This week’s interesting bits and pieces in Steam Deck / Linux and general gaming that I have found is a lighter version. Just a small handful of things I found and wanted to share here. So don't judge me too harshly!

As is now tradition (signed in blood) each time I swear this will become a weekly event, it is only a handful of days between it and the next!

So as always, this is just the bits and pieces of news I’ve spotted that made me smile, or made me interested, so I thought they’d fit in nicely here.

My aim is to phrase this in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:

• image/gif/link heavy
• personal voice (no hard news here!)
• mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on the ‘big’ gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to

This is a warning though, Boost has trouble displaying so many images per post. I am told however that the dev has fixed this, or is fixing this. I can say that Jerboa and Thunder have no issue scrolling these (same with the website)

So grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

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News / Games

Infinity Blade II:

Infinity Blade II now has a PC port! For a game which really shone as an example of both a mobile game done with high quality visuals (and production) and on how to make a touch-centric game play well...it’s hard to see this translating well to something like PC/Steam Deck. But, in the interests of my obsession of games preservation – it’s just a good thing to share the work some have done to ensure this has other ways of playing

The port targets 64-bit Windows, but the community has confirmed the following configurations to work:

Linux via Lutris, Proton, or Wine. macOS via Crossover or Parallels. Steamdeck via Proton.

Features:

• The original Infinity Blade II experience
• Keybinds for abilities such as dodging, blocking, stabbing, and more
• Standalone launcher to tweak graphical settings and controls
• Scroll menus naturally by dragging the mouse, or by scrolling the mouse wheel.
• Improved graphical fidelity over iOS
• Toggleable dynamic shadows and godrays
• Audio sliders to control music and SFX separately
• Easy save transfer between iOS and PC

There’s an announcement/guide on YouTube about this, which you can go to by clicking on this link right here!

I am neither affiliated with Epic Games nor with the creation of this port, which exists soley for the purpose of lost media preservation. This video analyzes of a publicly available website and file from the Internet Archive.

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Epic Games app:

Just a small note here, recently Epic has not only launched their app for Android and Apple, but they’ve been consistently updating it (I’d argue more than their PC experience, which years later is still lacking many of the QoL features others have had for eons -__-).

Their most recent update now shows the ‘discounts’ (sale prices) on their mobile games.

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Myst and Cyan

My father has a copy of Myst, in one of those ancient battered ‘big box’ style...boxes. It’s always been near his desk, alongside the others which are (forgive my ignorance, I just don’t know this series beyond the recent remaster ones) in the same universe? Sequels? Like Riven. He adores that game, like he adores the Portal games.

Being a senior programmer who has a reputation for COBOL, my father enjoyed the puzzle games, the ones which made him take his time and think.

Anyway, I only mention this because Myst, or rather the indie studio behind it called Cyan (which has remained a studio for 37 years now, and always remained independent) have announced that they laid off “...roughly half the team”.

As one user said though:

“You definitely hate to see it, but riding Myst at some point doesn’t pay the bills. When your iconic game’s release party would be closer in time to shaking President JFK’s hand than mine, it’s been too long…”

Further, Cyan shared a list of “impacted employees who are looking for new opportunities…” - you can read that list, as well as more information from Cyan via this Bluesky link where they made this announcement

Time passes, but this is still some very sad news to see, especially for such a long-running studio. I hope happier and brighter times are ahead for them.

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Croc on GOG

(No, not Steve Irwin)

Well, if you’ve been keeping up with this one, after almost 30 years the cult-classic Croc, as well as the remastered version, are now available on GOG. This one’s unique, in that it is only available on PC on GOG, whereas it is available everywhere on the consoles. Typical bitter weird comments are out there where people get angry (totally missing the irony that some games are available only on Steam), but overall things seem quite cheerful on this release!

• A link to the GOG page is here
• The YouTube trailer from 5 months ago is here with this link
• The forum post for the launch on GOG is here, if you want to read what people said

One issue though was reported by GOG themselves at launch, with their announcement of the game’s availability:

Hey all! Please note that for the smoothest experience, right now we recommend launching Croc (remastered version) while logged into your GOG GALAXY client—whether you're online or offline. Using only the Offline Installers without GOG GALAXY may lead to some issues when trying to launch the game. We're aware of this and are working on a fix ASAP. This affects only the remastered version. We apologize for the inconvenience—this shouldn’t take long to resolve. We hope you’ll have a blast playing nonetheless!

...though this has obviously been fixed long since!

Fun fact: This was originally going to be a Yoshi game but Nintendo turned it down so they made an original game. This was by Argonaut Games who also worked with Nintendo to do Star Fox

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Live Stranding

If you’ve been following my Mastodon for any time, you’ll have seen my countless obsessive love letter’s to Kojima’s delivery game – Death Stranding. A absolutely adore it.

It took me a couple times of trying it before it really suck with me, but ever since it climbed (pun?) high into my list of Perfect Dark’s Fav Games list. Being made available for free via Epic Games’ weekly free games a few times, chances are you’ve got it in your library too.

What I have noticed is a trend of users replying to my posts saying that the combat takes their enjoyment away. The BT battles, the timefall, the ‘stress’. And hey, that’s fine! We all get to enjoy games our own way, if you’ve been avoiding playing it because of these reasons, and you want that pure, pure dopamine hit of delivering packages, re-building roads and finding the perfect route through a broken land, then I have the suggestion for you!

Nexus Mods has a mod by AspeerTheDog, which removes Bts and timefall (rain) – which you can find using this link

This mod removes most of the timefall areas and prevents BTs from spawning. Some areas are left to allow Chiralium farming

I heavily discourage people who want to use this mod to play the campaign. BTs and timefall are a very important part of this game and without them a lot of mechanics in the game disappear or become useless. The mod was made with endgame in mind, for people who want to chill and farm deliveries in peace. I will not stop anyone from playing however they want though.

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Miyoo Game Diary:

This one is just plain sweet. I found a user (Acrobatic_Age) whose efforts to detail their experiences playing Final Fantasy 1 were done by hand with watercolor and ink in a game diary. All while they travelled and played.

While riding the train from Łódź to Warszawa, I had some time to snap pics of all the pages from my Final Fantasy 1 game journal so far. If you're planning to play it, feel free to check out the maps and drawings, but skip the text—there are plenty of spoilers in those dialogues and rumors.

They have their previous adventures and efforts all detailed here on their blog, this link is theirs: called PIXELS IN MY POCKET. It is utterly beautiful, and if I can convince you to follow one link I’ve shared in this post, make it this one. It’s such a nice and unique thing they’re doing :)

Anyway, here’s some images of theirs, so you can see just how beautiful it is:

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A journal:

The above one reminds me of a RDR2 journal / diary I saw someone made when Red Dead released all those years ago. That user was candority, and here’s a few images of it just because it’s rather lovely:

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PC Ports / Decompilations, and more:

A frequently updated list of PC ports, decompilations, remakes, and fan games—all verified as playable on the Steam Deck (and PC)—has transitioned from Reddit to a standalone website. Originally maintained through community contributions on Reddit, the list has now outgrown its format, prompting the shift to a dedicated site by the maintainer: OldMcGroin.

The new site adopts a minimalist design, prioritizing readability and ease of navigation. Whilst OldMcGroin (what a username) acknowledges its a bit janky to start with (citing this as their first web project), the focus remains on accessibility for us users searching for compatible fan-made projects. The list continues to expand thanks to community suggestions, and feedback on both content and site improvements is encouraged. Those interested can explore the project here: with this link to ‘the gaming emporium’

This is definitely one I recommend you bookmark!

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Lovecraftian Sale:

Every year there’s something called The Lovecraftian Days, which also tends to have a themed sale on Steam. They also have shown the art for this year’s event:

Fulqrum Publishing is delighted to partner with the great and terrible Cthulhu, to celebrate the third iteration of Lovecraftian Days - hosted and curated by Fulqrum Publishing, and joined by dozens of other developers and publishers. The event will celebrate the influences of the classic works of H.P. Lovecraft, and the cosmic horror genre in gaming. The celebrations will include new game releases, new announcements, game demos and discounts!

The site for this is here, with this link if you’d like to visit it!

Further, here’s a couple images of the previous two years art:

(above is 2023)

(above is 2024)

And finally? A couple Lovecraftian games I’d recommend for the Steam Deck:

• Call of Cthulhu

• Darkest Dungeon

• DREDGE (my fav!)

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Gameboy Camera

This one’s quick, but twofold because its fun:

User Marurun shared an image of their Gameboy Camera pictures they’ve been taking, and those he took a step further to colorize:

I recently got back into taking photos with my Game Boy Camera since I can now save my photos. I don't use a Game Boy Printer emulator to get my pictures from it since I don't own one yet, but I found a different way using my GameCube and GameBoy Interface. I wrote about how I figured out how all of this works and how I colorize my photos on my blog:

https://marupanda.art/blog/posts/tech/gameboy-camera/

& I also recommend you check out this video on YouTube by Becca Farsace, showing them taking the modern ‘remake’ of the classic Nintendo Gameboy Camera, the 2BitToy which you can look at in more detail on their site, here! around.

It’s a wonderful and fun video, I really recommend this one here’s the link to YouTube if you wanna check it out!

And here’s an image of that camera set-up:

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Quick Links:

These are just bits and pieces I have absolutely no doubt most of you have seen, but maybe going forward this will be a handy thing (at least to look back in retrospect as time goes on) – having them in one place? IDK, let me know if you like this lil section:

• Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 – 4.2.2025 – my takeaway above all else was the sad departure of an entire game being stored on a game cart, now seeing them instead be a typica; ‘digital license’. It’s a sad thing to see for me. Also, up to $90 USD for Mario Kart? WTF is that?

• Loci is now a part of Epic Games. Loci being a algorithm which generates metadata for 3D assets (maybe so FAB will be less shit?)A link to the announcement article is here, if you’re interested in the details

• Enter The Gungeon 2 now has a page on Steam, and you can find the page here with this link if you want! Enter the Gungeon 2 is a reloaded, high-caliber sequel to the iconic bullet hell dungeon crawler, reinforced with a new 3D art style, new weapons and enemies, and new gameplay tricks.

• If you’d like a little more info on why Warner Bros. cancelled the planned DLC expansion to Hogwarts Legacy, then you can read a bit more about it here on Bloomberg with this link to the article. TBH I’m just jaded and figure whatever it is or was will be recycled as a sequel.

• The GitHub for Citra, the most well known of the 3DS emulators has been closed down. If you’ve been running it via EmuDeck or RetroDECK, then you’ll see it’s disappeared completely. Azahar is now the default 3DS emulator for all.

• Atomfall is the most successful game launch for the developers (who are known for Sniper Elite) at Rebellion. They’ve been making games now for 32 years! This is an article about that, its on IGN

• Nightdive Studios’ CEO said ‘we stands ready’ – to remaster Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era games. The artcile giving more details is here via VideoGamesChronicle if you’d like to read more!

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Prime Gaming List for April:

The full list of games you can redeem, when and from where – for your Prime Gaming subscription for the month of April is as follows:

• Now Available: Mafia III: Definitive Edition [GOG Code]

• Now Available: Minecraft Legends [Xbox and PC via Microsoft Store Code]

• Now Available: Gravity Circuit [Amazon Games App]

• Now Available: Paleo Pines [Amazon Games App]

• Now Available: Clouds & Sheep 2 [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: DreadOut 2 [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: ENDLESS™ Space — Definitive Edition [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: God’s Trigger [GOG Code]

• April 10: New York Mysteries: Power of Art Collector’s Edition [Legacy Games Code]

• April 10: Projection: First Light [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: Faraway: Director’s Cut [Amazon Games App]

• April 17: Gloomhaven [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: The Last Spell [GOG Code]

• April 17: Fashion Police Squad [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: Genesis Noir [Amazon Games App]

• April 17: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain [GOG Code]

• April 17: Berserk Boy [GOG Code]

• April 17: The Last Show of Mr. Chardish [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: Wild Country [GOG Code]

• April 24: Thief™ Gold [GOG Code]

• April 24: Troublemaker [Epic Games Store]

• April 24: Kraken Academy!! [Amazon Games App]

• April 24: Priest Simulator: Vampire Show [Epic Games Store]

I’m gonna harp on about it again here, I just love the deal which Amazon’s Prime Gaming gives. For most who subscribe (at least this is my own personal experience), this whole add-on of free games titles you get to keep forever, regardless of the subscription status is a Godsend. To me this is the single best deal in gaming right now.

I get to build my GOG library (my fav of all!), as well as the others. I typically find at least one title per week which I’d never buy for myself, but am looking forward to trying! Gloomhaven especially is one of my fav board games ever made. And I am so very excited to try the video game! Enjoy!

Medium has done a small article detailing the list of games released this month for Prime Gaming, if you want to read up on it further, this is a good link for it!

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Epic’s Upcoming Freebie – April 10th:

Next week’s (or one of since there is three in total – though one of them is just in-game currency for a free title) standout game to me is River City Girls.

Free from April 10th to 17th and not available to claim in:

• Australia
• Brazil
• Russia
• South Korea

A beat-em-up, this one is rated highly on Steam, and looks like a great one to claim for free!

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Nintendo Power

Again, something incredibly niche, but I had fun discovering a backup of every single Nintendo Power release which was hosted on archive.org, but now whose link is dead. So, there’s a magnet available for those who want it:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:8a1a883270f3f094150ce258a26b4ca581839153

Every issue, from 1 to 285. Enjoy!

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The Last of Us Pt. 2 on the Steam Deck:

As it stands, while being better than the disaster of Pt 1 on PC, it’s still not ideal for Steam Deck. The video for the Digital Foundry review on performance is up and linked here, and here is a few things Alex points out:

• TLOU2 has it's own Steam Deck preset
• Has trouble locking to 30 fps on the SD
• Frametime issues makes the game feel jerky, even if the average FPS is about 30 fps
• Framecapping is recommended given the CPU performance issues (not just for SD, but for all PCs in general)

Discussion on the Steam Deck is from the 9:58 mark in the video, which is linked here

Having never played the second game, I’m really looking forward to it on PC, but for the moment perhaps I’ll wait until I am home with my powerful desktop, rather than now (travelling) with my Steam Deck.

...and finally, as a bonus, here’s a video from YouTube by Girlfriend Reviews, where they detail how a Redditor on r/TheLastofUs2 sent death threats to himself and blamed them for it. The best case ever of incels going fucking crazy over a game and getting caught out. I can’t recommend enough that you watch this, if only to see a beautiful ‘gotcha’ for the incels.

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A Recommendation:

I try recommend a game I figure not everyone has tried and might enjoy on their Steam Deck. I really loved a game called RKGK or Rakugaki. It’s a beautiful, bright and fun 3D platformer – think (to me anyway) a little bit Bomb Rush/Jet Set and a little bit Sunset Overdrive.

A link to the trailer is here, if you want to get a better idea of gameplay – the link is to YouTube

Extremely bright pops of color, a cyberpunkish setting, fast platforming movement, graffiti art, and beautifully fluid character handingly: I really enjoyed this one. It also plays amazingly well on the Steam Deck (link to the ProtonDB page), and is a fun pick-up-and-play game. From the store:

The city is your canvas. Join the rebellious Valah and her RKGK crew to free the neo-brutalist Cap City from evil B Corp’s control. Collect secret treasures, find hidden paths, and light up the cold and grey concrete with your graffiti.

How fast can you go? Chain together jumps, dashes, glides, and grinds. Reach the perfect flow state in Defacer mode – where Valah’s world becomes her animated wonderland. Master routes and speed through levels as you take down Mr. Buff’s cronies with style.

Break through enemies, overload your senses, and take back control. Use Valah’s paint abilities for stylish traversal, chaotic mayhem, and leaving your vibrant mark on every corner of Cap City.

...don’t overthink it, this game is just fun!

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Krysten / Sonic:

Just a cute photo of Krysten Ritter from when she was doing a fan signing even for her new novel. Someone brought along a copy of Shadow the Hedgehog for her to sign (she played Director Rockwell in Sonic 3).

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...annnnnd that's it!

I've always got to emphasize that if there's any errors, be they formatting, spelling or phrasing - they're all my errors (and sorry!). I hope you might find some fun in this, even if it's a 'lighter' version of what I typically share.

Thanks as ever for letting me get away with these rambling posts <3

And don't forget, if you want more of my inane posting, then I'm on Mastodon here:

This week’s interesting bits and pieces in Steam Deck / Linux and general gaming that I have found is a lighter version. Just a small handful of things I found and wanted to share here. So don't judge me too harshly!

As is now tradition (signed in blood) each time I swear this will become a weekly event, it is only a handful of days between it and the next!

So as always, this is just the bits and pieces of news I’ve spotted that made me smile, or made me interested, so I thought they’d fit in nicely here.

My aim is to phrase this in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:

• image/gif/link heavy
• personal voice (no hard news here!)
• mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on the ‘big’ gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to

This is a warning though, Boost has trouble displaying so many images per post. I am told however that the dev has fixed this, or is fixing this. I can say that Jerboa and Thunder have no issue scrolling these (same with the website)

So grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

---

News / Games

Infinity Blade II:

Infinity Blade II now has a PC port! For a game which really shone as an example of both a mobile game done with high quality visuals (and production) and on how to make a touch-centric game play well...it’s hard to see this translating well to something like PC/Steam Deck. But, in the interests of my obsession of games preservation – it’s just a good thing to share the work some have done to ensure this has other ways of playing

The port targets 64-bit Windows, but the community has confirmed the following configurations to work:

Linux via Lutris, Proton, or Wine. macOS via Crossover or Parallels. Steamdeck via Proton.

Features:

• The original Infinity Blade II experience
• Keybinds for abilities such as dodging, blocking, stabbing, and more
• Standalone launcher to tweak graphical settings and controls
• Scroll menus naturally by dragging the mouse, or by scrolling the mouse wheel.
• Improved graphical fidelity over iOS
• Toggleable dynamic shadows and godrays
• Audio sliders to control music and SFX separately
• Easy save transfer between iOS and PC

There’s an announcement/guide on YouTube about this, which you can go to by clicking on this link right here!

