Space Drilling Station looks fun for building and automation fans - with a new Steam Deck compatible demo

Space Drilling Station has you manage and automate a drilling station on a distant planet. The developer detailed their Steam Deck work with a new demo.

My first time hearing about this one when finding it today. Here you build your station by making very careful use of space with vertical building. Not only are you building up a facility and automating things, but you also need to address the needs of all your people too.

You'll be dealing with assigning roles to all your workers to achieve the best efficiency, keeping an eye on their health and wellbeing and sorting out various production lines through your big tower. Check out the first trailer below:

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The developer wrote a Steam news post announcing they've managed to get the first playable demo working well even on a Steam Deck, after the developer noted they received one as a gift and dedicated to get it fully working. Part of their work was ensuring the controls for such a game weren't overwhelming, along with sorting out performance issues and making sure text on the smaller screen was readable.

Here's what they said:

🎮 Controls: Less Is More!

At first, I wanted to use all of the Steam Deck's options: trackpads, joysticks, buttons... I thought it was awesome to exploit every possibility. Except, when playing, I quickly realized it was anything but pleasant. My "lazy" side took over, and I got tired of juggling between trackpads and joysticks. So I radically simplified: goodbye trackpads! I streamlined the controls to use only the bare minimum, making the experience much smoother and more intuitive.

📉 The Performance Wall: Chasing Milliseconds!

Once the controls were set, I hit the performance wall head-on. I knew my game wasn't an optimization champion, but on the Steam Deck, it was a disaster! I spent a good week tracking every millisecond, juggling parameters to find the right balance between fluidity and visual quality, and most importantly, to avoid draining the battery in less than 30 minutes. A real headache!

📜 The "Verified" Holy Grail: Valve's Requirements

Valve has very strict guidelines for the "Verified" badge. I had to face two big challenges: making all text readable from 30 cm away (you almost needed a magnifying glass before!) and removing all mentions of a mouse or keyboard. That meant redoing all the in-game videos and explanations so they were perfectly adapted to the Steam Deck. A huge amount of work!

🙏 A Month Later, Pride!

More than a month after receiving my Steam Deck, I'm incredibly proud to have managed to solve all the issues. It's immense satisfaction to see Space Drilling Station come to life on this machine.

I sincerely hope you'll enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it compatible. Please don't hesitate to give me your feedback; it's essential for continuing to improve the game!

Right onto my personal wishlist it goes.