To start with:
After my previous post 24 hours ago (the link to which is here), I asked you all if the way I share mostly Steam Deck news here is okay, and if you’d enjoy more of these.
I hope you’ll endure one more such post in this short time. Consider this maybe…idk, news you may already know, but that which I’m sharing while I practice formatting these posts in a better way…?
Here we go!
GOG THINGS
GOG-CHAN
Perhaps my favorite GOG decision was back in 2018, when GOG got their JRPG-obsessed graphic designer (KosmicznaPluskwa) to create a mascot for their Japanese Games Sale of the time. GOG-Chan was created, and the internet being as internet-y as it is, she’s never been allowed to be forgotten. She’s also adorable!
Purple is my favorite color (along with my friend, ‘AA’ - the developer of Decky Loader! Hi, 'A!), and GOG’s essence is purple. I’m guilty of trying to dye my hair the same shade as this once, but I did a terrible job and tried hiding my pony-tail until I could fix it…
GOG FORUMS
Being my fav platform for the Steam Deck (honestly, the amount of Steam games I have VS how many GOG games…mine is literally a GOG Deck), I’m sometimes surprised by not only how few people know about it, but how few explore it more than just a platform to buy games.
The GOG forums are a great space to post. It’s not only GOG’s games, there’s plenty of general interest spaces to chat about everything. My fav however, is the totally niche, interesting things like the ‘Unofficial DVD Covers for GOG.COM Games’ thread.
You’ve guessed it, it’s a space for people to create physical covers for their digital games. It’s very niche - for people who miss physical games collections, and who are great at designing their own covers. I’m going to leave the link to the most recent page of the forum thread here, if you wanna take a closer look, but I’ll share just one or two images of one cover for those who don’t:
GOG UPDATES
There’s been quite a lot of games updates over the last week (or two?). I keep up with these, because I get a lil OCD with making sure my library (at least my installed library…which can be hard to admit is extensive) is the best it can be. This might be a bit boring, but I’ll rapid-fire some of the more notable (subjective, I know) titles which have had recent updates:
- Darkest Dungeon II (this updates SO often!) - 5 days ago
- Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (wins for the longest running updates/mods for any game, at least in my experience!) - 7 days ago
- Art of Rally (my FAV racer, I LOVE it!) - 11 days ago
- Core Keeper - 11 days ago
- Myst - 11 days ago
- Planet Crafter - 11 days ago
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector - 12 days ago
- Drova - Forsaken Kin - 12 days ago
- No Man’s Sky - 12 days ago
- Resident Evil 2 - 12 days ago
…okay I could keep on going. There’s something inherently, and weirdly, therapeutic about ticking off a list I made. Yeah. Odd, I know.
MORE ON WHAT I USE TO PLAY GAMES ON MY DECK
I had a few comments/messages yesterday asking more about what I use. Why I choose Heroic Games Launcher, RetroDECK and Junk-Store. I thought maybe if you cared, I’d share a few links for you to follow here. It might be a bit more specific-to-those-curious, so feel free to skip past this if its not for you!
Heroic
Heroic is for more than the just the Steam Deck. Being open-source, it is also made for MacOS, Windows, and…well obv for Linux distros. I love the little things in Heroic’s design:
The UI (by default, but choosable by the user!) stays monochrome for each game’s cover…until you install it. Then it’s in beautiful color for that title.
I adore Comet integration, meaning achievements and playtime are logged with GOG, so when I’m done playing, I can log in to GOG on my computer and see all my progress has been noted.
- You can find their website here with this link
- You can find their GitHub page here with this link
- I’ve forgotten if I shared this last post, but you can find a great video by fediverse-adorer Gardiner Bryant, here in this YouTube link. He compares Heroic with Junk-Store, and is also a lovely person too (Hi, Gardiner!)
- Heroic’s community and ‘help desk’ is on Discord, which you can find with this last link here
- You can find more on their work, through Liam’s (GamingOnLinux) site, or Noah’s (SteamDeckHQ), if you wanna read up more on Heroic!
Junk-Store
Junk-Store is built specifically for the Steam Deck. And that is its benefit in my eyes, the program (plug-in*) was built from the ground up for the Deck. Eben, the dev, started the project as a way to add his own games to the Deck for he and a handful of friends.
What started off that way became something he released. Like I said in my last post, the design of Junk-Store is different, it works (for now, though in the future this will be changing to be possible in another way) as a plugin via Decky Loader. It will open up as a library of your games, Epic will show up in a tab and you’ll see all your redeemed or purchased Epic titles in there.