I am neither affiliated with Epic Games nor with the creation of this port, which exists soley for the purpose of lost media preservation. This video analyzes of a publicly available website and file from the Internet Archive.

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Epic Games app:

Just a small note here, recently Epic has not only launched their app for Android and Apple, but they’ve been consistently updating it (I’d argue more than their PC experience, which years later is still lacking many of the QoL features others have had for eons -__-).

Their most recent update now shows the ‘discounts’ (sale prices) on their mobile games.

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Myst and Cyan

My father has a copy of Myst, in one of those ancient battered ‘big box’ style...boxes. It’s always been near his desk, alongside the others which are (forgive my ignorance, I just don’t know this series beyond the recent remaster ones) in the same universe? Sequels? Like Riven. He adores that game, like he adores the Portal games.

Being a senior programmer who has a reputation for COBOL, my father enjoyed the puzzle games, the ones which made him take his time and think.

Anyway, I only mention this because Myst, or rather the indie studio behind it called Cyan (which has remained a studio for 37 years now, and always remained independent) have announced that they laid off “...roughly half the team”.

As one user said though:

“You definitely hate to see it, but riding Myst at some point doesn’t pay the bills. When your iconic game’s release party would be closer in time to shaking President JFK’s hand than mine, it’s been too long…”

Further, Cyan shared a list of “impacted employees who are looking for new opportunities…” - you can read that list, as well as more information from Cyan via this Bluesky link where they made this announcement

Time passes, but this is still some very sad news to see, especially for such a long-running studio. I hope happier and brighter times are ahead for them.

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Croc on GOG

(No, not Steve Irwin)

Well, if you’ve been keeping up with this one, after almost 30 years the cult-classic Croc, as well as the remastered version, are now available on GOG. This one’s unique, in that it is only available on PC on GOG, whereas it is available everywhere on the consoles. Typical bitter weird comments are out there where people get angry (totally missing the irony that some games are available only on Steam), but overall things seem quite cheerful on this release!

• A link to the GOG page is here
• The YouTube trailer from 5 months ago is here with this link
• The forum post for the launch on GOG is here, if you want to read what people said

One issue though was reported by GOG themselves at launch, with their announcement of the game’s availability:

Hey all! Please note that for the smoothest experience, right now we recommend launching Croc (remastered version) while logged into your GOG GALAXY client—whether you're online or offline. Using only the Offline Installers without GOG GALAXY may lead to some issues when trying to launch the game. We're aware of this and are working on a fix ASAP. This affects only the remastered version. We apologize for the inconvenience—this shouldn’t take long to resolve. We hope you’ll have a blast playing nonetheless!

...though this has obviously been fixed long since!

Fun fact: This was originally going to be a Yoshi game but Nintendo turned it down so they made an original game. This was by Argonaut Games who also worked with Nintendo to do Star Fox

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Live Stranding

If you’ve been following my Mastodon for any time, you’ll have seen my countless obsessive love letter’s to Kojima’s delivery game – Death Stranding. A absolutely adore it.

It took me a couple times of trying it before it really suck with me, but ever since it climbed (pun?) high into my list of Perfect Dark’s Fav Games list. Being made available for free via Epic Games’ weekly free games a few times, chances are you’ve got it in your library too.

What I have noticed is a trend of users replying to my posts saying that the combat takes their enjoyment away. The BT battles, the timefall, the ‘stress’. And hey, that’s fine! We all get to enjoy games our own way, if you’ve been avoiding playing it because of these reasons, and you want that pure, pure dopamine hit of delivering packages, re-building roads and finding the perfect route through a broken land, then I have the suggestion for you!

Nexus Mods has a mod by AspeerTheDog, which removes Bts and timefall (rain) – which you can find using this link

This mod removes most of the timefall areas and prevents BTs from spawning. Some areas are left to allow Chiralium farming

I heavily discourage people who want to use this mod to play the campaign. BTs and timefall are a very important part of this game and without them a lot of mechanics in the game disappear or become useless. The mod was made with endgame in mind, for people who want to chill and farm deliveries in peace. I will not stop anyone from playing however they want though.

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Miyoo Game Diary:

This one is just plain sweet. I found a user (Acrobatic_Age) whose efforts to detail their experiences playing Final Fantasy 1 were done by hand with watercolor and ink in a game diary. All while they travelled and played.

While riding the train from Łódź to Warszawa, I had some time to snap pics of all the pages from my Final Fantasy 1 game journal so far. If you're planning to play it, feel free to check out the maps and drawings, but skip the text—there are plenty of spoilers in those dialogues and rumors.

They have their previous adventures and efforts all detailed here on their blog, this link is theirs: called PIXELS IN MY POCKET. It is utterly beautiful, and if I can convince you to follow one link I’ve shared in this post, make it this one. It’s such a nice and unique thing they’re doing :)

Anyway, here’s some images of theirs, so you can see just how beautiful it is:

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A journal:

The above one reminds me of a RDR2 journal / diary I saw someone made when Red Dead released all those years ago. That user was candority, and here’s a few images of it just because it’s rather lovely:

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PC Ports / Decompilations, and more:

A frequently updated list of PC ports, decompilations, remakes, and fan games—all verified as playable on the Steam Deck (and PC)—has transitioned from Reddit to a standalone website. Originally maintained through community contributions on Reddit, the list has now outgrown its format, prompting the shift to a dedicated site by the maintainer: OldMcGroin.

The new site adopts a minimalist design, prioritizing readability and ease of navigation. Whilst OldMcGroin (what a username) acknowledges its a bit janky to start with (citing this as their first web project), the focus remains on accessibility for us users searching for compatible fan-made projects. The list continues to expand thanks to community suggestions, and feedback on both content and site improvements is encouraged. Those interested can explore the project here: with this link to ‘the gaming emporium’

This is definitely one I recommend you bookmark!

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Lovecraftian Sale:

Every year there’s something called The Lovecraftian Days, which also tends to have a themed sale on Steam. They also have shown the art for this year’s event:

Fulqrum Publishing is delighted to partner with the great and terrible Cthulhu, to celebrate the third iteration of Lovecraftian Days - hosted and curated by Fulqrum Publishing, and joined by dozens of other developers and publishers. The event will celebrate the influences of the classic works of H.P. Lovecraft, and the cosmic horror genre in gaming. The celebrations will include new game releases, new announcements, game demos and discounts!

The site for this is here, with this link if you’d like to visit it!

Further, here’s a couple images of the previous two years art:

(above is 2023)

(above is 2024)

And finally? A couple Lovecraftian games I’d recommend for the Steam Deck:

• Call of Cthulhu

• Darkest Dungeon

• DREDGE (my fav!)

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Gameboy Camera

This one’s quick, but twofold because its fun:

User Marurun shared an image of their Gameboy Camera pictures they’ve been taking, and those he took a step further to colorize:

I recently got back into taking photos with my Game Boy Camera since I can now save my photos. I don't use a Game Boy Printer emulator to get my pictures from it since I don't own one yet, but I found a different way using my GameCube and GameBoy Interface. I wrote about how I figured out how all of this works and how I colorize my photos on my blog:

https://marupanda.art/blog/posts/tech/gameboy-camera/

& I also recommend you check out this video on YouTube by Becca Farsace, showing them taking the modern ‘remake’ of the classic Nintendo Gameboy Camera, the 2BitToy which you can look at in more detail on their site, here! around.

It’s a wonderful and fun video, I really recommend this one here’s the link to YouTube if you wanna check it out!

And here’s an image of that camera set-up:

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Quick Links:

These are just bits and pieces I have absolutely no doubt most of you have seen, but maybe going forward this will be a handy thing (at least to look back in retrospect as time goes on) – having them in one place? IDK, let me know if you like this lil section:

• Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 – 4.2.2025 – my takeaway above all else was the sad departure of an entire game being stored on a game cart, now seeing them instead be a typica; ‘digital license’. It’s a sad thing to see for me. Also, up to $90 USD for Mario Kart? WTF is that?

• Loci is now a part of Epic Games. Loci being a algorithm which generates metadata for 3D assets (maybe so FAB will be less shit?)A link to the announcement article is here, if you’re interested in the details

• Enter The Gungeon 2 now has a page on Steam, and you can find the page here with this link if you want! Enter the Gungeon 2 is a reloaded, high-caliber sequel to the iconic bullet hell dungeon crawler, reinforced with a new 3D art style, new weapons and enemies, and new gameplay tricks.

• If you’d like a little more info on why Warner Bros. cancelled the planned DLC expansion to Hogwarts Legacy, then you can read a bit more about it here on Bloomberg with this link to the article. TBH I’m just jaded and figure whatever it is or was will be recycled as a sequel.

• The GitHub for Citra, the most well known of the 3DS emulators has been closed down. If you’ve been running it via EmuDeck or RetroDECK, then you’ll see it’s disappeared completely. Azahar is now the default 3DS emulator for all.

• Atomfall is the most successful game launch for the developers (who are known for Sniper Elite) at Rebellion. They’ve been making games now for 32 years! This is an article about that, its on IGN

• Nightdive Studios’ CEO said ‘we stands ready’ – to remaster Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era games. The artcile giving more details is here via VideoGamesChronicle if you’d like to read more!

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Prime Gaming List for April:

The full list of games you can redeem, when and from where – for your Prime Gaming subscription for the month of April is as follows:

• Now Available: Mafia III: Definitive Edition [GOG Code]

• Now Available: Minecraft Legends [Xbox and PC via Microsoft Store Code]

• Now Available: Gravity Circuit [Amazon Games App]

• Now Available: Paleo Pines [Amazon Games App]

• Now Available: Clouds & Sheep 2 [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: DreadOut 2 [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: ENDLESS™ Space — Definitive Edition [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: God’s Trigger [GOG Code]

• April 10: New York Mysteries: Power of Art Collector’s Edition [Legacy Games Code]

• April 10: Projection: First Light [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: Faraway: Director’s Cut [Amazon Games App]

• April 17: Gloomhaven [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: The Last Spell [GOG Code]

• April 17: Fashion Police Squad [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: Genesis Noir [Amazon Games App]

• April 17: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain [GOG Code]

• April 17: Berserk Boy [GOG Code]

• April 17: The Last Show of Mr. Chardish [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: Wild Country [GOG Code]

• April 24: Thief™ Gold [GOG Code]

• April 24: Troublemaker [Epic Games Store]

• April 24: Kraken Academy!! [Amazon Games App]

• April 24: Priest Simulator: Vampire Show [Epic Games Store]

I’m gonna harp on about it again here, I just love the deal which Amazon’s Prime Gaming gives. For most who subscribe (at least this is my own personal experience), this whole add-on of free games titles you get to keep forever, regardless of the subscription status is a Godsend. To me this is the single best deal in gaming right now.

I get to build my GOG library (my fav of all!), as well as the others. I typically find at least one title per week which I’d never buy for myself, but am looking forward to trying! Gloomhaven especially is one of my fav board games ever made. And I am so very excited to try the video game! Enjoy!

Medium has done a small article detailing the list of games released this month for Prime Gaming, if you want to read up on it further, this is a good link for it!

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Epic’s Upcoming Freebie – April 10th:

Next week’s (or one of since there is three in total – though one of them is just in-game currency for a free title) standout game to me is River City Girls.

Free from April 10th to 17th and not available to claim in:

• Australia
• Brazil
• Russia
• South Korea

A beat-em-up, this one is rated highly on Steam, and looks like a great one to claim for free!

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Nintendo Power

Again, something incredibly niche, but I had fun discovering a backup of every single Nintendo Power release which was hosted on archive.org, but now whose link is dead. So, there’s a magnet available for those who want it:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:8a1a883270f3f094150ce258a26b4ca581839153

Every issue, from 1 to 285. Enjoy!

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The Last of Us Pt. 2 on the Steam Deck:

As it stands, while being better than the disaster of Pt 1 on PC, it’s still not ideal for Steam Deck. The video for the Digital Foundry review on performance is up and linked here, and here is a few things Alex points out:

• TLOU2 has it's own Steam Deck preset
• Has trouble locking to 30 fps on the SD
• Frametime issues makes the game feel jerky, even if the average FPS is about 30 fps
• Framecapping is recommended given the CPU performance issues (not just for SD, but for all PCs in general)

Discussion on the Steam Deck is from the 9:58 mark in the video, which is linked here

Having never played the second game, I’m really looking forward to it on PC, but for the moment perhaps I’ll wait until I am home with my powerful desktop, rather than now (travelling) with my Steam Deck.

...and finally, as a bonus, here’s a video from YouTube by Girlfriend Reviews, where they detail how a Redditor on r/TheLastofUs2 sent death threats to himself and blamed them for it. The best case ever of incels going fucking crazy over a game and getting caught out. I can’t recommend enough that you watch this, if only to see a beautiful ‘gotcha’ for the incels.

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A Recommendation:

I try recommend a game I figure not everyone has tried and might enjoy on their Steam Deck. I really loved a game called RKGK or Rakugaki. It’s a beautiful, bright and fun 3D platformer – think (to me anyway) a little bit Bomb Rush/Jet Set and a little bit Sunset Overdrive.

A link to the trailer is here, if you want to get a better idea of gameplay – the link is to YouTube

Extremely bright pops of color, a cyberpunkish setting, fast platforming movement, graffiti art, and beautifully fluid character handingly: I really enjoyed this one. It also plays amazingly well on the Steam Deck (link to the ProtonDB page), and is a fun pick-up-and-play game. From the store:

The city is your canvas. Join the rebellious Valah and her RKGK crew to free the neo-brutalist Cap City from evil B Corp’s control. Collect secret treasures, find hidden paths, and light up the cold and grey concrete with your graffiti.

How fast can you go? Chain together jumps, dashes, glides, and grinds. Reach the perfect flow state in Defacer mode – where Valah’s world becomes her animated wonderland. Master routes and speed through levels as you take down Mr. Buff’s cronies with style.

Break through enemies, overload your senses, and take back control. Use Valah’s paint abilities for stylish traversal, chaotic mayhem, and leaving your vibrant mark on every corner of Cap City.

...don’t overthink it, this game is just fun!

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Krysten / Sonic:

Just a cute photo of Krysten Ritter from when she was doing a fan signing even for her new novel. Someone brought along a copy of Shadow the Hedgehog for her to sign (she played Director Rockwell in Sonic 3).

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...annnnnd that's it!

I've always got to emphasize that if there's any errors, be they formatting, spelling or phrasing - they're all my errors (and sorry!). I hope you might find some fun in this, even if it's a 'lighter' version of what I typically share.

Thanks as ever for letting me get away with these rambling posts <3

And don't forget, if you want more of my inane posting, then I'm on Mastodon here:

My week’s news!

Though, the roundup this time didn’t quite make it to 7 days after the last I shared, as I promised it would. Sorry!

As ever, this is the bits and pieces of news I’ve spotted that made me smile, or made me interested, so I thought they’d fit in nicely here.

My aim is to phrase this in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:

• image/gif/link heavy
• personal voice (no hard news here!)
• mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on the ‘big’ gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to

A warning, some users who use some apps have told me there is slowdown in scrolling these. I'd recommend Thunder, or Jerboa apps - neither of which have any issues scrolling through these posts I make!

Grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

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GOG News / Games

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Surveyed / ‘how to better GOG’:

Interestingly, those of us who allow emails from GOG (you can deny these ‘promotion’ kind in your settings) saw a survey in the last day or so. The crux of this one is GOG seemingly floating the idea that they may introduce some kind of subscription service.

It does seem to be early days on what exactly that will entail (though that hasn’t stopped users everywhere getting very vocal about how they despise the prospect) – but for a platform build on being DRM-free, it’s hard to see how this will work exactly.

I adore GOG. As maybe you’ve seen from these posts so far, I own entirely too many games on there, it’s been my spot to buy games from the start (I actually checked how many I own on Steam – 41!), and I love their service:

• DRM-free
• Games’ preservation

So while I’m not seeing this in the most positive light just now (esp considering the recent numbers showing an 89% decrease in profits), I’m not going to be negative before we see the whole picture.

If you’d like to read users’ comments on how they’re responding, then the best place to go would be through this link to their forum

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Games Updates:

I’ve just noticed some updates to games recently, and wanted to share them in a lil list. This isn’t the most thrilling of endeavors, since maybe you’re already aware that a new version of your GOG game is up and running. Though if not, here’s a few I noticed in my library which are new:

• Drova: Forsaken Kin
• Endzone 2
• Heart of the Machine
• Foundation
• Pillars of Eternity (is this the Poe game everyone keeps using the letters P, O and E for?
• The Thing Remastered
• Tunguska: The Visitation
• Wildermyth
• Rain World
• Ultima IV
• Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
• Kingdom Come Deliverance II
• No Man’s Sky

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GOG Cover Template

Last few times I’ve mentioned or shared the physical GOG DVD covers people design, print and display – people have loved them. And no wonder, the lack of phsyical side of PC gaming makes something as small as a custom display of games you love such a beautiful idea.

I’ve come across this one by ‘Nejnop’ – this is a games cover template, for you to use if you want! Though as ever, if you’d prefer to scroll through the GIANT forum thread on GOG and see game covers others have made for you, you can use this link here!

If you’re curious, then:

Link to the template (and required fonts) here. Print your covers at 99% scale for the best fit: https://www.mediafire.com/file/k8m9vx3b5w6y9p7/GOG_Slim_Cover.zip/file

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Void Bastards delisted:

As on the 31st of last month, we’ve seen Void Bastards delisted from GOG. Sad news, but there is slight hope as is stated:

No last-minute discount, but we'll try to re-sign the game ASAP.

