What's On Deck?
It's the eternal question: What game should I play? For me it's all very mood, time, and energy dependant, but it's also… quite hard.
I've had a Steam account since 2014 and the chronology of my library follows many emerging trends in gaming, and reflects many crests and troughs in my enthusiasm for various genres. This all means that my library is a mixed bag and finding something to play can be a real challenge.
The Steam Store doesn't make things a whole lot easier. It does a better job than many other libraries granted, but it groans under the weight of its own success. In today's landscape of digital abundance, game discovery is an overwhelmingly big issue.
So On Deck is my space to write and create content about games that I've found, played and enjoyed (or not). It's also a bit of a mid-life crisis. I'm not trying to plant a media tentpole, or build a following, but rather create a space to write and create video content about one of the few hobbies that has persisted over the years. In my professional career the gaming industry has treated me well. I miss being emerged in it.
I've been a gamer, writer, magazine editor, and hardware enthusiast most of my life, but things really warmed up for me when I got my first 'proper' PC around 16 years old (thanks Grandma... miss you).
The kindly old gentleman from one town over that built it later helped me create my own launch menu in DOS so I could quickly access games like Doom, Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max hit the Road with a few taps of the arrow keys. It was PowerMenu or Menu-Matic - something like that. I forget the details, but from that day I was obsessed.
24 broom handles and 47 heads later, my gaming PC still sits under my desk. But these days it lies largely dormant. I have scarcely booted it up since Microsoft buried Windows 10 and - were it not for the Steam Deck - I think my gaming hobby would've been buried along with it.
Somehow Steamdeck has given me permission to enjoy my hobby again, and for that I'm really quite grateful.
I hope you find something fun to play and drop me a line if you have any recommendations.
Russell