Eben tells me I’ll be raked over the hot coals if I share what he has planned for Junk-Store next. But there is more than just what JS has right now. At the moment it supports Epic and GOG, but there is more to come.
- You can find a link to the site here, for Junk-Store, where you can find out more about it, and follow a guide to installing
- You can find the github page for it here, too
- This is the link to their Discord. In the Discord server you’ll find users who share all kinds of settings and findings of (often obscure) games they own, and how to run them best! Also…everything else.
RetroDECK
This is less about links (I’ll share though), and more about a rapid-fire for the features I adore most about it. I was a user of EmuDeck when I first got my first Steam Deck, but the record of things that break is there for all to see. My installation ran three emulators, and the storage it took on my SSD (in a trillion-and-one different places, not organized) was over 33GB. Again, this is my personal opinion of which software I favor. No hate for those on EmuDeck, it does the job. For me I adore RetroDECK because:
- It runs everything from one SD card. You run the emulators, the ROMs, the bios, the file trees, mods, texture packs. It sits neatly organized on the SD card and leaves the SSD free for PC games. I find this helps me a lot. There is no performance drop or any issue running it from a nice SD card. Nor is it locked to only run from a card. You can choose to install it wherever you want!
- RetroDECK only updates periodically. There is no emulator updates individually. Some users find this inconvenient, but I find it a nice relief to know the team waits to see that each update is stable for the user. There’s been countless issues over time where a update to one can ruin an experience, I much prefer stable to flying too close to the sun!
- ‘The radial wheel’ …honestly I’ve forgotten if that’s what it is called, but Retro has the left trackpad on the Steam Deck default (via their custom controller configuration) to being a lovely radial dial. From there you can fast-forward a game (if it is old enough to support the feature, no, you’re not fast-forwarding a PS3 game -_-), save quickly, open a quick setting to quickly upscale the resolution. It’s extensive and fun. I love that damn dial.
There is more, but I tend to ramble (I already shudder to think at the length of this. Again, watch Russ from Retro Game Corps’ recent video on RetroDECK, he takes you through it step-by-step and is lovely with the details!
IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, I ACTUALLY HAVE TWO GAME CODES, FEEL FREE TO REDEEM
^TXV6-HP3TV-DC262-7DYXJ-C4FVZ is Wolfenstein: Youngblood for PC (Windows’ Microsoft Store) - it’s objectively a terrible game, but hey…someone may want this! The ‘^’ is actually the number after 6
^FHXQ-4T2RP-JC4J2-CTXGW-626QZ is Wolfenstein: Youngblood for Xbox - it’s just as terrible on Xbox, sadly no improvement on the game depending on the platform! The ‘^’ is the number after 2.
EPIC GAMES
Epic has a sordid reputation. Personally, I have no qualms with them, if there is a game cheaper there (as was the case when they ran their coupons - long since abandoned) then I’m all for it. Their free weekly games on their site are a absolute gift for gamers who can’t afford much, or any, modern gaming.
One of my fav things on their site is the blogs they run, or blog posts. Occasionally they will have some truly amazing personalities in the game dev world there to, ostensibly promote a game, but then go into detail of their own lives. Some of my favs on this theme are (click the link to go to the page!):
- The interview Creative Director (of Sonic X Shadow Generations) Takashi Lizuka gave with them. He himself is the man who created the Shadow character in the first place
- An interview with Alan Wake 2: The Lake House’s Director and lead writer
There’s countless others. The hard thing is knowing what is filler, and which are interesting from a creative and development standpoint. Regardless, I love things like this, as these days with stupid attention-grabbing conflict headlines and A.I. articles, it’s harder to find this kind of content.
A NEW GAME FROM MercurySteam
This was the crew responsible for developing Castlevania: Lord of Shadows and Metroid Dread. They have a new game coming called Blades of Fire - and it will be exclusive (on PC) to Epic Games, but available to Series X and PS5 as well.
*EPIC GAMES’ 2024 YEAR IN REVIEW:
QUICKLY, THIS IS INTERESTING:
If you missed it, and you’re interested in the PC gaming landscape - particularly in regards to how Steam is the clear favorite above others like GOG + Epic Games and Amazon’s own Prime Gaming then this LinkedIn post by the former VP of Prime Gaming at Amazon is a fascinating read. He details why he thinks the attempt at winning gamers over with their platform failed.
Really, worth a read for all!