Sad :(

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The Crew

This is an interesting video I found on The Crew (the first game), and how a team are trying to save the game with https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

If you want to know more about The Crew and the Stop Killing Games efforts, check these links:

Kotaku’s article from last year

Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s article

And IGN’s, if you’d prefer their article

ANYWAY, to the point, I really enjoyed this video from Fastminer07 on YouTube, it was clear and reiterates how important this is. Worth a look if you’re searching for interseting videos for your down-time

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What GOG game did you play last?

Just...generally curious, if you did at all of course! I’ve been playing Bioshock 2 Remastered and it really is glorious. I love how the pinks look on the OLED screen, and how effective they are at making an underwater world look truly ocean-y.

In fact it inspired me so much with its deep ocean setting that I’ve been watching old-old movies set underwater, like The Abyss, Deep Star Six and most recently Leviathan

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Dog day

Sadly the appeal of the word Doge has plummeted to now being synonymous with a fucking Nazi, but back four years ago when the stocks were checked, you got a cute little coincidence. Here’s the image telling all the stories I need to:

KCD II

And finally, you’ll have no doubt seen that Kingdom Come Deliverance II (what happened in the first 10 games?) has released on GOG.

This one was far more swift in coming to the platform than the first one was, and for a short time there it was feared that it was actually going to have Denuvo baked in (it was not)

Article via IGN on that Denuvo fear here, if you want to read more on it!

Anyway, now its on GOG and has had an update, and is looking and performing perfectly. It really does play so well on the Steam Deck. This is one of the very few games I bought on Steam, and have already played some of. I will however be buying again on GOG, because like you can see by my endless comments on it – GOG wins for me!

Anyway, as I’ve played, I wanted less of a hardcore ‘sim’ experience, than others. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just wanted it to be an easier experience for me to soak up the medieval setting. Mods I used via Nexus are:

• Ascetic Hunger Be Gone
• Easier or Harder Reputation
• KCD2 Easy Lockpicking
• Convenient Items
• Rich Merchants
• More Carry Weight
• Stay Clean for Longer
• Unlimited Saving II
• Instant Herb Picking II

I know, I know: ’You’re not playing how the game was designed to be played! You’re cheating!’ - yes, but to me this is how I enjoy the game, so...it made it a little easier to play for me!

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GOG’s Top Wishlisted Games (30 days):

1. KCD 2
2. Silent Hill 4: The Room
3. System Shock (25th Anniv. Remaster)
4. Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
5. Dino Crisis Bundle
6. Baldur’s Gate 3
7. Sudeki
8. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
9. KCD: Royal Edition

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Rain World: The Watcher

...is now available on GOG!

Journey beyond to something, somewhere only ever glimpsed. When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown?

Link to the YouTube video on The Watcher is here!

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Emulation / Retro Gaming

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If you’re not emulating games on the Steam Deck, then I think you’re kinda crazy and you really, really should do so!. My fav option by far for doing so is to use RetroDECK, which had a great release recently and also a video made by emulation royalty Russ (of Retro Game Corps)

The video is here, and takes you through what it is, how it differs from EmuDeck, and then how to set it up, step-by-step to enjoy!

I’m also kinda obsessed with RetroDECK, so if you need any help, or questions, then you can always reach out to me. I love the damn thing.

Coincidentally, RetroDECK just announced some changes to things, and detailed it all in their April blog post which you can find here!

Anyway, my point is, I effing love emulating and retro games, and here’s some stories and news I’ve found recently on the subject:

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Halo 2 pre-release build pack has been released!

Hey everyone! We are excited to announce the release of the Halo 2 Pre-Release Pack! I would like to thank The Vengeful Vadam, Harcroft, Cheato, Revurt & Xbox7887 for making this possible. Extra special thanks to Carnivol for preserving the E3 2004 Demo. Pack is available for both Xbox & Xemu. We will be using this pack for our Tuesday, March 18th Halo 2 Pre-release Game Night on Xlink Kai. Join our discord for game night details; https://discord.gg/haloclassichub

This pack includes:

• Multiplayer Alpha Build - January 2004 (New Gametypes ADDED)
• E3 2004 Build - May 2004
• Includes 2 New Campaign Test maps prepared by the Vengeful Vadam; Zanzibar SP & Shared SP. See features like sprint, nightvision, and corner peeking along with the entire sandbox. Can you find all 40 bipeds?
• 4 Multiplayer Maps!
• Multiplayer Beta Build - June 2004 (Lockout install included)
• Halo 2 Alpha Campaign Test - Experience sprinting, nightvision & corner peeking on Waterworks. Includes all weapons and vehicles. Can you find all 11 bipeds? (Vengeful Vadam)
• Halo 2 E3 2004 Presentation Video

The download links are:

Xbox: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TCKVMuM0A-uR3heyhqKAwx7taSWHm3LM?usp=sharing

XISO: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wn6pGcOwXKb09yDmOZEKKJ0en5HtSpdc?usp=sharing

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Dolphin Emulator:

Dolphin is the way in which we emulate GameCube and Wii games on PC ”...in full HD with various enhancements.” ...but it also runs on Android, Windows, Linux, MacOS, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Starting in 2003 as freeware, it has come a long way!

As of 21 days ago, they released their progress report on Dolphin (2503), and it remiss of me to not share this in an earlier news post!

The link to their detailed post is here, which is on their own site!

And here’s two rather beautifully designed capsule covers for Dolphin I found that I just have to share with you!

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Xbox Retail Homebrew:

Perhaps you’re unaware, but for a few wonderful months there was an option to emulate so many systems on your Xbox Series consoles with zero repercussions. PS2, GameCube, Wii...all worked beautifully (the first time I played through MGS 3 was through my Series X!), but as with all good things, they end, in 2023.

Here’s a link to the article detailing the end of it being possible without further efforts - it is a article on The Verge Now, emulation is still possible via dev mode on your Series X/S consoles, but it is very much not as easy as it once was.

Now the point of my damn rant here, for those still running emulation on their Xbox, the new build is available, including full support with Retro Achievements!

XBSX2 Version 2.0.8.3:

Synced with the latest upstream commits as of 3/7/2024.

• Thanks to the new commits from the PCSX2 team we have themes now!
• Updated to SDL3 3.3.0 (Thank you to @3UR for swiftly working on this for me).
• Removed the Enable CDVD Precaching option from Settings due to excessive issues with the RAM limit.
• Updated assets to remove the .0 from XBSX2.
• Update the User Agent to include the user's console model.
• Remember Texture Packs do work but they have to be in the .dds format .png no longer works.

Interesting that via dev mode (not retail), things are still progressing and more than possible on the systems!

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AzaharPlus:

AzaharPlus has been made and released. As was inevitable, the fork has arrived to skip around the ‘safety’ protocol Azahar implemented to make using pirated 3DS games harder. So the ‘Plus’ was build.

2120.2-A is the same as Azahar 2120.2 except for these features:

*Support of 3DS files. If a file works with earlier Citra forks, it works with AzaharPlus.

• Ability to download system files from official servers. No need for an actual 3DS.

It is available in 2 flavors. One that has the same application I.D. as Azahar, so it will replace it on the device. Its display name is "AzaharPlus".

Use this one if you have other apps that target Azahar, like a frontend for example. The other has a new application id so it can coexist with Azahar without issues. Its display name is "+AzaharPlus+".

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Duckstation:

Duckstation (for android) just updated 3 days ago, which features:

• Performance improvements
• Multi-threading rendering
• Merging of multi-disc games in list
• Game compatibility improvements
• Additional controller types
• Texture cache and replacement support
• New patch code system
• CD image verification

This is a rather extensive lot of changes, and they’re all nice improvements! So if you’re emulating on your phone (or using some kind of SBC device which runs Android alongside Linux!) then you’re in for an improvement :)

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Gameboy Advance SP Slate:

You might have spotted this on my Mastodon the other day, but these are a typical mod where you take the PCB and screen and install it in a metal shell - changing how the typical SP is a folding device and instead making it a typical old portrait look for the Gameboy.

Here’s a YouTube video if you’d like a closer look at the process!

I found this one made as a dedication to MegaMan and its a 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 design using UV printing. I think I'm in love!

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MAME:

“MAME 0.276 has arrived just in time for the end of March, and it’s full of emulation goodness! Remember that 64-bit ARMv8 recompiler we added a few months ago? Well now it’s even faster! This release fixes graphical issues in Konami GX arcade games and Philips CD-i software. We’ve added several IGS gambling games, as well as Chinese versions of some Dynax mahjong games. The LinnDrum percussion synthesiser is now working with interactive controls and sound output. And speaking of sound, audio emulation issues in several arcade games have been fixed.

PC-88VA emulation is progressing, with fixes for multiple graphics modes. A few more peripherals for the TI-99 computer family are now supported. There have been a few CPU/DSP fixes that should improve Sega 3D arcade game emulation. Psion hand-helds now correctly detect more memory configurations and give better-looking video output. We’ve also fixed some issues with CHD creation, floppy disk image handling, and XML system information output. Windows users now get an option to have debugger windows appear in the taskbar and window switcher.

As always, you can marvel at all the exciting development this month when you read the whatsnewtxtfile The source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages can be found on the download page

...if you’re interested, you can read their full post here via this link to the MAME site!

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The Fall of Citron (the emulator):

Citron, a Nintendo Switch emulator, has collapsed due to drama involving its lead developer, Zephyron (formerly known as Phoenix). Key issues include:

• Unjustified bans: Thousands of users were purged from Citron’s Discord without warning.
• Security concerns: Users were pressured to verify their modded Switches via a risky external app, raising fears of data misuse. Leaks revealed plans for a DRM system that could blacklist users.
• Zephyron’s misconduct: Credited with stolen code, harassed other developers (like Sudachi’s Jarrod), and allegedly hid a past scandal involving pedophilia accusations.
• Betrayal of Camille: The true main developer, Camille, did most of the work but was sidelined. Zephyron sent a baseless legal threat, removed Camille’s contributions, and sabotaged their donation page.
• Citron’s downfall: Updates broke functionality, and the GitHub was wiped. Zephyron allegedly declared the project dead. Moving forward, Camille and other devs (including those from Uzuy and Yuzu Mod) are creating a new emulator, Eden, promising a fresh start for Switch emulation.

If you want to read everything (it’s...way too detailed), including a ton of screenshots of who I can only assume are children in charge of moderating, you can check out the two posts I was directed to about it on Reddit:

The first of which is here:

The second of which, posted 30 mins ago at the time of writing this! Is here:

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Other Gaming News:

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Xbox & ASUS

You might have seen news recently that Xbox has been partnering with ASUS’ Ally range to work on an upcoming collab – a Xbox branded and focused Ally. From all reports, it’s a significant reworking on Windows 11 to be more handheld friendly (which it needs, desperately.

...Tom Warren clarifies a few things about Xbox’s thinking behind new hardware, stating “Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell me the company’s Xbox platform plans for this year and beyond are centered on one big goal: the unification of Windows and Xbox.” He goes on to say that Xbox is planning a new handheld tentatively slated for later this year that will be made in partnership with Asus called Project Kennan and should show the first glimpses of Xbox’s work to unify Windows and Xbox.

There’s an article here showing a video teasing the handheld and controller, if you want to see what they look like - it’s a really odd ad though, kinda cringe tbh.

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PlayStation Store:

This is just...nice, it’s only an image of the PlayStation Store at the Sony Metreon complex in San Francisco, 1999:

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Death Stranding 20 Million:

This has gone from a game I tried twice, and it didn’t grab me, to maybe in my top 3 games I’ve played in the last couple of years. I just love how well it builds a world. The atmosphere and environments, the loneliness and the absurdly amazing music choices just make this game perfection to me. I played it entirely through on the Steam Deck, but I’ve since also played it on my main PC and when played a max? It’s a work of art.

Since recently releasing on Xbox alongside the original PS release (not to mention PC), Kojima Productions shared on Bsky that the game has surpassed 20 million players. This is an amazing feat with modern gaming, and well deserved.

I am so excited for what is next with DS2!

And here’s an image of Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne who plays Fragile, in a rather nice Death Stranding top I am dying to own:

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Game & Watch:

Just a fun image I stumbled across:

Gunpei Yokoi takes his Game & Watch prototype on the shinkansen circa 1980

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The Miyoo Mini

The one SBC handheld I keep going back to is the original Miyoo Mini (or my version was a V2, which I adore). These little fellows are adored by the retro handheld community because they are so inexpensive, so small, and rather packed with features for that price-tag. The options for custom firmware are many, as with the aftermarket options for cases, buttons, stickers, skins...it really is a dedicated community surrounding these!

If you’d like to know more about these little fellows, then the age-old recommendation for any product which emulates is to look at Russ’ (of Retro Game Corps fame) videos on YouTube:

This one for example takes you through the ‘Plus’ model, though I am more a fan of the cuter, tinier non-plus models!

Anyway, one thing of interest in the Miyoo scene: a few people have been offering wildly expensive (though for custom machined metal, this price is reasonable) metal replacement cases for them. Material, CNC milling, anodization, printing etc.

MechDIY has made some rather pretty ones, which I’m just gonna cherrypick the cute 1990s ones from:

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Respawn & Bit Reactor’s Star Wars game:

Some images of the upcoming turn-based, tactical Star Wars game made by Respawn and Bit Reactor (who have a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of industry folk from XCOM working there) have ‘leaked’ early.

And the XCOM influences really are clear on this one, but in the best way. The game's official showing will be in April, at the Star Wars Celebration. But for now, we get these nice little leaked images as follows! :)

edit, one other photo refuses to upload, perhaps the res is too high? just so you know, one more image exists!

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I recommend:

This is neither here nor there, but I wanted to recommend a game which I’ve enjoyed a lot from GOG, playing on my Steam Deck.

Transistor is -80% off right now on GOG, and ticks all the boxes for me.

It’s kind of like a hybrid game to me; an action RPG which makes me think of Hades that is just such a great expression of my fav art and architecture style – Art Deco. It’s made by Supergiant Games (known for Bastion). Set in the futuristic, cyberpunk city of Cloudbank, where a mysterious force called the ‘Process’ is erasing everything.

You play as Red, a famous singer who loses her voice and wields the Transistor, a powerful talking sword containing a man’s consciousness. The gameplay blends real-time combat with a strategic turn-based system, letting you ‘freeze’ time to plan attacks, while absorbed enemy abilities allow customization.

The art-style is just achingly gorgeous. Beautiful Art Deco designs are everywhere. Isometric gameplay, melancholic narrative, and such a nice soundtrack (including Red’s haunting hummed vocals), this is such a great game. And I can’t recommend it enough with such a steep discount at the moment.

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Witchery GIF:

More pretty pixel art this time on The Witcher. This little GIF is by digital artist whose work I’ve shared before – 'KillerRabbitMedia'

This also just acted as a reminder to me that I need to go back to playing The Witcher 3 because it is one of those games I will never tire of playing! The Witcher 3 is also -80% off on GOG right now, just in case you've never played and want to pick it up for your Steam Deck :)

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PS3 – customized:

In my ever-lasting quest to find fun consoles, this custom PS3 up. User 'cribsnib' customizes these to look as similar to their classic original PlayStation look as possible, and it's incredible how well they did!

Separating, sanding, priming, painting and clear-coating.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘰𝘯𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 '𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘺' 𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘺𝘭 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦"

From a hardware design perspective, this is pure art to me. Am I tempted? Yes. I’ve been looking recently at custom Xbox 360 consoles, being the generation of gaming I grew up with as a little-little child. It’s nice to know that 99% of the games you buy physically will just...play, without patches or updates that games now require to be even playable after launch.

---

Linux News:

This one is short and sweet, my friend Gardiner Bryant released a rather nice video giving a roundup of Linux news lately.

The link to his YouTube video is here, and def comes with my recommendation for this one!

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This might be it?

I guess this might be the end of this one. I’m actually just landed in Rome, having impulsively booked a little while here, just after a week off from work and real life by the sea. Lucky me, right? So while I actually thought I might write more for this (I have a lot more to write, but maybe I’ll save them for the following week?), this girl’s gotta go find some coffee.

A few days ago I did post a bit of a different one here on Lemmy though, which is entirely Steam Deck specific – I shared some images of my customized UI on my Steam Deck, and welcomed others to share images of their Steam Decks / Desktop UI’s. I’d still love to see more there, and the link is this gigantic paragraph if you’re interested in checking it out and doing so!

I’d also love to hear what you’ve been playing lately. Be it Steam Deck, or PC, or console, Switch...whatever. What games have you been playing and enjoying lately? My fav bit of pop-psych (for a Social Engineer – that’s my job!) my fav thing to try get a glimpse of who the person behind the user-name is via the games they’ve been enjoying!

So share!

Anyway, all my love to you as ever Lemmy <3

P.P.S: if you wanna follow me on Mastodon – do so here:

My week’s news!

Though, the roundup this time didn’t quite make it to 7 days after the last I shared, as I promised it would. Sorry!

As ever, this is the bits and pieces of news I’ve spotted that made me smile, or made me interested, so I thought they’d fit in nicely here.

My aim is to phrase this in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:

• image/gif/link heavy
• personal voice (no hard news here!)
• mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on the ‘big’ gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to

A warning, some users who use some apps have told me there is slowdown in scrolling these. I'd recommend Thunder, or Jerboa apps - neither of which have any issues scrolling through these posts I make!

Grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

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GOG News / Games

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Surveyed / ‘how to better GOG’:

Interestingly, those of us who allow emails from GOG (you can deny these ‘promotion’ kind in your settings) saw a survey in the last day or so. The crux of this one is GOG seemingly floating the idea that they may introduce some kind of subscription service.

It does seem to be early days on what exactly that will entail (though that hasn’t stopped users everywhere getting very vocal about how they despise the prospect) – but for a platform build on being DRM-free, it’s hard to see how this will work exactly.

I adore GOG. As maybe you’ve seen from these posts so far, I own entirely too many games on there, it’s been my spot to buy games from the start (I actually checked how many I own on Steam – 41!), and I love their service:

• DRM-free
• Games’ preservation

So while I’m not seeing this in the most positive light just now (esp considering the recent numbers showing an 89% decrease in profits), I’m not going to be negative before we see the whole picture.

