your way around Kdenlive.

    https://flathub.org/apps/org.kde.kdenlive

    One final recommendation, CoreHunt, this app doesn’t run well in fullscreen/gaming mode on the Deck but it is such a useful and quick file search utility (with good fuzzy search too) that I have to recommend it. If you are still getting used to the file structure of the Steam Deck and get lost/can’t find a particular file or folder location CoreHunt can save you a big headache just run it in desktop mode.

    https://flathub.org/apps/org.cubocore.CoreHunt