Ironically, the weekly Prime Gaming giveaways are my fav part of gaming lately
JUST A COUPLE’ GAMES I RECOMMEND!
We’re winding down here, I think I have a terrible habit of using 750237634563456 words, when I could say the same thing with 15. But if you’re still interested, I might just take the opportunity to recommend (quickly!) two games I’ve enjoyed on my Steam Deck, kinda cozy, but also not quite so. But, here we go:
Tunic
My cozy gaming recommendation today, which does actually have some souls like elements to it (sounds strange, I know!) is this adorable fox.
If you love the old (or remake) Nintendo Zelda games (Link’s Awakening) then you’ll LOVE this game:
“Explore a land filled with lost legends, ancient powers, and ferocious monsters in TUNIC, an isometric action game about a small fox on a big adventure.”
You’re an adorable fox with puzzles and combat, and it is SO good on the Deck!
Graveyard Keeper!
Think…Stardew Valley, but if you like the idea of management a sim with a gothic twist, this one’s worth checking out.
You’ll bury bodies, craft, and maybe even question your life choices as you balance morality and efficiency. Plus, there’s a talking skull. What more could you want?
It’s adorable. I think by now I’m well and truly addicted. And it’s on sale on GOG so often
Srsly, kinda dark! 💀💀💀
Racing games I love on the Steam Deck:
This is (yet again) weirdly niche, but I’ve been rather obsessed with rally racing in general the last few months. Specifically Group B…which, if you’re interested was just the most terrifying time of motor racing, where people’s hair, skin and even fingers would be found after the races were over; stuck in the grills of the cars because the crowd were so close to the sidelines.
- Art of Rally is a beautiful alternate history game, where Group B rally racing never stopped being a thing. I love their quote: “To do something dangerous with style is art…”. Racing is isometric, the colors are beautiful, the atmosphere is so pretty, and the driving can be casual or require great skill. I love this game on my Steam Deck! It is also -50% off on GOG right now, if you want to check it out!
- DRIVE: Rally: “DRIVE Rally lets you relive the 90s in the most exciting era in motorsport history, where dust, mud, and snow are badges of honor. Unleash the raw power of legendary rally beasts, admire every second of the stunning landscapes, and remember: the faster you go, the better! DRIVE Rally not only nails the spirit of the 90s. It reignites it for a new generation of drivers. Whether you’re a veteran of dirt roads or a rookie just looking to get their tires wet, this game will let you redefine speed over and over again.” - I love this game because it is just pure fun. Arcade-y as heck, the art style is very distinct, and it feels like what you imagine a Playstation 1 game made today would be like. [https://www.gog.com/en/game/drive_rally](The store page on GOG is here, if you want to see the trailer and GIFs embedded in the page to get a good look at it
FINALLY?
Maybe that should be it for now. Please let me know how the formatting looks this time 'round. I hope I figured this out a little better, I know the last one was rough, but with each subsequent post I hope it gets prettier.
Some of you may remember me on reddit, I went by flwwhtrbt there. There was a time where I was ‘interviewing’ not only developers of everything Steam Deck had running on it (Lutris, Heroic, Decky, Junk-Store, EmuDeck, and others!), but I was also interviewing the big names in gaming piracy last year also: befriending FitGirl, Dodi, even chatting to Empress, KaOs and more.
If I can find my files (I think I purged everything, but may have back-ups!), then I might share them here, if anyone is interested.
Please share your thoughts, if there’s something I can do better here, let me know! If there’s a better way to format this, then by all means I need to know.
If you wanna reach out elsewhere, I am on Matrix and Mastodon:
I wonder why… Personally, I’d rather pirate than have to deal with them. “Free games” is not enough to forgive what they have done to the PC gaming community. They’re not that epic.
What did they do to the gaming community? Make you not use just one platform, giving that platform a de-facto monopoly?
Buying exclusives on a pretty obvious inferior launcher because they couldn’t compete with steam so they had to gather some users with exclusivity
This is a starting point. They can’t compete with GOG or Steam, they’re even worse that EA play or whatever is called right now
We would have never gotten the likes of Alan wake 2 if not for epics money though, which also paved the way for remedy to become more independent for future releases. I’d rather have an exclusive then nothing at all.
It’s also arguable whether or not square would’ve ported kingdom hearts to pc if not for epic paying for it as well. Which in turn allowed them to put it on steam later because the game had already been made to work for pc.