If you’d like to read users’ comments on how they’re responding, then the best place to go would be through this link to their forum

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Games Updates:

I’ve just noticed some updates to games recently, and wanted to share them in a lil list. This isn’t the most thrilling of endeavors, since maybe you’re already aware that a new version of your GOG game is up and running. Though if not, here’s a few I noticed in my library which are new:

• Drova: Forsaken Kin
• Endzone 2
• Heart of the Machine
• Foundation
• Pillars of Eternity (is this the Poe game everyone keeps using the letters P, O and E for?
• The Thing Remastered
• Tunguska: The Visitation
• Wildermyth
• Rain World
• Ultima IV
• Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
• Kingdom Come Deliverance II
• No Man’s Sky

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GOG Cover Template

Last few times I’ve mentioned or shared the physical GOG DVD covers people design, print and display – people have loved them. And no wonder, the lack of phsyical side of PC gaming makes something as small as a custom display of games you love such a beautiful idea.

I’ve come across this one by ‘Nejnop’ – this is a games cover template, for you to use if you want! Though as ever, if you’d prefer to scroll through the GIANT forum thread on GOG and see game covers others have made for you, you can use this link here!

If you’re curious, then:

Link to the template (and required fonts) here. Print your covers at 99% scale for the best fit: https://www.mediafire.com/file/k8m9vx3b5w6y9p7/GOG_Slim_Cover.zip/file

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Void Bastards delisted:

As on the 31st of last month, we’ve seen Void Bastards delisted from GOG. Sad news, but there is slight hope as is stated:

No last-minute discount, but we'll try to re-sign the game ASAP.

Sad :(

---

The Crew

This is an interesting video I found on The Crew (the first game), and how a team are trying to save the game with https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

If you want to know more about The Crew and the Stop Killing Games efforts, check these links:

Kotaku’s article from last year

Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s article

And IGN’s, if you’d prefer their article

]ANYWAY, to the point, I really enjoyed this video from Fastminer07 on YouTube, it was clear and reiterates how important this is. Worth a look if you’re searching for interseting videos for your down-time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Ih__mE05c)

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What GOG game did you play last?

Just...generally curious, if you did at all of course! I’ve been playing Bioshock 2 Remastered and it really is glorious. I love how the pinks look on the OLED screen, and how effective they are at making an underwater world look truly ocean-y.

In fact it inspired me so much with its deep ocean setting that I’ve been watching old-old movies set underwater, like The Abyss, Deep Star Six and most recently Leviathan

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Dog day

Sadly the appeal of the word Doge has plummeted to now being synonymous with a fucking Nazi, but back four years ago when the stocks were checked, you got a cute little coincidence. Here’s the image telling all the stories I need to:

KCD II

And finally, you’ll have no doubt seen that Kingdom Come Deliverance II (what happened in the first 10 games?) has released on GOG.

This one was far more swift in coming to the platform than the first one was, and for a short time there it was feared that it was actually going to have Denuvo baked in (it was not)

Article via IGN on that Denuvo fear here, if you want to read more on it!

Anyway, now its on GOG and has had an update, and is looking and performing perfectly. It really does play so well on the Steam Deck. This is one of the very few games I bought on Steam, and have already played some of. I will however be buying again on GOG, because like you can see by my endless comments on it – GOG wins for me!

Anyway, as I’ve played, I wanted less of a hardcore ‘sim’ experience, than others. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just wanted it to be an easier experience for me to soak up the medieval setting. Mods I used via Nexus are:

• Ascetic Hunger Be Gone
• Easier or Harder Reputation
• KCD2 Easy Lockpicking
• Convenient Items
• Rich Merchants
• More Carry Weight
• Stay Clean for Longer
• Unlimited Saving II
• Instant Herb Picking II

I know, I know: ’You’re not playing how the game was designed to be played! You’re cheating!’ - yes, but to me this is how I enjoy the game, so...it made it a little easier to play for me!

---

GOG’s Top Wishlisted Games (30 days):

1. KCD 2
2. Silent Hill 4: The Room
3. System Shock (25th Anniv. Remaster)
4. Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
5. Dino Crisis Bundle
6. Baldur’s Gate 3
7. Sudeki
8. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
9. KCD: Royal Edition

---

Rain World: The Watcher

...is now available on GOG!

Journey beyond to something, somewhere only ever glimpsed. When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown?

Link to the YouTube video on The Watcher is here!

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Emulation / Retro Gaming

---

If you’re not emulating games on the Steam Deck, then I think you’re kinda crazy and you really, really should do so!. My fav option by far for doing so is to use RetroDECK, which had a great release recently and also a video made by emulation royalty Russ (of Retro Game Corps)

The video is here, and takes you through what it is, how it differs from EmuDeck, and then how to set it up, step-by-step to enjoy!

I’m also kinda obsessed with RetroDECK, so if you need any help, or questions, then you can always reach out to me. I love the damn thing.

Coincidentally, RetroDECK just announced some changes to things, and detailed it all in their April blog post which you can find here!

Anyway, my point is, I effing love emulating and retro games, and here’s some stories and news I’ve found recently on the subject:

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Halo 2 pre-release build pack has been released!

Hey everyone! We are excited to announce the release of the Halo 2 Pre-Release Pack! I would like to thank The Vengeful Vadam, Harcroft, Cheato, Revurt & Xbox7887 for making this possible. Extra special thanks to Carnivol for preserving the E3 2004 Demo. Pack is available for both Xbox & Xemu. We will be using this pack for our Tuesday, March 18th Halo 2 Pre-release Game Night on Xlink Kai. Join our discord for game night details; https://discord.gg/haloclassichub

This pack includes:

• Multiplayer Alpha Build - January 2004 (New Gametypes ADDED)
• E3 2004 Build - May 2004
• Includes 2 New Campaign Test maps prepared by the Vengeful Vadam; Zanzibar SP & Shared SP. See features like sprint, nightvision, and corner peeking along with the entire sandbox. Can you find all 40 bipeds?
• 4 Multiplayer Maps!
• Multiplayer Beta Build - June 2004 (Lockout install included)
• Halo 2 Alpha Campaign Test - Experience sprinting, nightvision & corner peeking on Waterworks. Includes all weapons and vehicles. Can you find all 11 bipeds? (Vengeful Vadam)
• Halo 2 E3 2004 Presentation Video

The download links are:

Xbox: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TCKVMuM0A-uR3heyhqKAwx7taSWHm3LM?usp=sharing

XISO: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wn6pGcOwXKb09yDmOZEKKJ0en5HtSpdc?usp=sharing

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Dolphin Emulator:

Dolphin is the way in which we emulate GameCube and Wii games on PC ”...in full HD with various enhancements.” ...but it also runs on Android, Windows, Linux, MacOS, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Starting in 2003 as freeware, it has come a long way!

As of 21 days ago, they released their progress report on Dolphin (2503), and it remiss of me to not share this in an earlier news post!

The link to their detailed post is here, which is on their own site!

And here’s two rather beautifully designed capsule covers for Dolphin I found that I just have to share with you!

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Xbox Retail Homebrew:

Perhaps you’re unaware, but for a few wonderful months there was an option to emulate so many systems on your Xbox Series consoles with zero repercussions. PS2, GameCube, Wii...all worked beautifully (the first time I played through MGS 3 was through my Series X!), but as with all good things, they end, in 2023.

Here’s a link to the article detailing the end of it being possible without further efforts - it is a article on The Verge Now, emulation is still possible via dev mode on your Series X/S consoles, but it is very much not as easy as it once was.

Now the point of my damn rant here, for those still running emulation on their Xbox, the new build is available, including full support with Retro Achievements!

XBSX2 Version 2.0.8.3:

Synced with the latest upstream commits as of 3/7/2024.

• Thanks to the new commits from the PCSX2 team we have themes now!
• Updated to SDL3 3.3.0 (Thank you to @3UR for swiftly working on this for me).
• Removed the Enable CDVD Precaching option from Settings due to excessive issues with the RAM limit.
• Updated assets to remove the .0 from XBSX2.
• Update the User Agent to include the user's console model.
• Remember Texture Packs do work but they have to be in the .dds format .png no longer works.

Interesting that via dev mode (not retail), things are still progressing and more than possible on the systems!

---

AzaharPlus:

AzaharPlus has been made and released. As was inevitable, the fork has arrived to skip around the ‘safety’ protocol Azahar implemented to make using pirated 3DS games harder. So the ‘Plus’ was build.

2120.2-A is the same as Azahar 2120.2 except for these features:

*Support of 3DS files. If a file works with earlier Citra forks, it works with AzaharPlus.

• Ability to download system files from official servers. No need for an actual 3DS.

It is available in 2 flavors. One that has the same application I.D. as Azahar, so it will replace it on the device. Its display name is "AzaharPlus".

Use this one if you have other apps that target Azahar, like a frontend for example. The other has a new application id so it can coexist with Azahar without issues. Its display name is "+AzaharPlus+".

---

Duckstation:

Duckstation (for android) just updated 3 days ago, which features:

• Performance improvements
• Multi-threading rendering
• Merging of multi-disc games in list
• Game compatibility improvements
• Additional controller types
• Texture cache and replacement support
• New patch code system
• CD image verification

This is a rather extensive lot of changes, and they’re all nice improvements! So if you’re emulating on your phone (or using some kind of SBC device which runs Android alongside Linux!) then you’re in for an improvement :)

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Gameboy Advance SP Slate:

You might have spotted this on my Mastodon the other day, but these are a typical mod where you take the PCB and screen and install it in a metal shell - changing how the typical SP is a folding device and instead making it a typical old portrait look for the Gameboy.

Here’s a YouTube video if you’d like a closer look at the process!

I found this one made as a dedication to MegaMan and its a 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 design using UV printing. I think I'm in love!

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MAME:

“MAME 0.276 has arrived just in time for the end of March, and it’s full of emulation goodness! Remember that 64-bit ARMv8 recompiler we added a few months ago? Well now it’s even faster! This release fixes graphical issues in Konami GX arcade games and Philips CD-i software. We’ve added several IGS gambling games, as well as Chinese versions of some Dynax mahjong games. The LinnDrum percussion synthesiser is now working with interactive controls and sound output. And speaking of sound, audio emulation issues in several arcade games have been fixed.

PC-88VA emulation is progressing, with fixes for multiple graphics modes. A few more peripherals for the TI-99 computer family are now supported. There have been a few CPU/DSP fixes that should improve Sega 3D arcade game emulation. Psion hand-helds now correctly detect more memory configurations and give better-looking video output. We’ve also fixed some issues with CHD creation, floppy disk image handling, and XML system information output. Windows users now get an option to have debugger windows appear in the taskbar and window switcher.

As always, you can marvel at all the exciting development this month when you read the whatsnewtxtfile The source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages can be found on the download page

...if you’re interested, you can read their full post here via this link to the MAME site!

---

The Fall of Citron (the emulator):

Citron, a Nintendo Switch emulator, has collapsed due to drama involving its lead developer, Zephyron (formerly known as Phoenix). Key issues include:

• Unjustified bans: Thousands of users were purged from Citron’s Discord without warning.
• Security concerns: Users were pressured to verify their modded Switches via a risky external app, raising fears of data misuse. Leaks revealed plans for a DRM system that could blacklist users.
• Zephyron’s misconduct: Credited with stolen code, harassed other developers (like Sudachi’s Jarrod), and allegedly hid a past scandal involving pedophilia accusations.
• Betrayal of Camille: The true main developer, Camille, did most of the work but was sidelined. Zephyron sent a baseless legal threat, removed Camille’s contributions, and sabotaged their donation page.
• Citron’s downfall: Updates broke functionality, and the GitHub was wiped. Zephyron allegedly declared the project dead. Moving forward, Camille and other devs (including those from Uzuy and Yuzu Mod) are creating a new emulator, Eden, promising a fresh start for Switch emulation.

If you want to read everything (it’s...way too detailed), including a ton of screenshots of who I can only assume are children in charge of moderating, you can check out the two posts I was directed to about it on Reddit:

The first of which is here:

The second of which, posted 30 mins ago at the time of writing this! Is here:

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Other Gaming News:

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Xbox & ASUS

You might have seen news recently that Xbox has been partnering with ASUS’ Ally range to work on an upcoming collab – a Xbox branded and focused Ally. From all reports, it’s a significant reworking on Windows 11 to be more handheld friendly (which it needs, desperately.

...Tom Warren clarifies a few things about Xbox’s thinking behind new hardware, stating “Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell me the company’s Xbox platform plans for this year and beyond are centered on one big goal: the unification of Windows and Xbox.” He goes on to say that Xbox is planning a new handheld tentatively slated for later this year that will be made in partnership with Asus called Project Kennan and should show the first glimpses of Xbox’s work to unify Windows and Xbox.

There’s an article here showing a video teasing the handheld and controller, if you want to see what they look like - it’s a really odd ad though, kinda cringe tbh.

---

PlayStation Store:

This is just...nice, it’s only an image of the PlayStation Store at the Sony Metreon complex in San Francisco, 1999:

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Death Stranding 20 Million:

This has gone from a game I tried twice, and it didn’t grab me, to maybe in my top 3 games I’ve played in the last couple of years. I just love how well it builds a world. The atmosphere and environments, the loneliness and the absurdly amazing music choices just make this game perfection to me. I played it entirely through on the Steam Deck, but I’ve since also played it on my main PC and when played a max? It’s a work of art.

Since recently releasing on Xbox alongside the original PS release (not to mention PC), Kojima Productions shared on Bsky that the game has surpassed 20 million players. This is an amazing feat with modern gaming, and well deserved.

I am so excited for what is next with DS2!

And here’s an image of Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne who plays Fragile, in a rather nice Death Stranding top I am dying to own:

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Game & Watch:

Just a fun image I stumbled across:

Gunpei Yokoi takes his Game & Watch prototype on the shinkansen circa 1980

---

The Miyoo Mini

The one SBC handheld I keep going back to is the original Miyoo Mini (or my version was a V2, which I adore). These little fellows are adored by the retro handheld community because they are so inexpensive, so small, and rather packed with features for that price-tag. The options for custom firmware are many, as with the aftermarket options for cases, buttons, stickers, skins...it really is a dedicated community surrounding these!

If you’d like to know more about these little fellows, then the age-old recommendation for any product which emulates is to look at Russ’ (of Retro Game Corps fame) videos on YouTube:

This one for example takes you through the ‘Plus’ model, though I am more a fan of the cuter, tinier non-plus models!

Anyway, one thing of interest in the Miyoo scene: a few people have been offering wildly expensive (though for custom machined metal, this price is reasonable) metal replacement cases for them. Material, CNC milling, anodization, printing etc.

MechDIY has made some rather pretty ones, which I’m just gonna cherrypick the cute 1990s ones from:

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Respawn & Bit Reactor’s Star Wars game:

Some images of the upcoming turn-based, tactical Star Wars game made by Respawn and Bit Reactor (who have a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of industry folk from XCOM working there) have ‘leaked’ early.

And the XCOM influences really are clear on this one, but in the best way. The game's official showing will be in April, at the Star Wars Celebration. But for now, we get these nice little leaked images as follows! :)

edit, one other photo refuses to upload, perhaps the res is too high? just so you know, one more image exists!

---

I recommend:

This is neither here nor there, but I wanted to recommend a game which I’ve enjoyed a lot from GOG, playing on my Steam Deck.

Transistor is -80% off right now on GOG, and ticks all the boxes for me.

It’s kind of like a hybrid game to me; an action RPG which makes me think of Hades that is just such a great expression of my fav art and architecture style – Art Deco. It’s made by Supergiant Games (known for Bastion). Set in the futuristic, cyberpunk city of Cloudbank, where a mysterious force called the ‘Process’ is erasing everything.

You play as Red, a famous singer who loses her voice and wields the Transistor, a powerful talking sword containing a man’s consciousness. The gameplay blends real-time combat with a strategic turn-based system, letting you ‘freeze’ time to plan attacks, while absorbed enemy abilities allow customization.

The art-style is just achingly gorgeous. Beautiful Art Deco designs are everywhere. Isometric gameplay, melancholic narrative, and such a nice soundtrack (including Red’s haunting hummed vocals), this is such a great game. And I can’t recommend it enough with such a steep discount at the moment.

---

Witchery GIF:

More pretty pixel art this time on The Witcher. This little GIF is by digital artist whose work I’ve shared before – 'KillerRabbitMedia'

This also just acted as a reminder to me that I need to go back to playing The Witcher 3 because it is one of those games I will never tire of playing! The Witcher 3 is also -80% off on GOG right now, just in case you've never played and want to pick it up for your Steam Deck :)

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PS3 – customized:

In my ever-lasting quest to find fun consoles, this custom PS3 up. User 'cribsnib' customizes these to look as similar to their classic original PlayStation look as possible, and it's incredible how well they did!

Separating, sanding, priming, painting and clear-coating.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘰𝘯𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 '𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘺' 𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘺𝘭 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦"

From a hardware design perspective, this is pure art to me. Am I tempted? Yes. I’ve been looking recently at custom Xbox 360 consoles, being the generation of gaming I grew up with as a little-little child. It’s nice to know that 99% of the games you buy physically will just...play, without patches or updates that games now require to be even playable after launch.

---

Linux News:

This one is short and sweet, my friend Gardiner Bryant released a rather nice video giving a roundup of Linux news lately.

The link to his YouTube video is here, and def comes with my recommendation for this one!

---

This might be it?

I guess this might be the end of this one. I’m actually just landed in Rome, having impulsively booked a little while here, just after a week off from work and real life by the sea. Lucky me, right? So while I actually thought I might write more for this (I have a lot more to write, but maybe I’ll save them for the following week?), this girl’s gotta go find some coffee.

