This year I made a ‘promise’ to play the top 20 NES games as when I was a child/teen I never managed to beat any of those.

Steam Deck is such a boon that I can play my nostalgia games one hour before when I go to bed instead of doom scrolling reddit or whatever.

And I have actually beaten smb 1 and ninja gaiden (with save states) and megaman 2 without any saves and I feel so good!

I have to be bit against decky. Out of the five steam deck crashes I’ve had past year all of them were because of decky frontend. At least that was what the crash report said and it had also option of disabling decky until next reboot. So my experience was decky crash -> no decky&happy -> system upgrade -> decky crash -> no decky &happy -> system upgrade… rinse & repeat

I’m not a decky (or steam deck) power user and last I checked the uninstall was not trivial so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I wish I never installed decky.

I’m running lotro via Lutris happily on Mint. Your case sounds like a permission problem somewhere as the launcher works.

This is farfetched I know but try a nuclear option and use another distro to install lotro via Lutris to a shared mount and then mount & run it from there in your distro.

My most played game was Brotato. It just plays so well and one run lasts about 20mins which is perfect for me when I don’t want to commit too much time.

My most surprising game is probably a Trackmania which took a while to get working because of the Ubisoft launcher not playing nice with Linux but then again there are so many guides to get it working it’s not that big of a deal. For me I had to change the wlan MTU packet from 1500 to under 1000 and all was well.

Outside tinkering I’d suggest Heaven’s Vault. Adventure/Puzzle game where you decipher an unknown language from glyphs. You can quit and next time you pick the game it will give a summary where you left last time storywise - such an awesome quality of life for short gaming bursts

Whoa. It runs on deck? I just finished it on desktop. Completionist wise it was such a burden and I wish it didn’t have any achievements. Hopefully your sand trip is awesome!

When you say perfected the formula I have to agree with you. It’s such a joy to start with the same deck as the top 1% A20 only players and make your own journey. It just feels so right and well balanced.

You’re the second person suggesting Deep Rock. Now I’m guessing that there are two games: one multiplayer, one not with similar names. I guess I have to research on them. Thanks mate!

Ooh. Thanks for the suggestions. Not sure about Deep Rock (multiplayer eh? Can’t pause mid game, right?) but the Slice & Dice and Dicey Dungeons sound like something I’d be interested. Much appreciated.

Thanks. Hades and Disco Elysium were on my list but you had many listed that I’ve never heard of. Much appreciated.

I kinda get you. I too didn’t like when I started always with the same starter deck but then it grew on me. When there is no game progression (think for Rogue Legacy etc. permanent upgrades) the progression is you and your game knowledge. Every single run starts the same but evolves to so different each and every time and you make better decisions over the run. I love it.

I started Brotato after some serious Vampire Survivors. I want to know what the heck is the genre of Brotato and VS and find more games like them.

Heard only positive about Balatro. I need to keep my addiction to one game at the time hehe. You know any (roguelitish?) games that are off the radar or more obscure? They seem to be my jam.

Firewatch on your list was awesome. Really enjoyed it.

Never heard of the second last game.

V6 and Super meat boy are such a legendary games. Enjoy! For other platformers I’d suggest Owlboy, DuckTales, Hollow Knight, Celeste and Rogue legacies when you have time or haven’t played them yet.

Damn. I must play Brotato more. Not showing on the list

Chaotic evil here. No regrets.

I am somewhat of a patient gamer so I tend to focus on few years old games.

Currently playing Valkyria Chronicles which works pretty well on deck ( I hate how finicky accurate aiming is ). Non-interactive visual novel storytelling and turn based combat puzzles works really well for short periodic gaming moments.

Just finished Salt & Sanctuary and the remastered Grim Fandango. Both great on deck and good games overall