Other than how they’ve handled rocket league and harmonix, epic have done nothing but good for the pc space in my opinion. Even if a launcher is shitty, a launcher is just a launcher and at least their store runs better than gog or steams.
And it was a total flop lmao
U sure bud?
Gimme some examples and I’ll share something with ya
Alan wake 2 had massive critical acclaim what you on about and they’re now in a financial situation to publish they’re own games because of it.
And their store definitely runs better than steam and gog. Gog is the worst hanging most of the time with it often losing its penis place when going back to the previous page, and the latter is often the same on steam. Even big picture mode struggles with the steam store some times.
At least we have honest reviews!
While epig:
EGS reviews on games are FAKE
All of this, by the Epic Games words “Based on players reviews in Epic Games ecosystem”. From where? I can’t leave any review on any game, that I own, hillarious.
Releasing your game on EGS besides Steam is NOT straightforward and is costly for small devs
I am fed up of Epic shills spreading the narrative that EGS tools for piblishing games are better than Steam and devs are just lazy if they do not release their games on EGS. I have always debated that opinion defending that is not just a matter of just uploading the same files. It is a costly process that is commonly not worth it for small devs for just a handful of sales on EGS.
I found this comment from a dev detailing his “wonderful” experience uploading their game on EGS. Enjoy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine/s/E13WpTSOlD
"Oh the store release, a million little bullshit things.
Actually I released the game on Steam on 24/04. I released multiple games on Steam before, without any issues. Steam is a breeze. I love it.
Epic? Pain.
Non-sense rules. They delayed my release by more than 10 days.
On steam you can post anything in screens and trailers. Not on Epic. Even on PEGI 18 game you have to censor blood, or not include it at all. I could not believe this. But then I watched Dead Island 2 trailer on EPic - there really is no blood even in that game video. I had a trailer with blood up for 6 months. But a week before release some reviewer noticed I have 2 seconds of blood in the trailer. They made me take it down, up the PEGI from 12 to 18 so now there is a 18+ date picker warning, and had to reupload the trailer with black blood, not red.
Million confusing settings in 3 different stages. Dev, stage, live. If you get one setting wrong, your build will not pass review. Its like doing taxes - they know what you did wrong, but they don’t tell you exactly. If they tell you, and you disagree, you have no way to opose the decision with a ticket like on Steam. You have to create unrelated support ticket that NOBODY READS FOR DAYS. Response happens after a WEEK. Which is really fucked when your release date is 3 days away and they block your review package.
If one stage review fails, THEY WILL BLOCK THE WHOLE PACKAGE. So before release I wanted to update screens, trailer, release date and add some sweet gifs into description. But I uploaded ONE SCREENSHOT with dead scientist on the ground, in pool of blood. THey rejected the whole package - that means my release date did not update, my texts didnt either. BEcause of one screenshot. They bundle these changes together and it is not possible to change it specifically.
When I created the store page, I checked a checkbox that I will do achievements and will include Epic overlay. This option is NOT REVERTIBLE. YOu cannot revert it once you do this and they do not tell you. So a year or so later I had to deal with fucking achievements that I did not even want to include anymore, because of the extra work it required compared to STeam. Same with EOS overlay. THe overlay is NOT MANDATORY, yet they blocked my build for 2 days because it did not work in Live bundle. It did in Dev and Stage. They did not tell me how to fix this.
Later I found in ONE obscure forum post that Epic named one variable in config wrong, that caused this. They named “Artifact ID” with “Artifact Name”, but it is in fact ID. My game worked with overlay when run in standalone, but not via their store. Due to one checkbox. They knew what is wrong and did not bother responding. You have no way to communicate with them. Steam responds immediately. I was so annoyed with the achievements that when I had to include them, I included only a few that I had on Steam. Also you have to ensure that your achievements all add up to 1000 EXP. If it is not exactly 1000 EXP, review fails. ON FUCKING ACHIEVEMENTS. Then they forced me to add all Steam achievements, to “keep continuity among different store fronts”. On Steam, once they approve your game build, it is approved forever. Not on Epic. They have to review every build. You can get stuck on it right before release.
They wishlist rate on Epic is roughly 10% of what I get on Steam. But because they delayed my release by 10 days. I will get minimal conversion even from that, because they release week hype is over. So what they have “only” 12% comission. 88% of nothing is nothing. Epic fucked me. Never working with them again."
Don’t get me started on their “wonderful” support if you lose your account :D
I don’t know what you’re going on about, but I hope you’re a bot with this absolutely delusional post.