A few days ago I did post a bit of a different one here on Lemmy though, which is entirely Steam Deck specific – I shared some images of my customized UI on my Steam Deck, and welcomed others to share images of their Steam Decks / Desktop UI’s. I’d still love to see more there, and the link is this gigantic paragraph if you’re interested in checking it out and doing so!

I’d also love to hear what you’ve been playing lately. Be it Steam Deck, or PC, or console, Switch...whatever. What games have you been playing and enjoying lately? My fav bit of pop-psych (for a Social Engineer – that’s my job!) my fav thing to try get a glimpse of who the person behind the user-name is via the games they’ve been enjoying!

So share!

Anyway, all my love to you as ever Lemmy <3

P.P.S: if you wanna follow me on Mastodon – do so here:

I just figured it might be a nice change of pace to see what everyone's Steam Deck's screen is showing!

For me, I get way too much fun out of using Decky Loader to install CSS Loader and tinker with the UI of my Steam Deck. If you've not heard of this, and want some quick links on how to, I'll share them at the end of this post!

While I have nothing against the stock look of things, it's just so fun for me to be able to change every little facet so that I know it looks like it's mine.

I figured sharing a photo of either your Steam Deck's home screen with it all being customized, or just showing it off as it is (stock) so we can see the games you're playing!

No better way to show off the last few games you've been playing that by seeing them in person :)

What I've been playing:

Most recently I've started another play-through of Half-Life 2. I only just played the game for the very first time last year, and I'm shocked at how good the game is. Rarely does something hold up when you hear the hype for so long...but not only does it hold up for its age (I know, decades of patches), but it outshines so many modern games. I love this game, and it's fun playing again so I can take my time!

I also set up Jak and Jak 2 with https://opengoal.dev/ - It was a breeze to set up, and I only just opened Jak 2, to confirm it does in fact work (it does!), so it's waiting for me next!

RetroDECK is my obsession (the link to their site is here!) - it is my preferred way to emulate on the Steam Deck, and in that I've been playing MGS2 (again) with a HD texture replacement pack to make it look as good as it possible can. Does it look better than their recent release on Steam? Yes. By far.

Finally BioShock 2: Remastered on GOG. Checking my stats on the GOG site, ive put in 10 hours playing it now. It's perfection. Art Deco + underwater, its like it was made for me (tho my fav of the three is still Infinite)

Some bonus pictures:

And finally my desktop, on desktop mode:

How to customize?

You need to install Decky Loader. It's a tiny tiny download, and it opens up the ability to add plugins made by the community

The website for it is here, so you can see a proper overview of the system

This is a video on YouTube showing off different plugins and what it can do, alongside a guide for how to install it

I recommend:

• SteamGridDB (lets you customize the artwork chosen for your game, which you can see in my photos

• CSS Loader - this lets you change the layout and UI and how it feels, even down the the fonts and colors and so on.

Anyway

Share a picture of your Steam Deck, I'd love to see what you've been playing!!!

<3

As is now a tradition (this is my 7th of these posts - after rejoining Lemmy just 28 days ago!) you'll know the drill.

I want to at least try give a personal look at the news I've spotted in gaming and the Steam Deck which has interested me most. This isn't anything refined, official (or possibly even 'good') - just me trying to bring that feeling back of old games sites, old games blogs. Before ads and begging for Patreon subs became a focus on a game site above the content.

Anyway, if you're interested, grab a cup of coffee or tea and sit down for a read:

---

Denuvo

A couple of games have a notable Denuvo DRM announcement.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree drops Denuvo ahead of its launch. They wrote a rather detailed and clear post themselves, which they shared on Steam:

...the pessimist in me thinks maybe they realized that with the side-scroller coming to Switch any potential piracy on the title would be inevitable regardless. But...maybe they just do care what the community thinks, as they said in their announcement?

inZoi also was meant to ship with Denuvo, but made a similar announcement that they will in fact not be using it. The screenshots are from the announcement made by Kjun (Producer and Director):

---

GOG News

Sudeki

You might have noticed that Sudeki which was removed from GOG has been relisted!

We're all to familiar with the sad state of delisting games, and it always makes me sad to see the postings by GOG staff letting gamers know a title is being removed (remember, this is never GOG's doing - it is entirely up to publishers)

But now we've got it back :)

As to why it was removed in the first place? No definitive answer exists, nor was any statement given explaining it back on removal. Though this page on delistedgames does at least in some way indicate some reasoning:

Sudeki was likely delisted after the expiration of Climax’s publishing deal with GOG.com. Climax Group does not appear to be dormant but their production has dropped significantly over the last few years. It’s possible that the terms of their agreement with GOG.com could be renewed and the game returned to sale in the future. However, it is also possible that Climax is winding down operations and the game could be delisted from Steam as well.

GOG Profit:

Seemingly, a bad year. You can read the full report here, if you have any inclination, but the most interesting numbers are the following:

GOG net profit in thousands PLN

• 2023: 10,255

• 2024: 1,134

Sales revenue:

• 2023: 234969

• 2024: 199,338

Quick GOG points of interest:

• The pre-order for System Shock 2's 25th anniversary remaster is still love on GOG's site, and the game is getting a lot of sim-fans very excited! Playable on June 26th this year!

• A fun thread is up on the GOG forum showing the idea of 'pizza for GOG's team':

This is my ethical pressing, on GOG's management to reward GOG's Team with pizza.*

Please order a game for yourself up to $2.99. This will symbolize a slice.*

• If you want to order the team a 'slice' then you can do so with this thread here on the forum. Personally I think this is a lovely idea, in what it symbolizes

• A bunch of titles from Handy Games were added to GOG, including Meganoid, Sir Questionnaire, Gunslugs, Gunslugs 2 and Snake Core. All with some hefty discounts, too.

• Stellaris: BioGenesis (the new expansion for Stellaris) is also up for a pre-order. This isn't me condoning pre-ordering - let's face it these days the very concept is playing with fire. But it's a good heads-up for what is coming. Of it they state:

In Stellaris: BioGenesis, step into the role of a master geneticist, sculpting the galaxy to your design with living ships, engineered ecosystems, and enhanced species. Forge new paths with unparalleled bioengineering tools to create a civilization that thrives on adaptability and evolution – or exploit these tools to dominate the stars.

More physical DVD covers:

My addiction is the fact that people create physical collections of their GOG games. To my knowledge (after lurking so many of these), most of the users do not include a backup of the install files in the case. This is purely for a display - to show their fav games on a shelf. And I love that.

I just adore how there's a dedicated community who design print and display their fav modern GOG titles in DVD covers. For no practical use other than to look pretty!

Here's a handful more I found :)

---

FTL

A dedicated fan of the game FTL: Faster Than Light has released their own ergonomic community control layout. Considering how poor the controls are on the Steam Deck, it seems like FLT players are kinda head over heels with this idea, so I thought those few who might have missed it here might appreciate it, too.

Frictionless player experience for FTL Newbies and Veteran Space Captains alike. The "Steam Deck/Game Pad Layout"

Of it, the creator states:

"Being a long time fan of the game FTL, I was so excited to get it on my Deck. It was among the first few games I downloaded, and I fired it up not long after. I quickly discovered the countrol [let the record show this is not my spelling error, but the user's!!!] scheme was nearly unusable. At least, it sure didn't feel like a proper handheld hyperspace experience.

I've spent a few hours customizing my control layout for the Steam Deck. I've made a very user friendly and intuitive control scheme. Easy to start using but very practical. All the necessary actions are right where I feel they should be, with room to customize the controls to perfect your cockpit.

The layout is called: "Steam deck/Game Pad layout" by EPICMAN.

---

Epic Games

Sale:

The Epic Games Spring Sale has begun on their site, coming a day-and-a-bit earlier than it was expected to launch. Deals end on April 9th, at 11 AM ET. Some highlights for deals include:

• Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered: -50% off

• Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut -33% off

• Alan Wake 2 Deluxe Ed. -50% off

• God of War -60% off

And so on and so forth. Worth a look, if you like deals.

Mobile:

Their mobile app (available on iOS and Android) now has a search bar! I mean...a low bar to celebrate (I'm also struggling to find a bar pun joke so I'll abandon the effort here), but...they now have one.

They are also giving away mobile games each week now. Before it was monthly, but now each week you'll be able to claim free games there - much like their PC games efforts.

You can currently claim Super Meat Boy Forever Mobile, and Eastern Exorcist, and in 16 hours or so you will be able to claim their next lot!

---

Nintendo PlayStation

Well, if you don't know the old history behind the greatest split-before-it-took-off gaming duo: Nintendo and Sony, then you can check these out:

• An overview of what the Nintendo PlayStation was

• An IGN article going into more depth on it here

• Ben Heck's 'teardown' on the console via YouTube - this one is great, and in multiple parts!

...anyway. For the longest time, only one of these was known to exist, in people's hands anyway. It sold for around $350,000 and I wonder if the buyer now regrets that because there has been another pop up that (to me, at least) looks far prettier!

Another of the prototype consoles created in the early 1990s has come to light, this one belonging to the PlayStation co-creator - Ken Kutaragi. Who kept it in his closet the whole time (which actually helped - no yellowing of the plastic!)

Only a handful of photos, which are:

---

Itty-Bitty-Gameboy-Committee

On the theme of console hardware, I'm kinda enamored by the littlest Gameboy that ever lived, which I stumbled over.

This console is available on Aliexpress, and there's apparently been a few YouTube videos on it like this one here, and yes...it's a tiny way to play!

But this user (MrRetroplayer) shared:

I made a custom case for the Game Boy Mini, reminiscent of the original Game Boy box. Thanks to David for helping me find a case and personalize these stickers. I love how it looks now!

And the photos are adorable, and actually kinda cool.

---

Pi Tin:

P.S. I'm also kinda in love with how cute the Raspberry Pi project: the Pi Tin is.

*"𝘗𝘪 𝘛𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘪 𝘡𝘦𝘳𝘰 𝟤 𝘞...

...t𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘪 𝘡𝘦𝘳𝘰 𝟤 𝘞 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘚𝘕𝘌𝘚, 𝘎𝘉𝘈, 𝘗𝘚𝟣, 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘴/𝘔𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘕𝟨𝟦 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴"*

Either 3DPrinting the enclosure, or using an Altoids tin of all things.

The link to the project is here

And some photos, of course:

---

Burger?

Okay the last one, I shared this a few days ago and I can't stop myself from doing so again.

So for my (𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨) list of quite odd consoles I've posted about, this one may take the cake (no lie)

A famicom/NES clone designed to have a burger's pattern on it was canceled for release made by McDonald's China themselves. It was cancelled and not 'released', but...obviously is still around to buy. Apparently for around $70 (I'd assume USD?):

This one reminds me of the recent Tetris made to look like a big chicken nugget:

---

Genshin Impact Control:

For those who love Android gaming, and who love Genshin, you might be happy to know that they've added controller support for android. Finally.

To my understanding, they had some sort of "unspoken exclusivity deal" with Apple to only allow controllers on iOS devices (iPhone and iPad). Controllers have always worked on Genshin Impact with iOS.

The fact that they finally allowed Android to use controllers is probably a combination of many things. My guess is that it's because iPhones are massively more popular in Asia, Genshin's primary target audience; but Western fans (who are more likely to use Android than Asians are) essentially kept bugging them about it so much that they finally caved and gave us what we wanted.

Regardless, yay for Android!

---

Nintendo Direct

Of the upcoming Nintendo Direct (3/27/25), Nintendo states:

"Tune in on March 27th, at 7 a.m. PT for a livestreamed Nintendo Direct, featuring around 30 minutes of upcoming games for Nintendo Switch. There will be no updates about Nintendo Switch 2 during this presentation.

Information about Nintendo Switch 2 will be shared on April 2nd at 6 a.m. PT in the Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 – 4.2.2025 presentation"

A link to which is here, for future reference

---

POE patch is live:

• honestly I still have no idea what POE is. Is it Pillars of Eternity? Path of Exile? Edgar Allan?

Turn based combat seems to be the focus of what is making those who play the mysterious POE most excited. Whatever it actually is, I'll leave this link for someone who might want to know

---

Game Informer is back:

And the entire team has returned for its...return! Their 'lost' content has been reinstated: all reviews, interviews, videos, old crew and monthly magazines - all up and returned to the internet:

https://www.gameinformer.com/

There's not much I can prattle on about for this, but there is a nice link to a nice and heartfelt video they posted on YouTube:

The link is here, so check it out!

---

EmuDeck:

4 days back we saw an update to EmuDeck. Version 2.4:

• Integration selection

• Auto add ESDE to Steam

• New Bios checker

• BYO Citron

• Azahar

• New wiki: manual.emudeck.com

• New Emulators for EmuDeck Windows : Model 2, Supermodel y BigPemu

A feature reel is here, on YouTube via this link

And if you're wondering if people had issues with the update, and if it broke some users set-ups? Yes. Yes it did. But of course, Y.M.M.V.

---

Junk Store:

Speaking of updates, Junk Store (playing Epic Games titles and GOG games on the Steam Deck) has shown what is coming up (at least in part) for what's next for Junk Store.

I shared a dedicated post about that here on Lemmy early this morning, so you'll be able to see it here if you're inclined to read more details.

The long story short though? Junk Store is changing with a lot coming to how things work. I'd encourage you to check it out.

[SDHQ posted an article[(https://steamdeckhq.com/news/junk-store-is-coming-back-with-new-features/)

As did Gaming On Linux

...though neither add anything at all to the initial post. Just...read the post.

---

FitGirl

If you know, then you know. But if you don't? FitGirl is a repacker of games - for games piracy. This isn't a piece on FitGirl, but instead I wanted to mention that someone donated 0.5 BTC Bitcoin her. That's rougly 42K USD.

That's a lot of games the donator could have just bought. Regardless, this is the biggest donation I know of to a piracy site.

---

Emulation

Dolphin now boots every Wii game

"The Daring Game For Girls" was the final Wii game listed on the Dolphin wiki that would flat-out not even start under normal circumstances, hanging right after the initial Wii remote safety screen unless the CPU was underclocked to 6%. However, a game patch has now been included in Dolphin to allow the game to finally boot.

This was the last Wii game marked as broken. The only other things left in the category are Triforce games and the Wii U Menu redirect channel (yes, you can actually install it on an original Wii. It hangs in Dolphin while it restarts a real Wii).

Now, to be clear, there are games that still don't really get that much further - Active Life: Magical Carnival, Jerry Rice & Nitus' Dog Football and Diatomic still cannot get in-game. Still, a notable milestone none the less.

Azahar 2120 - 3DS - (the first stable release!) has been released

This changelog treats the merge of PabloMK7's fork and Lime3DS as a base upon which all of the changes listed here are applied. The changes added in Lime3DS and PabloMK7's fork during 2024, alongside the changes introduced in Azahar, will be discussed in more detail as part of our first progress report.

• A link to the GitHub is here if you want a read

Azahar also recently posted a blog post, which I found to be interesting:

Citra: 1 Year On (One Final Look Back) - this is the link to it if you're curious

Cytrus (3DS emulator) v1.0.1 has been released by Sudachi dev

ytrus is a Nintendo 3DS emulator for Android, Linux, macOS and Windows written in C++

"Cytrus with the SDL3 migration (and Qt6 technically) is now available on GitHub GDrive for Windows and macOS. This is just a test right now. ︀︀ ︀︀Proceeding a successful test, this will be used in Folium. ︀︀Please test audio, input and video. All work on my system but who knows" - Sudachi dev

Downloads available for Windows and macOS: https://github.com/cytrus-emu/cytrus/releases/tag/v1.0.1 (GitHub errors out when uploading the file, Google Drive will be used for now)

---

Some more 'old' Steam Deck ads

Last time I posted the first two of what a designer created: mock-ups of ads done in the style of early 2000's for the Steam Deck. To me, they're most similar to the aesthetic employed by the various advertising agencies Sony used to promote the PlayStation 2.

All done by RetroB0y, these are fantastic, and there's 4 more to share here for you:

---

HP Omen Handheld

Well, don't get excited, this is just their reasoning why there isn't any such device. Yet anyway:

Unfortunately this came from an XDA page which is now showing a 404 so...that's gone

---

One Last Thing

All apologies if this isn't the typical amount of things I find interesting, but...still its fun to share them here.

As always, any errors are mine, formatting might be awful (or maybe not?!) and I hope you've all been well.

...but that last thing? Share what you've been playing! I'd love to hear what games you've been enjoying recently: be they AAA, AA, indie or emulated retro (or even that new level - the AAAA!)

It's so fun to hear what people enjoy playing the most. Personally I've been enjoying:

• Half-Life 2 for only the second time. It's so damn good. Playing this on my Steam Deck!

• Mario Odyssey on my Switch. It's just so damn cute. Then I'll try the first Xenoblade - I've never played one of those before!

So what about you? What have you been playing?

And lastly, if you wanna find me, I'm on Mastodon more than anything:

<3

As is now a tradition (this is my 7th of these posts - after rejoining Lemmy just 28 days ago!) you'll know the drill.

I want to at least try give a personal look at the news I've spotted in gaming and the Steam Deck which has interested me most. This isn't anything refined, official (or possibly even 'good') - just me trying to bring that feeling back of old games sites, old games blogs. Before ads and begging for Patreon subs became a focus on a game site above the content.

Anyway, if you're interested, grab a cup of coffee or tea and sit down for a read:

---

Denuvo

A couple of games have a notable Denuvo DRM announcement.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree drops Denuvo ahead of its launch. They wrote a rather detailed and clear post themselves, which they shared on Steam:

...the pessimist in me thinks maybe they realized that with the side-scroller coming to Switch any potential piracy on the title would be inevitable regardless. But...maybe they just do care what the community thinks, as they said in their announcement?

inZoi also was meant to ship with Denuvo, but made a similar announcement that they will in fact not be using it. The screenshots are from the announcement made by Kjun (Producer and Director):

---

GOG News

Sudeki

You might have noticed that Sudeki which was removed from GOG has been relisted!

