Suddenly, a new toy appears!

The Steam Deck 1Tb OLED edition.

This device is not yet available for shipping in Australia 😉 So I got it from Kogan who do direct import.

I decided I needed something to take when I go on holidays or just to have in the glovebox when I’m charging my car. I was tempted to get a Nintendo Switch, but you know.. I’d have to re-purchase games I already have bought on Steam and I would also not be able to sync my cloud saves. A Steam Deck would be perfect! They also have free games from time to time and Sales every season plus some monthly sales.

The other handy thing is you can install EmuDeck and play all games from retro platforms such as GameBoy, GameCube, Arcade games, PS1-3, XBoxes, Megadrive, NES, Supernintendo, etc. The list is too big to put here, plus you can also run emulators for old computers such as Ataris, Commodores (64, 128, Amiga, etc), MSX .. You name it since it also has MAME/MESS you can have hundreds of thousands of games at your fingertips easily installed and played.

I downloaded a bunch of games from my Steam Library and installed EmuDeck with a bunch of games and I have about 300Gb out of 1Tb used already 😀

I’ve been playing Balatro, Bioshock, Ori, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Crazy Taxi, Insaniquarium, KeeperRL, Super Meatboy and more!

I also have recently installed the Decky plugin which lets you install other useful plugins such as:

• ProtonDB – Adds ProtonDB badges to tell you how likely the game you own will run easily on the Steam Deck.
• HLTB – How long to beat a game.
• VibrantDeck – Makes your Steam Library view and games look more vibrant – particularly on the OLED Deck.
• FreeGames – Notifies you when there’s free games to get from Epic, Steam, etc.
• AutoFlatPacks – Automatically notifies and updates non-Steam Flatpack installs (eg Firefox)
• AnimationChanger – Lets you add new themes to customise your Deck when it boots/shuts down, etc
• ControllerTools – Displays your PS4/XBox/other controller battery status and more!
• DiscordStatus – Adds the current game you’re playing on your Deck to your Discord status.

There’s several other useful addons to choose from.

At the end of last year I decided to write a port of the Commodore 64 game H.E.R.O. for the Dick Smith VZ200 and VZ300 computers.

I wrote it using the Multi-Platform Arcade Game Designer software. This makes it much easier to design games since it has built-in sprite and code designing all in the one package.

You fly your backpack helicopter around the various caves and try to rescue the trapped miners. You will need to use dynamite to blow up walls blocking your progress and shoot critters with your laser gun.

It was quite fun to make and I’m glad it’s completed so others can enjoy the game.

There’s a link on the Blue Bilby website to the itch.io page for the game.