It’s been about a year since Valve announced the Steam Deck. Back then, I pre-ordered it as soon as I could, then things were quiet for a year. A few days ago I received the availability notice:
I completed the purchase, and it arrived a few days later.
Steam Deck Arrival
I unpacked it, plugged in the charger, and turned it on. The initial setup was effectively just entering my credentials and waiting for it to be ready to use. Using a Steam Deck for the first time was quite interesting.
The hardware side already feels a bit familiar with some similarities to the Steam Controller tech. The Steam Deck’s touchpads use a similar haptic feedback system to make them feel like physical omnidirectional flywheels (flyspheres?).
On the software side, the Steam Deck’s UI seems to not borrow as much from Big Picture mode. It is more of a refined, controller-friendly experience similar to what you get on a computer. I generally don’t play anything with a controller, but with a bit of practice, it is very easy to navigate and move around. Kids will pick this up in seconds.
The next step is getting a Godot game running on it.
Development snapshot #4 of Godot Engine 4.1 is here. Among many other changes, it fixes a lighting issue related to using Light-only mode in CanvasItemMaterial (#44559). Unfortunately, it also introduced a UX issue with gradient color pickers (#77745), which makes it quite difficult to work with gradients at all. If you use gradients, I recommend …
This release addresses an issue that arose due to Godot 4.4 changes in how JSON is deserialized. Relevant Godot issues: #103374 and #61464. Makes sense why it was changed, but it might impact anyone unaware who’s consuming a JSON-based API, and wondering why responses may not be as expected. In addition, this release now includes character damage and …
This release contains the new Godot editor integrations. It offers an Item Library bottom panel that makes it easier to manage your inventory item types, and an inspector plugin that lets you edit items in a GGItemCollection. This also reduces the need for manually creating GGItemData resources, which simplifies item management at design time significantly. …
Godot Engine 4.0 has been released per official announcement. With version 4.0, Godot has gone through “3+ years of breaking and rebuilding from the ground up, a complete core overhaul and a full engine rewrite, through 17 alphas, 17 betas and 6 release candidates“. The announcement post is credited to “2000+ Godot contributors.” It’s a …
My Steam Deck has arrived!
It’s been about a year since Valve announced the Steam Deck. Back then, I pre-ordered it as soon as I could, then things were quiet for a year. A few days ago I received the availability notice:
I completed the purchase, and it arrived a few days later.
Steam Deck Arrival
I unpacked it, plugged in the charger, and turned it on. The initial setup was effectively just entering my credentials and waiting for it to be ready to use. Using a Steam Deck for the first time was quite interesting.
The hardware side already feels a bit familiar with some similarities to the Steam Controller tech. The Steam Deck’s touchpads use a similar haptic feedback system to make them feel like physical omnidirectional flywheels (flyspheres?).
On the software side, the Steam Deck’s UI seems to not borrow as much from Big Picture mode. It is more of a refined, controller-friendly experience similar to what you get on a computer. I generally don’t play anything with a controller, but with a bit of practice, it is very easy to navigate and move around. Kids will pick this up in seconds.
The next step is getting a Godot game running on it.
Related Posts
Godot Engine 4.1.dev4 is available
Development snapshot #4 of Godot Engine 4.1 is here. Among many other changes, it fixes a lighting issue related to using Light-only mode in CanvasItemMaterial (#44559). Unfortunately, it also introduced a UX issue with gradient color pickers (#77745), which makes it quite difficult to work with gradients at all. If you use gradients, I recommend …
Inventory System 2 Alpha 5 available
This release addresses an issue that arose due to Godot 4.4 changes in how JSON is deserialized. Relevant Godot issues: #103374 and #61464. Makes sense why it was changed, but it might impact anyone unaware who’s consuming a JSON-based API, and wondering why responses may not be as expected. In addition, this release now includes character damage and …
Inventory System 2 Alpha 2 available
This release contains the new Godot editor integrations. It offers an Item Library bottom panel that makes it easier to manage your inventory item types, and an inspector plugin that lets you edit items in a GGItemCollection. This also reduces the need for manually creating GGItemData resources, which simplifies item management at design time significantly. …
Godot Engine 4.0 released!
Godot Engine 4.0 has been released per official announcement. With version 4.0, Godot has gone through “3+ years of breaking and rebuilding from the ground up, a complete core overhaul and a full engine rewrite, through 17 alphas, 17 betas and 6 release candidates“. The announcement post is credited to “2000+ Godot contributors.” It’s a …