We're all to familiar with the sad state of delisting games, and it always makes me sad to see the postings by GOG staff letting gamers know a title is being removed (remember, this is never GOG's doing - it is entirely up to publishers)

But now we've got it back :)

As to why it was removed in the first place? No definitive answer exists, nor was any statement given explaining it back on removal. Though this page on delistedgames does at least in some way indicate some reasoning:

Sudeki was likely delisted after the expiration of Climax’s publishing deal with GOG.com. Climax Group does not appear to be dormant but their production has dropped significantly over the last few years. It’s possible that the terms of their agreement with GOG.com could be renewed and the game returned to sale in the future. However, it is also possible that Climax is winding down operations and the game could be delisted from Steam as well.

GOG Profit:

Seemingly, a bad year. You can read the full report here, if you have any inclination, but the most interesting numbers are the following:

GOG net profit in thousands PLN

• 2023: 10,255

• 2024: 1,134

Sales revenue:

• 2023: 234969

• 2024: 199,338

Quick GOG points of interest:

• The pre-order for System Shock 2's 25th anniversary remaster is still love on GOG's site, and the game is getting a lot of sim-fans very excited! Playable on June 26th this year!

• A fun thread is up on the GOG forum showing the idea of 'pizza for GOG's team':

This is my ethical pressing, on GOG's management to reward GOG's Team with pizza.*

Please order a game for yourself up to $2.99. This will symbolize a slice.*

• If you want to order the team a 'slice' then you can do so with this thread here on the forum. Personally I think this is a lovely idea, in what it symbolizes

• A bunch of titles from Handy Games were added to GOG, including Meganoid, Sir Questionnaire, Gunslugs, Gunslugs 2 and Snake Core. All with some hefty discounts, too.

• Stellaris: BioGenesis (the new expansion for Stellaris) is also up for a pre-order. This isn't me condoning pre-ordering - let's face it these days the very concept is playing with fire. But it's a good heads-up for what is coming. Of it they state:

In Stellaris: BioGenesis, step into the role of a master geneticist, sculpting the galaxy to your design with living ships, engineered ecosystems, and enhanced species. Forge new paths with unparalleled bioengineering tools to create a civilization that thrives on adaptability and evolution – or exploit these tools to dominate the stars.

More physical DVD covers:

My addiction is the fact that people create physical collections of their GOG games. To my knowledge (after lurking so many of these), most of the users do not include a backup of the install files in the case. This is purely for a display - to show their fav games on a shelf. And I love that.

I just adore how there's a dedicated community who design print and display their fav modern GOG titles in DVD covers. For no practical use other than to look pretty!

Here's a handful more I found :)

---

FTL

A dedicated fan of the game FTL: Faster Than Light has released their own ergonomic community control layout. Considering how poor the controls are on the Steam Deck, it seems like FLT players are kinda head over heels with this idea, so I thought those few who might have missed it here might appreciate it, too.

Frictionless player experience for FTL Newbies and Veteran Space Captains alike. The "Steam Deck/Game Pad Layout"

Of it, the creator states:

"Being a long time fan of the game FTL, I was so excited to get it on my Deck. It was among the first few games I downloaded, and I fired it up not long after. I quickly discovered the countrol [let the record show this is not my spelling error, but the user's!!!] scheme was nearly unusable. At least, it sure didn't feel like a proper handheld hyperspace experience.

I've spent a few hours customizing my control layout for the Steam Deck. I've made a very user friendly and intuitive control scheme. Easy to start using but very practical. All the necessary actions are right where I feel they should be, with room to customize the controls to perfect your cockpit.

The layout is called: "Steam deck/Game Pad layout" by EPICMAN.

---

Epic Games

Sale:

The Epic Games Spring Sale has begun on their site, coming a day-and-a-bit earlier than it was expected to launch. Deals end on April 9th, at 11 AM ET. Some highlights for deals include:

• Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered: -50% off

• Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut -33% off

• Alan Wake 2 Deluxe Ed. -50% off

• God of War -60% off

And so on and so forth. Worth a look, if you like deals.

Mobile:

Their mobile app (available on iOS and Android) now has a search bar! I mean...a low bar to celebrate (I'm also struggling to find a bar pun joke so I'll abandon the effort here), but...they now have one.

They are also giving away mobile games each week now. Before it was monthly, but now each week you'll be able to claim free games there - much like their PC games efforts.

You can currently claim Super Meat Boy Forever Mobile, and Eastern Exorcist, and in 16 hours or so you will be able to claim their next lot!

---

Nintendo PlayStation

Well, if you don't know the old history behind the greatest split-before-it-took-off gaming duo: Nintendo and Sony, then you can check these out:

• An overview of what the Nintendo PlayStation was

• An IGN article going into more depth on it here

• Ben Heck's 'teardown' on the console via YouTube - this one is great, and in multiple parts!

...anyway. For the longest time, only one of these was known to exist, in people's hands anyway. It sold for around $350,000 and I wonder if the buyer now regrets that because there has been another pop up that (to me, at least) looks far prettier!

Another of the prototype consoles created in the early 1990s has come to light, this one belonging to the PlayStation co-creator - Ken Kutaragi. Who kept it in his closet the whole time (which actually helped - no yellowing of the plastic!)

Only a handful of photos, which are:

---

Itty-Bitty-Gameboy-Committee

On the theme of console hardware, I'm kinda enamored by the littlest Gameboy that ever lived, which I stumbled over.

This console is available on Aliexpress, and there's apparently been a few YouTube videos on it like this one here, and yes...it's a tiny way to play!

But this user (MrRetroplayer) shared:

I made a custom case for the Game Boy Mini, reminiscent of the original Game Boy box. Thanks to David for helping me find a case and personalize these stickers. I love how it looks now!

And the photos are adorable, and actually kinda cool.

---

Pi Tin:

P.S. I'm also kinda in love with how cute the Raspberry Pi project: the Pi Tin is.

*"𝘗𝘪 𝘛𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘪 𝘡𝘦𝘳𝘰 𝟤 𝘞...

...t𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘪 𝘡𝘦𝘳𝘰 𝟤 𝘞 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘚𝘕𝘌𝘚, 𝘎𝘉𝘈, 𝘗𝘚𝟣, 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘴/𝘔𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘕𝟨𝟦 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴"*

Either 3DPrinting the enclosure, or using an Altoids tin of all things.

The link to the project is here

And some photos, of course:

---

Burger?

Okay the last one, I shared this a few days ago and I can't stop myself from doing so again.

So for my (𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨) list of quite odd consoles I've posted about, this one may take the cake (no lie)

A famicom/NES clone designed to have a burger's pattern on it was canceled for release made by McDonald's China themselves. It was cancelled and not 'released', but...obviously is still around to buy. Apparently for around $70 (I'd assume USD?):

This one reminds me of the recent Tetris made to look like a big chicken nugget:

---

Genshin Impact Control:

For those who love Android gaming, and who love Genshin, you might be happy to know that they've added controller support for android. Finally.

To my understanding, they had some sort of "unspoken exclusivity deal" with Apple to only allow controllers on iOS devices (iPhone and iPad). Controllers have always worked on Genshin Impact with iOS.

The fact that they finally allowed Android to use controllers is probably a combination of many things. My guess is that it's because iPhones are massively more popular in Asia, Genshin's primary target audience; but Western fans (who are more likely to use Android than Asians are) essentially kept bugging them about it so much that they finally caved and gave us what we wanted.

Regardless, yay for Android!

---

Nintendo Direct

Of the upcoming Nintendo Direct (3/27/25), Nintendo states:

"Tune in on March 27th, at 7 a.m. PT for a livestreamed Nintendo Direct, featuring around 30 minutes of upcoming games for Nintendo Switch. There will be no updates about Nintendo Switch 2 during this presentation.

Information about Nintendo Switch 2 will be shared on April 2nd at 6 a.m. PT in the Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 – 4.2.2025 presentation"

A link to which is here, for future reference

---

POE patch is live:

• honestly I still have no idea what POE is. Is it Pillars of Eternity? Path of Exile? Edgar Allan?

Turn based combat seems to be the focus of what is making those who play the mysterious POE most excited. Whatever it actually is, I'll leave this link for someone who might want to know

---

Game Informer is back:

And the entire team has returned for its...return! Their 'lost' content has been reinstated: all reviews, interviews, videos, old crew and monthly magazines - all up and returned to the internet:

https://www.gameinformer.com/

There's not much I can prattle on about for this, but there is a nice link to a nice and heartfelt video they posted on YouTube:

The link is here, so check it out!

---

EmuDeck:

4 days back we saw an update to EmuDeck. Version 2.4:

• Integration selection

• Auto add ESDE to Steam

• New Bios checker

• BYO Citron

• Azahar

• New wiki: manual.emudeck.com

• New Emulators for EmuDeck Windows : Model 2, Supermodel y BigPemu

A feature reel is here, on YouTube via this link

And if you're wondering if people had issues with the update, and if it broke some users set-ups? Yes. Yes it did. But of course, Y.M.M.V.

---

Junk Store:

Speaking of updates, Junk Store (playing Epic Games titles and GOG games on the Steam Deck) has shown what is coming up (at least in part) for what's next for Junk Store.

I shared a dedicated post about that here on Lemmy early this morning, so you'll be able to see it here if you're inclined to read more details.

The long story short though? Junk Store is changing with a lot coming to how things work. I'd encourage you to check it out.

[SDHQ posted an article[(https://steamdeckhq.com/news/junk-store-is-coming-back-with-new-features/)

As did Gaming On Linux

...though neither add anything at all to the initial post. Just...read the post.

---

FitGirl

If you know, then you know. But if you don't? FitGirl is a repacker of games - for games piracy. This isn't a piece on FitGirl, but instead I wanted to mention that someone donated 0.5 BTC Bitcoin her. That's rougly 42K USD.

That's a lot of games the donator could have just bought. Regardless, this is the biggest donation I know of to a piracy site.

---

Emulation

Dolphin now boots every Wii game

"The Daring Game For Girls" was the final Wii game listed on the Dolphin wiki that would flat-out not even start under normal circumstances, hanging right after the initial Wii remote safety screen unless the CPU was underclocked to 6%. However, a game patch has now been included in Dolphin to allow the game to finally boot.

This was the last Wii game marked as broken. The only other things left in the category are Triforce games and the Wii U Menu redirect channel (yes, you can actually install it on an original Wii. It hangs in Dolphin while it restarts a real Wii).

Now, to be clear, there are games that still don't really get that much further - Active Life: Magical Carnival, Jerry Rice & Nitus' Dog Football and Diatomic still cannot get in-game. Still, a notable milestone none the less.

Azahar 2120 - 3DS - (the first stable release!) has been released

This changelog treats the merge of PabloMK7's fork and Lime3DS as a base upon which all of the changes listed here are applied. The changes added in Lime3DS and PabloMK7's fork during 2024, alongside the changes introduced in Azahar, will be discussed in more detail as part of our first progress report.

• A link to the GitHub is here if you want a read

Azahar also recently posted a blog post, which I found to be interesting:

Citra: 1 Year On (One Final Look Back) - this is the link to it if you're curious

Cytrus (3DS emulator) v1.0.1 has been released by Sudachi dev

ytrus is a Nintendo 3DS emulator for Android, Linux, macOS and Windows written in C++

"Cytrus with the SDL3 migration (and Qt6 technically) is now available on GitHub GDrive for Windows and macOS. This is just a test right now. ︀︀ ︀︀Proceeding a successful test, this will be used in Folium. ︀︀Please test audio, input and video. All work on my system but who knows" - Sudachi dev

Downloads available for Windows and macOS: https://github.com/cytrus-emu/cytrus/releases/tag/v1.0.1 (GitHub errors out when uploading the file, Google Drive will be used for now)

---

Some more 'old' Steam Deck ads

Last time I posted the first two of what a designer created: mock-ups of ads done in the style of early 2000's for the Steam Deck. To me, they're most similar to the aesthetic employed by the various advertising agencies Sony used to promote the PlayStation 2.

All done by RetroB0y, these are fantastic, and there's 4 more to share here for you:

---

HP Omen Handheld

Well, don't get excited, this is just their reasoning why there isn't any such device. Yet anyway:

Unfortunately this came from an XDA page which is now showing a 404 so...that's gone

---

One Last Thing

All apologies if this isn't the typical amount of things I find interesting, but...still its fun to share them here.

As always, any errors are mine, formatting might be awful (or maybe not?!) and I hope you've all been well.

...but that last thing? Share what you've been playing! I'd love to hear what games you've been enjoying recently: be they AAA, AA, indie or emulated retro (or even that new level - the AAAA!)

It's so fun to hear what people enjoy playing the most. Personally I've been enjoying:

• Half-Life 2 for only the second time. It's so damn good. Playing this on my Steam Deck!

• Mario Odyssey on my Switch. It's just so damn cute. Then I'll try the first Xenoblade - I've never played one of those before!

So what about you? What have you been playing?

And lastly, if you wanna find me, I'm on Mastodon more than anything:

<3

This is a BIG announcement by Junk Store for Steam Deck. What was previously a plugin via Decky to play Epic Games and GOG titles on your Steam Deck is now...well, if you read it, it's a whole lot more.

I'm just going to do the bare minimum here and share the post by copying, formatting for Lemmy, and pasting here. Hopefully you'll forgive that, and maybe breathe a sigh of relief that for once a post by me hasn't got 10,000 words of rambling?

What it boils down to is a massive update on what is 'next' for Junk Store. What follows is their post, not my words:

---

The Next Generation:

We haven’t talked about the new version of Junk Store since Valve removed it from the Steam Store. While it was a setback, in many ways it pushed Junk Store further. You might be wondering what we have been up to.

Yes, this new iteration of Junk Store will be paid software and will be closed source. This is a complete rebuild from the ground up. It still looks and feels the same, but with greatly enhanced functionality. The amount of effort put into it so far and the remaining effort to complete the original vision is just too large to do it without financial resources. The current development effort amounts to around 5.5k man hours.

But what does this mean in terms of functionality and progress?

(image of 'the new main menu')

---

Junk Store can now run without Decky

This is a completely new loader that is developed completely independent from the Decky source code. New techniques and code has been created in order for this to work. As a bonus Junk Store will run side by side with Decky. So if you have Decky it will not interfere. Since this will not carry all the extra features that Decky requires, this will allow us to improve stability between Steam upgrades.

---

Junk Store extensions are now generated

(image is of 'new extensions')

This means that more than 95% of the code required to create custom extensions is created for users. New extensions can be as simple as 2 lines of code to specify an emulator command line call or it could be 200 lines of python for something like Amazon. The current set of extensions that will be available for download with the new version is Epic, Gog and Amazon. More will be added over time.

Pricing is still being finalised but it is dependent on infrastructure costs as we now have to run our own servers to host all of the new features. Given the nature of this new version we will have ongoing costs per user and it all has to be factored in.

---

What’s new?

• Global download queue

• Language selection

• DLC selection

• Installation of game dependencies, like C++ runtimes, without the need for proton tricks

• GOG has proper support for DosBox and ScummVM games

• GOG Dosbox support has a Dosbox config editor

• The option to enable experimental cloud saves for supported games (we still don’t trust it, but it’s there if you’re a risk taker).

• There’s a LOT more options (too many in fact), to control all manner of things. If you like to tinker, this is for you.

• The new version is faster and more optimised so you can now see 1000 games per tab compared to the 100 in the python version.

(*image is of 'custom scripting')

(*image is of 'game dependency installer')

(image is of 'Dosbox settings editor')

(image is of 'custom launcher scripts')

(*image is of custom launcher scripts)

(image is of 'Custom launchers per game')

(image is of 'extension generator')

---

What we need from the community:

We are currently looking for power users who would like to help with the alpha testing of this new version. During this phase you will get access to Junk Store and the extension Generator in its full glory, and it’s no exaggeration to say that there’s well over 1000 different settings and options in it. This is quite overwhelming and it will be stripped back to only the essentials for general release. So if you’re a power user and would like to see just what kind of horsepower is under the hood in Junk Store, this is your chance.

Given that we will have quite large overheads for a general release we would also like to take this opportunity to explore interest in an early access program. This would not be your typical pay to test deal. The software will be stable and as near to release state as possible, think of it more like a soft launch. This would allow us to build up reserves to shoulder the server costs for a launch.

We’re currently in Alpha, rapidly approaching Beta quality. If this is something that might be of interest to you please register your interest here:

This is the link to registration via docs.google

• Please note that testing spots will be strictly limited due to associated costs per user. Early access will also be limited due to the initial manual workload associated with onboarding for this, we are just two people and one of us needs to do the coding.

We hope that you are as excited about this as we are, we’re looking forward to your responses in the comments and registration of interest.

---

And that's that! Hopefully some here find this interesting!

This is a BIG announcement by Junk Store for Steam Deck. What was previously a plugin via Decky to play Epic Games and GOG titles on your Steam Deck is now...well, if you read it, it's a whole lot more.

I'm just going to do the bare minimum here and share the post by copying, formatting for Lemmy, and pasting here. Hopefully you'll forgive that, and maybe breathe a sigh of relief that for once a post by me hasn't got 10,000 words of rambling?

What it boils down to is a massive update on what is 'next' for Junk Store. What follows is their post, not my words:

---

The Next Generation:

We haven’t talked about the new version of Junk Store since Valve removed it from the Steam Store. While it was a setback, in many ways it pushed Junk Store further. You might be wondering what we have been up to.

Yes, this new iteration of Junk Store will be paid software and will be closed source. This is a complete rebuild from the ground up. It still looks and feels the same, but with greatly enhanced functionality. The amount of effort put into it so far and the remaining effort to complete the original vision is just too large to do it without financial resources. The current development effort amounts to around 5.5k man hours.

But what does this mean in terms of functionality and progress?

(image of 'the new main menu')

---

Junk Store can now run without Decky

This is a completely new loader that is developed completely independent from the Decky source code. New techniques and code has been created in order for this to work. As a bonus Junk Store will run side by side with Decky. So if you have Decky it will not interfere. Since this will not carry all the extra features that Decky requires, this will allow us to improve stability between Steam upgrades.

