Quoting: MohandevirAre the Steam Deck's original thumbsticks an issue? Personally I have no reason to change them, but I might just be lucky...

I don't think so, but mine developed some mechanical slop and by this a bit of drift in one of the sticks.
Still well within the factory deadzones (which I greatly reduced) and they work fine, but it feels off around the centre position and when clicking.

The reason for this damage seems to be that I occasionally carry my Deck in a somewhat heavy backpack, the included case offers less protection that you might expect as it flexes easily around the sticks.

So I'd be looking at possibly replacing the modules over that down the line, the rest of my Deck being pristine, aside from some wear on the trackpads and triggers and some mild scratches around the charge port and on the back.
But as the potmeters are not the problem, might as well get originals, I can transplant the pots of the old sticks later for another repair too.

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Have given the Demo a try after finding out about it through this article.
The Linux-native version does not work due to a Steam misconfiguration, they have included a script that fixes the library issue but Steam is configured to launch the raw executable.
Switched to Proton as the Linux version also messed up my display settings, had to disable V-Sync too to mitigate annoying jitter.

Enough on this technical ramble, about the game itself.
I greatly dislike all the music found in the Demo, just hyperactive vaguely musical noise all around.
Some of the timing beats seem off, accidentally hitting multiple keys and long presses are also read weirdly, the latter not considering release time.
The UI is neat if lacking in any variation.

But it's so far the only thing that actually got me to touch-type properly and mostly thanks to my keyboard, I do find it fun.
Will probably buy the game over that, a game does not have to be good to be enjoyable after all.

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Quoting: JuliusThis is really starting to sound like a slot machine... I wonder if that is intentional?

It probably is, going by the analysis made in this video; https://youtu.be/bkVKLPvXBUc [External Link]
It's an interesting analysis of how games use such psychological tricks to either make the game more fun (like Vampire Survivors) or drain money from it's players (what many mobile games do).

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Quoting: slaapliedjeI had a hard time liking it. It does have great character, but I guess I just got the 'oh, I have played this for 10 years already, I will go do something else.' Vibe from it. It always felt like it was just on the cusp of being fun. Though maybe that is because I got lost after a while.

Interesting thoughts about it. I have only shortly tried DRG but disliked it then.
Mainly as the dwarfs their lines aren't my humour (disabled these) and because I didn't find much enjoyment in the gameplay.
But the latter is probably because I generally don't like FPSes and this probably being an FPS that does things differently for the sake of it, would be something I'd have a harder time appreciating, when I don't play similar games anyway.
Will definitely give it another try eventually but this would explain further why the game probably wouldn't be for me.
The devs still absolutely deserve their success ofc, it's great to see indie games get popular.

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Just as I thought I would be spared these kinds of end of year summaries, Steam introduces one.
Oh well.
Have a look, if you want. [External Link]
edit: Noticed a bug too, it says I comoleted all Century achievement, uh, I definitely didn't.

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This is a great update which I have been using since it was launched on the Preview channel, for the KDE Plasma update.
I use my Deck as a Linux tablet as much or more than a gaming machine and for this the newer Plasma version makes a big difference.
The recent keyboard and audio fixes (though the latter isn't fully solved) make it almost perfect.

But one regression in this update is the disabling of hardware acceleration for e.g. H.264.
WWhen streaming from Deck over Steam Link or Moonlight, it now runs hot and uses more battery from the x264 video encoding and sends a blurry image.

Some of the not particularly smart people on the Steam Fora are posting about working around this here [External Link].

Spoiler, click me

Am joking and referring to myself.

Or on the GitHub [External Link] issue too I suppose.

Update: As per the so far unannounced SteamOS 3.4.2 update, hardware acceleration has been enabled again!
This makes the update perfect for me, I will be sticking to Stable for a bit as the current Beta Client issues are annoying.

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My game of the year 2022 is Okami, as I played it for the first time this year.
With a fixed inputs community layout and some simple setting changes it plays perfectly, the trackpads and the Deck's screen suit the game incredibly well.

Though I suppose I could count the new Steam Input configurator as my 2022 released "game" of the year, for how it lets me control games and other programs in whichever way I please.
A somewhat extreme example of this is Vintage Story, which after making a complex layout for it on Steam Deck plays better there than with M+KB.

If we're calling Linux Distro's games too, Garuda Linux is my pick.
Expected to hate it will the over the top G4M3R default aesthetic and OS tweaks I was uncertain about, but after giving it a chance on my main desktop earlier this year, it became my preferred distro.
Though I've also read the rules and don't plan to start a distro fight here, nor will I give my favourite an absurd amount of praise for things other distros do as well too.

But I don't have an actual game released in 2022 which I would call my favourite, I mostly play older games or am active on Steam Discussions, Discord and YouTube on my Deck.

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Proton on my Deck hasn't updated to 7.0-5 yet, it downloaded 7.0-4 after opting out of the old RC beta.
I've checked the updates a few times, but it might take another day or clearing the download cache.
Not that it matters to me as I can switch to Next, but it would be needed for a game like AK to become Steam Deck Playable, which I know these devs are eager for.
edit: updated a day later
another edit: Apparently the AK devs had to "click a button" to confirm the Playable rating.
Which makes sense but also makes blaming devs for breaking compatibility (if it's on them) somewhat justified.

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Interestingly enough when I got my Deck the Dutch iDEAL system worked but this broke down the line.
Not 100% certain on this but it might have worked on 3.2 and stopped working in 3.3.
I have not tested whether this update fixed it nor will I soon but it's nice that this patch is supposed to fix it.
Interestingly, at least for my bank, the Desktop popup shortly didn't work too, but this was before I received my Deck and was fixable by copying the popup URL to an external webbrowser and closing Steam's popup after completing the payment.

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Particularly annoying is the onscreen keyboard randomly sending a return keypress on the first R2 press with trigger clicks enabled.
Waiting for a short bit before typing does not seem to make a difference, in the latest client updates it is better but not fixed.
With the inability of using modifier keys with it and closing and opening it for such input, herein rolling the dice again, using it is more annoying than it should be.
Especially after having gotten good enough with it to not need a physical keyboard even for writing walls of text,
his frequently happens.

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