---

Junk Store extensions are now generated

(image is of 'new extensions')

This means that more than 95% of the code required to create custom extensions is created for users. New extensions can be as simple as 2 lines of code to specify an emulator command line call or it could be 200 lines of python for something like Amazon. The current set of extensions that will be available for download with the new version is Epic, Gog and Amazon. More will be added over time.

Pricing is still being finalised but it is dependent on infrastructure costs as we now have to run our own servers to host all of the new features. Given the nature of this new version we will have ongoing costs per user and it all has to be factored in.

---

What’s new?

• Global download queue

• Language selection

• DLC selection

• Installation of game dependencies, like C++ runtimes, without the need for proton tricks

• GOG has proper support for DosBox and ScummVM games

• GOG Dosbox support has a Dosbox config editor

• The option to enable experimental cloud saves for supported games (we still don’t trust it, but it’s there if you’re a risk taker).

• There’s a LOT more options (too many in fact), to control all manner of things. If you like to tinker, this is for you.

• The new version is faster and more optimised so you can now see 1000 games per tab compared to the 100 in the python version.

(*image is of 'custom scripting')

(*image is of 'game dependency installer')

(image is of 'Dosbox settings editor')

(image is of 'custom launcher scripts')

(*image is of custom launcher scripts)

(image is of 'Custom launchers per game')

(image is of 'extension generator')

---

What we need from the community:

We are currently looking for power users who would like to help with the alpha testing of this new version. During this phase you will get access to Junk Store and the extension Generator in its full glory, and it’s no exaggeration to say that there’s well over 1000 different settings and options in it. This is quite overwhelming and it will be stripped back to only the essentials for general release. So if you’re a power user and would like to see just what kind of horsepower is under the hood in Junk Store, this is your chance.

Given that we will have quite large overheads for a general release we would also like to take this opportunity to explore interest in an early access program. This would not be your typical pay to test deal. The software will be stable and as near to release state as possible, think of it more like a soft launch. This would allow us to build up reserves to shoulder the server costs for a launch.

We’re currently in Alpha, rapidly approaching Beta quality. If this is something that might be of interest to you please register your interest here:

This is the link to registration via docs.google

• Please note that testing spots will be strictly limited due to associated costs per user. Early access will also be limited due to the initial manual workload associated with onboarding for this, we are just two people and one of us needs to do the coding.

We hope that you are as excited about this as we are, we’re looking forward to your responses in the comments and registration of interest.

---

And that's that! Hopefully some here find this interesting!

As you're most probably used to by now, this is just my initial warning that what follows is my ranting and rambling about both Steam Deck-specific(ish) news, and general gaming news I've spotted and seems interesting to me.

I do my very little best to try make this feel a little like old gaming sites or old blogs. Old forum posts (none of the above I was alive to even witness, but I’ve archeologized – totally a word – enough of these from back in the days of old to know those are what I love the most, so...I try!

Grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

---

Two bits of GOG News / Games / Facts / Fun

Konami Code

Here’s one I’m sure you already know, since its hardly a secret. Aside from being a platform where you can tens of thousands of games, GOG also hid an activation via the Konami Code in their website

From your games library, enter up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and you’ll have two games appear within the secret screen in your browser to play there: Snake, or Pong!

Sierra On-Line

Back in 2022 GOG shared a wonderful blog post about the history of Sierra On-Line games. It covers a lot with links branching off – highlighting some games and some history in there:

It all started in 1979 with a text-based adventure game called Colossal Cave that Ken Williams brought to his home in Simi Valley, California. The game captivated his wife, Roberta, and inspired her to create an adventure game of her own. The title had a plot and art style inspired by Agatha Christie’s novels. Called Mystery House, the Williams family created the entire game from scratch. Thankfully it was a hit (with 15,000 copies sold) and it prodded them to get into the video game business full-time.

The blog post for this on GOG, is here in this link!

---

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

The latest update has arrived for Heart of Chernobyl. Patch 1.3 is here. It’s quite extensive this time around, so I won’t list them here (it’d take too much space!) but rather link you to the Steam page detailing them.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 not only suffers from me having to type the letters in with a full-stop between each letter, but it also launched in a fairly broken state. We all know who to blame this time, rather than the (sadly common now) tradition of releasing a game broken because they can, this time it was a real life warzone which affected their ability to make a game.

Hopefully this patch gets it to a space nice enough to enjoy the game even more than it has been (though...I have to admit, it’s too damn scary for me!) - the link to the post is here

---

Hope Town

This is one of two games I’ve spotted on Kickstarter which might be interesting to some. The names and faces behind the game are interesting but the fact they’re stating this is a [spiritual?] successor to the ever-fascinating Disco Elysium (former Dying Light and Witcher 3 devs) is a bit sad. It looks to be true, but it makes me feel so frustrated when games have to promote themselves based on the success of other games, especially when they’re unique. Which this sure looks to be.

The Kickstarter link and page is here, which explains all, but I’ll include a few pictures because the art is wonderful:

---

The Sinking City 2

I’m a big fan of Lovecraftian horror. Not so much the ‘getting scared’ side of it (I’m a wimp with scary games), but the setting, the atmosphere. The era in time.

The Sinking City (the first game) had a LOT of drama, but since their long battle with Nacon, the developers (called Frogwares) won, and are the sole publisher of the game. And you should Follow this link and read about their battles on a PC Gamer page, it’s a pretty fascinating story about the woes they were subjected to:

Anyway, tangent aside, their sequel to that game is on its way, and being funded this time, in part, by Kickstater.

From their Kickstarter page:

The Sinking City 2 is a third-person survival horror game, set in an otherworldly Lovecraftian version of the 1920s United States. Coming to PC (Steam, EGS, GOG), PS5 and Xbox Series

Experience a heart-pounding survival horror as you navigate the flooded streets of Arkham. Fight terrifying Eldritch abominations, face monumental beings beyond human comprehension known as The Great Old Ones, and investigate the dark mysteries gripping this forsaken place

The link to the Kickstarter page is here!

---

Half-Life 2 RTX

This one’s something I’m sure everyone here has spotted. Having only just played through Half-Life 2 for the first time a few months back, even I was aware of any tiny bit of news or announcements on the series of games. This time it’s no different, I’d expect.

Anyway, from the Steam page:

Re-live the groundbreaking, critically acclaimed Half-Life 2 like never before, reimagined with RTX Remix. Featuring full ray tracing, remastered assets, and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, this DLC is free for Half-Life 2 owners

The rating is currently ‘Mixed’ on Steam, with 1,840 reviews as of writing this nonsense up for you all.

The YouTube trailer 5 days ago is here, if you want to check it out

The Steam page’s link is here if you want to just jump straight on over to that, too

Personally, I am more excited by the coming re-release of the Raising The Bar – because just look at it, it’s BEAUTIFUL:

...and one more, unknown Valve artist working on Half-Life - April 8th 1998:

---

Epic sale

This one’s for the 5 people here who care about Epic Games’ sales and have a library of purchased games (not just those we’ve claimed weekly for years!).

The sale starts on March 26th, but I also weirdly see in a search that there’s another on April 10th for some reason? IDK why. These sales used to be quite significant as they had their coupons involved, but having long-since killed those, well...I guess we’ll see what is worth buying when it happens!

---

Switch cat

This one’s just...me spotting something I think is adorable, and thus subjecting you to it. This is ‘Switch Cat fanart’ by an artist whose username is shunixe, but also seems to be Xezeno Xezeno1 (which only reminds me of Xenomorphs and how much terror I subjected myself to when I played Alien: Isolation with the lights turned off, headphones on, and all alone. It was a mistake I made exactly once)

Anyway, THIS IS ADORABLE, LOOK AT IT!!!

---

Metro

Metro has now turned 15 years old. And they’re having a 15th anniversary update (4A games)

The following text obviously comes from their page, but I encourage you to click the link at the end of me rambling to watch that video, running 3:56 seconds, which celebrates all their years.

*Hello everyone,  

We shared with you earlier this month that we wanted to tell you more about the status of our team and our future, so what better opportunity to do so as celebration of Metro’s 15th anniversary.   In honor of the incredible 15 years of Metro, we’ve created a video to celebrate our journey throughout the tunnels of the metro, made possible by our devoted community that have supported us along the way. This is our thanks to you, the players*

 The link is here for their post!

---

Halt and Catch Fire

HCF, or "Halt and Catch Fire," was a term referring to a machine code instruction that caused a processor to stop normal operation and enter an unrecoverable state.

It came from early-early computing and is ended up being use to just...describe catastrophic system failures. It’s not a practical command, it just symbolized a dramatic crash or malfunction in computing systems.

Halt and Catch Fire is also one of my favorite TV shows ever made. A drama series set in the 1980s and 1990s, following a group of ‘visionaries’ in the tech industry during the rise of the personal computer and internet eras.

The IMDb page is here, if you want to see the amazing cast and read more

The trailer for season one is on YouTube, and I’m linking you here

Wait, why are you rambling about this? What’s it got to do with gaming?! - I can hear you screaming at your screen right now.

Well, follow this link to a Polygon article which details why HaCF has the best depictions of gaming in it (and it does, dear reader, it does!): it’s not about the game; it’s about what the game gets you to

---

Codemasters delisted

Looks like a few EA Codemasters titles have been delisted from Steam - for those who are keeping track

• Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
• Toybox Turbos
• Rise of the Argonauts
• Maelstrom: The Battle for Earth Begins
• Damnation
• Hospital Tycoon It's a strange move, especially considering these are old, old titles now, but still a sad one to see them unavailable (legally)

---

Digital Art / Gaming

First up is a set of images a talented designer made was this mock-up of how Steam would look if it was running on Windows 98 This artist goes by Blu-s_Attempt and kinda makes me sad that I'm living in a Windows 11 world, and not a 98 one. Three images, and as follows:

And one more:

this time some nice, nostalgic 2000's era ad mockups done by a talented design artist - RetroB0y, showing a glimpse of what it'd look like if the Steam Deck was released in the early 2000s. These remind me so strongly of the Sony PlayStation ads made and run in the early 2000s for the PS2 in magazines and other print media. No matter what, these are a treat!

---

This week’s free games:

As ever, Epic gives a free game away, and (I know, the term ‘free’ here isn’t as free as it is with Epic’s) there is some from Prime Gaming. These are available if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, and are yours to keep forever, even if you no longer subscribe to the service.

Epic:

Jurassic World Evolution from 2021 is free this week. This seems a nice ‘get’, considering it is recent and is semi-well regarded, but one thing to remember is that you’re only getting the base game with this. The DLC mounts up immediately, and costs like $80,000 (slight exaggeration) to have everything.

If you are in Belarus, Russia then you’ll be unable to claim this game this week.

From Prime Gaming:

As always, Prime gives a few games each week, and to me is the best deal in gaming. I’ve been subscribed to Game Pass for a looooong time now, but this somehow feels like my fav option. Maybe because it lets me build up my beloved GOG library. Anyway, this weeks games are:

• March 20: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood [Xbox and PC via Microsoft Store Code]
• March 20: Mutazione [GOG Code]
• March 20: Figment 2: Creed Valley [Amazon Games App]
• March 20: Legacy of Kain: Defiance [GOG Code]
• March 20: Mortal Shell [Epic Games Store]

---

How are you playing these on Linux / Steam Deck?

I’m glad you (probably didn’t, but shhh) ask me! Generally speaking, I play my GOG and Epic, and Amazon titles on my Linux desktop PC by using Heroic Games Launcher. For my desktop, nothing beats this.

Heroic is a Free and Open Source Epic, GOG and Amazon Prime Games launcher for Linux, Windows and macOS. Also available on the SteamDeck!

• The website is here, detailing all kinds of info, including FAQ’s, documentation and links

• Their Discord is here, with this invite, if you want to join in there

Personally, I love how Heroic have an arrangement with GOG themselves. Whereby if you purchase a GOG game through Heroic (or by an affiliate link they have set up), then Heroic will be a small portion of each sale to help support their service. To me that just makes my lil heart warm!

And on my Steam Deck, I mostly use Junk-Store (though I also have Heroic installed there, too!)

I actually shared a post recently about a big update Junk-Store did, but first I’ll expound a little on what Junk-Store is.

It’s a way to play Epic Games and GOG games on your Steam Deck – and my fav thing to share is how it makes it look like Valve made it themselves. It runs via Decky Loader, though in the future this will change as the developer is also working on a way so you can keep it running that way, or install it another.

At the moment though, from Decky you’ll find a section where all of your games library for Epic and GOG will appear showing the game art almost exactly as your games do in your regular Steam games library on the Steam Deck.

This UI is what I love most, it looks and feels and acts exactly as if it were made by Steam, for the Steam Deck. I love the library for the games. Installation is a breeze. It makes installing anything required to make the game play perfectly is as easy as one press (dependencies). You’ve also got some fun achievements that the dev has made himself, which is pretty damn fun to find inside JS.

Check this out, they have had a BIG update recently, and by ‘they’ I mean Eben – the solo developer who programs this. I wrote a post and shared it on Lemmy, so you can find it here with this link

• Their GitHub is here with this link

• This is their link to the Discord server. Handy to have, as users have a section where they share settings they’ve found work best for games they play from Epic and GOG

• Their website is here, if you want to read more

---

Croc Legend of the Gobbos

The timeless cult classic Croc and its remastered version arrive on GOG on April 2nd!

“Words can't express how excited we are to welcome this gaming legend after almost 30 years”

The link to the GOG page is here, which is the only PC platform you can buy and play it on!

Here is a link to the trailer, four months back, on YouTube if you want to see it!

---

Apple’s long-lost hidden recovery partition:

I know, this isn’t even vaguely gaming-oriented. But it’s super interesting, and I feel like there’s a nice intersection of gamers + tech-minded folk in here who might want to follow the link. Just a quick copy of the user’s post, then I’ll link you to what they’re talking about:

You might remember when I asked about looking for an unformatted Performa 550 a couple of months ago because I was looking for a lost recovery partition that Apple had a couple of technotes about. I wanted to share an update -- I was able to find what I was looking for thanks to a kind person here on this subreddit! It's nifty functionality I had never seen before that tries to save you if something gets messed up with your System Folder. I'm surprised Apple didn't continue forward with this on later models. If you want to try it for yourself, I uploaded a "factory fresh" hard drive image with this partition for preservation purposes. It works on lots of models, not just the 550. There is still an unanswered question about how the partition was originally created, so if anyone else has a Performa 550 that hasn't been formatted, I'd especially be interested in finding out if it has this partition, or even just if Apple Backup is a custom version/size that doesn't match any of the screenshots from my blog. It might also be interesting to find out if the Performa 575 had it too

If you love vintage Apple computers, then this is a must-read!

---

Ryubing:

Ryubing is my choice of Ryujinx forks. It has at its helm a dev (GreemDev) of the original project. Let me start this short little bit off with a reminder that Ryujinx was not illegal, it was not shut down by court order or any breach of IP. It was an agreement the original dev made with Nintendo (which was rumored to be all kinds of things, but being based in Brazil, ‘the law’ wouldn’t be a factor even if they broke it. Brazil is fairly well known as the wild west of emulation.

Anyway, Ryubing got a DMCA from Nintendo, just another in a long list in the last few weeks which has received such.

• and as an aside, the EmuDeck team use Ryubing in EmuDeck now, and have done so for some time. So...that’s a fact!

Since their github page has been taken down, it is now here with this link, if you wanna read up

---

Xbox was released in 2002:

This is a little late, but 4 days back, it was that day on which the original Xbox was released in Europe and Australia. 3 years of Xbox being on the scene (in those regions, at least!), which is incredible to see. While their news might be a little thin-icey lately...

I’d love to remind you that, 2002, Microsoft released a commercial for the original Xbox that was banned after the UK’s Independent Television Commission received 136 complaints - called 'Life is Short' (click this link to see it!)

---

Super Famicom

This just...was interesting for me to see. I have a soft spot in my heart for gaming hardware I wasn’t even close to being alive for on release, especially when it combines with gray/beige coloring.

User chunk337 shared an image of the Super Famicom box. These were used in hotels in Japan, where you’d pay a certain amount for a certain play-time. I just love how utterly boxy this thing is, thought you might too!

---

Quick-fire bits and pieces:

The PC Gaming Show:

The ‘Show returns this June! ‘New games, new trailers, new exclusives all coming this summer’ - showing on June 8th this year.

A link to more details and what will be showing is here, with this link!

RPCS3 Android

Android alpha 5 released for those who love gaming on their phones, and emulating there too!

The link to the release and notes is here

Space Marine 3 is official in development!

A link to the Warhammer Community post is here, if you want to read their own words!

Chrono Trigger Anniversary

Escape From Tarkov: Arena

Has been added to Epic Games store.

You can watch here, via YouTube if you’re interested

The classic game was released on March 11th 1995! So it’s now officially just over 30 years + one week old!

---

Revolt

And, I’ll drop another reminder in here! My friend Gardiner Bryant set up a Revolt server for Steam Deck, Linux and general gamers. It’s built up a lot now, with 82 users in the sub. Plenty of them are devs and creators of some of the programs and applications you use on your Steam Deck (or Linux PC!), and...I’m hoping it’s a nice place for people to visit and chat.

Revolt itself is a FOSS alternative to Discord! You can read more about it via their site, which is linked in this sentence

The link to the Revolt server is here, if you want to join in, have a look, or chat games! I also wrote a post about it some time ago here on Lemmy, if you want to read a little more detail: The link to which is here!

Annnd finally, the server itself is at this link: https://rvlt.gg/dqJT3rJH

---

What have you been playing?!

IDK, thought it might be nice if you wanted to share what you have been enjoying when it comes to video games! What game have you been playing? Enjoying? Not enjoying? Leave a comment, if you’re so inclined, I’d love to hear more about what the community here has been enjoying, please share it!

I’ve been enjoying a Nintendo Switch actually. I used to be obsessed with them had a lil collection, but I sold them all when I got my Steam Deck.

I recently bought a V2 Switch super cheap in Japan, and I’ve since installed a picofly mod-chip in it, so I can run CFW on there (themes on my Switch! How can you beat that?!)

I’ve been playing Metroid Prime: Remake on it, being one of my fav games. And on my Steam Deck I’ve started to enjoy Half-Life 2 again, and it runs oh-so-beautifully!

---

And that’s it?

I think this might be the end of what I can ramble on about.

As always, any errors are my own, as with formatting. I do so hope you’ve found something interesting in here, by now maybe you’re aware I am oh-so-very tired of traditional gaming news outlets. They’re running with baked in advertisements, written by A.I. or generally such low-effort swill they’re ripping off a comment they spotted. I just want to at least try bring back the feeling of the old-old gaming blogs, where Patreon and support and donations and ads weren’t the focus of what you’re on a site to see!

If you wanna follow my inane gaming posts, then you can find me on Mastodon here:

<3

As you're most probably used to by now, this is just my initial warning that what follows is my ranting and rambling about both Steam Deck-specific(ish) news, and general gaming news I've spotted and seems interesting to me.

I do my very little best to try make this feel a little like old gaming sites or old blogs. Old forum posts (none of the above I was alive to even witness, but I’ve archeologized – totally a word – enough of these from back in the days of old to know those are what I love the most, so...I try!

Grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

---

Two bits of GOG News / Games / Facts / Fun

Konami Code

Here’s one I’m sure you already know, since its hardly a secret. Aside from being a platform where you can tens of thousands of games, GOG also hid an activation via the Konami Code in their website

From your games library, enter up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and you’ll have two games appear within the secret screen in your browser to play there: Snake, or Pong!

Sierra On-Line

Back in 2022 GOG shared a wonderful blog post about the history of Sierra On-Line games. It covers a lot with links branching off – highlighting some games and some history in there:

It all started in 1979 with a text-based adventure game called Colossal Cave that Ken Williams brought to his home in Simi Valley, California. The game captivated his wife, Roberta, and inspired her to create an adventure game of her own. The title had a plot and art style inspired by Agatha Christie’s novels. Called Mystery House, the Williams family created the entire game from scratch. Thankfully it was a hit (with 15,000 copies sold) and it prodded them to get into the video game business full-time.

The blog post for this on GOG, is here in this link!

---

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

The latest update has arrived for Heart of Chernobyl. Patch 1.3 is here. It’s quite extensive this time around, so I won’t list them here (it’d take too much space!) but rather link you to the Steam page detailing them.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 not only suffers from me having to type the letters in with a full-stop between each letter, but it also launched in a fairly broken state. We all know who to blame this time, rather than the (sadly common now) tradition of releasing a game broken because they can, this time it was a real life warzone which affected their ability to make a game.

Hopefully this patch gets it to a space nice enough to enjoy the game even more than it has been (though...I have to admit, it’s too damn scary for me!) - the link to the post is here

---

Hope Town

This is one of two games I’ve spotted on Kickstarter which might be interesting to some. The names and faces behind the game are interesting but the fact they’re stating this is a [spiritual?] successor to the ever-fascinating Disco Elysium (former Dying Light and Witcher 3 devs) is a bit sad. It looks to be true, but it makes me feel so frustrated when games have to promote themselves based on the success of other games, especially when they’re unique. Which this sure looks to be.

The Kickstarter link and page is here, which explains all, but I’ll include a few pictures because the art is wonderful:

---

The Sinking City 2

I’m a big fan of Lovecraftian horror. Not so much the ‘getting scared’ side of it (I’m a wimp with scary games), but the setting, the atmosphere. The era in time.

The Sinking City (the first game) had a LOT of drama, but since their long battle with Nacon, the developers (called Frogwares) won, and are the sole publisher of the game. And you should Follow this link and read about their battles on a PC Gamer page, it’s a pretty fascinating story about the woes they were subjected to:

Anyway, tangent aside, their sequel to that game is on its way, and being funded this time, in part, by Kickstater.

From their Kickstarter page:

The Sinking City 2 is a third-person survival horror game, set in an otherworldly Lovecraftian version of the 1920s United States. Coming to PC (Steam, EGS, GOG), PS5 and Xbox Series

Experience a heart-pounding survival horror as you navigate the flooded streets of Arkham. Fight terrifying Eldritch abominations, face monumental beings beyond human comprehension known as The Great Old Ones, and investigate the dark mysteries gripping this forsaken place

The link to the Kickstarter page is here!

---

Half-Life 2 RTX

This one’s something I’m sure everyone here has spotted. Having only just played through Half-Life 2 for the first time a few months back, even I was aware of any tiny bit of news or announcements on the series of games. This time it’s no different, I’d expect.

Anyway, from the Steam page:

Re-live the groundbreaking, critically acclaimed Half-Life 2 like never before, reimagined with RTX Remix. Featuring full ray tracing, remastered assets, and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, this DLC is free for Half-Life 2 owners

The rating is currently ‘Mixed’ on Steam, with 1,840 reviews as of writing this nonsense up for you all.

The YouTube trailer 5 days ago is here, if you want to check it out

The Steam page’s link is here if you want to just jump straight on over to that, too

Personally, I am more excited by the coming re-release of the Raising The Bar – because just look at it, it’s BEAUTIFUL:

...and one more, unknown Valve artist working on Half-Life - April 8th 1998:

---

Epic sale

This one’s for the 5 people here who care about Epic Games’ sales and have a library of purchased games (not just those we’ve claimed weekly for years!).

The sale starts on March 26th, but I also weirdly see in a search that there’s another on April 10th for some reason? IDK why. These sales used to be quite significant as they had their coupons involved, but having long-since killed those, well...I guess we’ll see what is worth buying when it happens!

---

Switch cat

This one’s just...me spotting something I think is adorable, and thus subjecting you to it. This is ‘Switch Cat fanart’ by an artist whose username is shunixe, but also seems to be Xezeno Xezeno1 (which only reminds me of Xenomorphs and how much terror I subjected myself to when I played Alien: Isolation with the lights turned off, headphones on, and all alone. It was a mistake I made exactly once)

Anyway, THIS IS ADORABLE, LOOK AT IT!!!

---

Metro

Metro has now turned 15 years old. And they’re having a 15th anniversary update (4A games)

The following text obviously comes from their page, but I encourage you to click the link at the end of me rambling to watch that video, running 3:56 seconds, which celebrates all their years.

*Hello everyone,  

We shared with you earlier this month that we wanted to tell you more about the status of our team and our future, so what better opportunity to do so as celebration of Metro’s 15th anniversary.   In honor of the incredible 15 years of Metro, we’ve created a video to celebrate our journey throughout the tunnels of the metro, made possible by our devoted community that have supported us along the way. This is our thanks to you, the players*

 The link is here for their post!

---

Halt and Catch Fire

HCF, or "Halt and Catch Fire," was a term referring to a machine code instruction that caused a processor to stop normal operation and enter an unrecoverable state.

It came from early-early computing and is ended up being use to just...describe catastrophic system failures. It’s not a practical command, it just symbolized a dramatic crash or malfunction in computing systems.

Halt and Catch Fire is also one of my favorite TV shows ever made. A drama series set in the 1980s and 1990s, following a group of ‘visionaries’ in the tech industry during the rise of the personal computer and internet eras.

The IMDb page is here, if you want to see the amazing cast and read more

The trailer for season one is on YouTube, and I’m linking you here

Wait, why are you rambling about this? What’s it got to do with gaming?! - I can hear you screaming at your screen right now.

Well, follow this link to a Polygon article which details why HaCF has the best depictions of gaming in it (and it does, dear reader, it does!): it’s not about the game; it’s about what the game gets you to

---

Codemasters delisted

Looks like a few EA Codemasters titles have been delisted from Steam - for those who are keeping track

• Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
• Toybox Turbos
• Rise of the Argonauts
• Maelstrom: The Battle for Earth Begins
• Damnation
• Hospital Tycoon It's a strange move, especially considering these are old, old titles now, but still a sad one to see them unavailable (legally)

---

Digital Art / Gaming

First up is a set of images a talented designer made was this mock-up of how Steam would look if it was running on Windows 98 This artist goes by Blu-s_Attempt and kinda makes me sad that I'm living in a Windows 11 world, and not a 98 one. Three images, and as follows:

And one more:

this time some nice, nostalgic 2000's era ad mockups done by a talented design artist - RetroB0y, showing a glimpse of what it'd look like if the Steam Deck was released in the early 2000s. These remind me so strongly of the Sony PlayStation ads made and run in the early 2000s for the PS2 in magazines and other print media. No matter what, these are a treat!

---

This week’s free games:

As ever, Epic gives a free game away, and (I know, the term ‘free’ here isn’t as free as it is with Epic’s) there is some from Prime Gaming. These are available if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, and are yours to keep forever, even if you no longer subscribe to the service.

Epic:

Jurassic World Evolution from 2021 is free this week. This seems a nice ‘get’, considering it is recent and is semi-well regarded, but one thing to remember is that you’re only getting the base game with this. The DLC mounts up immediately, and costs like $80,000 (slight exaggeration) to have everything.

If you are in Belarus, Russia then you’ll be unable to claim this game this week.

From Prime Gaming:

As always, Prime gives a few games each week, and to me is the best deal in gaming. I’ve been subscribed to Game Pass for a looooong time now, but this somehow feels like my fav option. Maybe because it lets me build up my beloved GOG library. Anyway, this weeks games are:

• March 20: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood [Xbox and PC via Microsoft Store Code]
• March 20: Mutazione [GOG Code]
• March 20: Figment 2: Creed Valley [Amazon Games App]
• March 20: Legacy of Kain: Defiance [GOG Code]
• March 20: Mortal Shell [Epic Games Store]

---

How are you playing these on Linux / Steam Deck?

I’m glad you (probably didn’t, but shhh) ask me! Generally speaking, I play my GOG and Epic, and Amazon titles on my Linux desktop PC by using Heroic Games Launcher. For my desktop, nothing beats this.

Heroic is a Free and Open Source Epic, GOG and Amazon Prime Games launcher for Linux, Windows and macOS. Also available on the SteamDeck!

• The website is here, detailing all kinds of info, including FAQ’s, documentation and links

• Their Discord is here, with this invite, if you want to join in there

Personally, I love how Heroic have an arrangement with GOG themselves. Whereby if you purchase a GOG game through Heroic (or by an affiliate link they have set up), then Heroic will be a small portion of each sale to help support their service. To me that just makes my lil heart warm!

And on my Steam Deck, I mostly use Junk-Store (though I also have Heroic installed there, too!)

I actually shared a post recently about a big update Junk-Store did, but first I’ll expound a little on what Junk-Store is.

It’s a way to play Epic Games and GOG games on your Steam Deck – and my fav thing to share is how it makes it look like Valve made it themselves. It runs via Decky Loader, though in the future this will change as the developer is also working on a way so you can keep it running that way, or install it another.

At the moment though, from Decky you’ll find a section where all of your games library for Epic and GOG will appear showing the game art almost exactly as your games do in your regular Steam games library on the Steam Deck.

This UI is what I love most, it looks and feels and acts exactly as if it were made by Steam, for the Steam Deck. I love the library for the games. Installation is a breeze. It makes installing anything required to make the game play perfectly is as easy as one press (dependencies). You’ve also got some fun achievements that the dev has made himself, which is pretty damn fun to find inside JS.

Check this out, they have had a BIG update recently, and by ‘they’ I mean Eben – the solo developer who programs this. I wrote a post and shared it on Lemmy, so you can find it here with this link

• Their GitHub is here with this link

• This is their link to the Discord server. Handy to have, as users have a section where they share settings they’ve found work best for games they play from Epic and GOG

• Their website is here, if you want to read more

---

Croc Legend of the Gobbos

The timeless cult classic Croc and its remastered version arrive on GOG on April 2nd!

“Words can't express how excited we are to welcome this gaming legend after almost 30 years”

The link to the GOG page is here, which is the only PC platform you can buy and play it on!

Here is a link to the trailer, four months back, on YouTube if you want to see it!

---

Apple’s long-lost hidden recovery partition:

I know, this isn’t even vaguely gaming-oriented. But it’s super interesting, and I feel like there’s a nice intersection of gamers + tech-minded folk in here who might want to follow the link. Just a quick copy of the user’s post, then I’ll link you to what they’re talking about:

You might remember when I asked about looking for an unformatted Performa 550 a couple of months ago because I was looking for a lost recovery partition that Apple had a couple of technotes about. I wanted to share an update -- I was able to find what I was looking for thanks to a kind person here on this subreddit! It's nifty functionality I had never seen before that tries to save you if something gets messed up with your System Folder. I'm surprised Apple didn't continue forward with this on later models. If you want to try it for yourself, I uploaded a "factory fresh" hard drive image with this partition for preservation purposes. It works on lots of models, not just the 550. There is still an unanswered question about how the partition was originally created, so if anyone else has a Performa 550 that hasn't been formatted, I'd especially be interested in finding out if it has this partition, or even just if Apple Backup is a custom version/size that doesn't match any of the screenshots from my blog. It might also be interesting to find out if the Performa 575 had it too

If you love vintage Apple computers, then this is a must-read!

---

Ryubing:

Ryubing is my choice of Ryujinx forks. It has at its helm a dev (GreemDev) of the original project. Let me start this short little bit off with a reminder that Ryujinx was not illegal, it was not shut down by court order or any breach of IP. It was an agreement the original dev made with Nintendo (which was rumored to be all kinds of things, but being based in Brazil, ‘the law’ wouldn’t be a factor even if they broke it. Brazil is fairly well known as the wild west of emulation.

Anyway, Ryubing got a DMCA from Nintendo, just another in a long list in the last few weeks which has received such.

• and as an aside, the EmuDeck team use Ryubing in EmuDeck now, and have done so for some time. So...that’s a fact!

Since their github page has been taken down, it is now here with this link, if you wanna read up

---

Xbox was released in 2002:

This is a little late, but 4 days back, it was that day on which the original Xbox was released in Europe and Australia. 3 years of Xbox being on the scene (in those regions, at least!), which is incredible to see. While their news might be a little thin-icey lately...

I’d love to remind you that, 2002, Microsoft released a commercial for the original Xbox that was banned after the UK’s Independent Television Commission received 136 complaints - called 'Life is Short' (click this link to see it!)

---

Super Famicom

This just...was interesting for me to see. I have a soft spot in my heart for gaming hardware I wasn’t even close to being alive for on release, especially when it combines with gray/beige coloring.

User chunk337 shared an image of the Super Famicom box. These were used in hotels in Japan, where you’d pay a certain amount for a certain play-time. I just love how utterly boxy this thing is, thought you might too!

---

Quick-fire bits and pieces:

The PC Gaming Show:

The ‘Show returns this June! ‘New games, new trailers, new exclusives all coming this summer’ - showing on June 8th this year.

A link to more details and what will be showing is here, with this link!

RPCS3 Android

Android alpha 5 released for those who love gaming on their phones, and emulating there too!

The link to the release and notes is here

Space Marine 3 is official in development!

A link to the Warhammer Community post is here, if you want to read their own words!

Chrono Trigger Anniversary

Escape From Tarkov: Arena

Has been added to Epic Games store.

You can watch here, via YouTube if you’re interested

The classic game was released on March 11th 1995! So it’s now officially just over 30 years + one week old!

---

Revolt

And, I’ll drop another reminder in here! My friend Gardiner Bryant set up a Revolt server for Steam Deck, Linux and general gamers. It’s built up a lot now, with 82 users in the sub. Plenty of them are devs and creators of some of the programs and applications you use on your Steam Deck (or Linux PC!), and...I’m hoping it’s a nice place for people to visit and chat.

Revolt itself is a FOSS alternative to Discord! You can read more about it via their site, which is linked in this sentence

The link to the Revolt server is here, if you want to join in, have a look, or chat games! I also wrote a post about it some time ago here on Lemmy, if you want to read a little more detail: The link to which is here!

Annnd finally, the server itself is at this link: https://rvlt.gg/dqJT3rJH

---

What have you been playing?!

IDK, thought it might be nice if you wanted to share what you have been enjoying when it comes to video games! What game have you been playing? Enjoying? Not enjoying? Leave a comment, if you’re so inclined, I’d love to hear more about what the community here has been enjoying, please share it!

I’ve been enjoying a Nintendo Switch actually. I used to be obsessed with them had a lil collection, but I sold them all when I got my Steam Deck.

I recently bought a V2 Switch super cheap in Japan, and I’ve since installed a picofly mod-chip in it, so I can run CFW on there (themes on my Switch! How can you beat that?!)

I’ve been playing Metroid Prime: Remake on it, being one of my fav games. And on my Steam Deck I’ve started to enjoy Half-Life 2 again, and it runs oh-so-beautifully!

---

And that’s it?

I think this might be the end of what I can ramble on about.

As always, any errors are my own, as with formatting. I do so hope you’ve found something interesting in here, by now maybe you’re aware I am oh-so-very tired of traditional gaming news outlets. They’re running with baked in advertisements, written by A.I. or generally such low-effort swill they’re ripping off a comment they spotted. I just want to at least try bring back the feeling of the old-old gaming blogs, where Patreon and support and donations and ads weren’t the focus of what you’re on a site to see!

If you wanna follow my inane gaming posts, then you can find me on Mastodon here:

<3

This is obviously a promotion for the game at launch, when it went live there were no reviews, but the reviews are coming in now, and are giving a rating of Very Positive (with 283 ratings at the time of writing this!)

"Seat customers, serve drinks, and manage chaos with up to 4 players! Keep the peace by considering customer types while seating them. Survive disasters, handle quirky customers, and design the perfect venue to keep the party going!"

Basically it's being reviewed as a lot like Overcooked, in gameplay and looks.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2796010/Party_Club/