New Deck client is out for Beta and Preview users. This fixes the reboot loop that could occur when failing to update a broken Steam install (could this perhaps fix the “brick” situation that I had described last weekend?). The New Big Picture Mode got some improvements as well – Steam controller dongle pairing is now possible, and controllers can be turned off when exiting BPM. As far as Steam Input, the ThrustMaster eSwap PRO Xbox controller has been added, and the long delay when connecting Razer keyboards should no longer be present.

Fraymakers is a game that I’ve been following closely. It’s basically a pixel-art platform fighter with mechanics that are akin to the Smash Brothers series. The team behind it is McLeodGaming, who also made Super Smash Flash and Super Smash Flash 2. This was originally slated to be released in Early Access on Steam back in August. It’s been pushed back and now we’ve finally got a release date: January 18th.

So, those GLIBC developers…they have a tendancy of breaking things related to anti-cheat (particularly EAC). So much so that even Valve’s own Pierre-Loup Griffais had complained about it, mentioning that this “contributes to damaging the idea of desktop Linux as a viable target for third-party developers.” If you’re on Arch Linux on desktop, or you’re using the Steam Deck, you might not be able to get certain games with EAC to run anymore, because both platforms updated to the latest version of GLIBC.

Small but important update out for both stable and preview branches on the Deck. SteamOS 3.4.4 (stable) fixes an update loop that could occur when doing a factory reset. 3.4.5 (preview) – in addition to adding the update loop fix – also fixes a focus issue with Forza Horizon 5.

Small update for Cemu – the Nintendo Wii U emulator that went open-source a few months ago – is now out. Changes include: CMake find module for Wayland added to Linux version, Wayland is now optional optimized timer code for MacOS fix “c” showing up in account list for saves better motion support for supported controllers with the AppImage See the commit history since December 13th to see more info.

Couch-oriented gaming distro ChimeraOS gets an update for the month of December, just before the new year. Highlights include: improved Intel GPU driver support for the Deck UI – useful on handhelds that use Intel-based processors screen orientation and resolution fixes for AOKZOE A1 and OneXPlayer Mini Pro improved support for external NTFS drives bug fixes for AppImages and SD card auto-mounting on boot controller support for GPD Win Max 2, OXP Mini Pro, Anbernic Win600, AOKZOE A1 “Format SD Card” button in Deck UI should now work See the patch notes on GitHub.

It’s not really news at this point (that’s what happens when I’m a day late), but Steam now has a Replay feature. This gives you an overview of what your top games were for that year, top genres, the platforms you played on percentage-wise, etc. Let’s go over what I played this year. I played 75 games, 42 of which were new. Top games, ordered from most-played to least, include:

It’s been well worth the three-month wait for today’s SteamTinkerLaunch update. We’ve got so many new features, improvements, and bug fixes with the “Still Alive” update that is v12.0. Those of you who use this Swiss army knife utility on Steam Deck, and those of you who use mods with Sonic Frontiers, should be particularly excited about this update, as there’s some goodies tossed in your way. To start, frostworx, the original author of STL, has stepped down as maintainer.

We’ve got a sweet new release for the excellent ProtonUp-Qt app, for managing all of your compatibility tools for Steam, Lutris, and more. When viewing your game list, you can now check the ProtonDB ranking with the simple click of a button. Super convenient! NorthstarProton and Steam-Play-None have been added as compatibility tools. The former is “a Proton build based on TKG’s Proton-tkg build system to run the Northstar client on Linux and SteamDeck, along with some enhancements out-of-the-box.

PhobGCC. Chances are you’ve probably never heard of it. Allow GitHub to explain what it is: The PhobGCC is a replacement motherboard for Gamecube controllers that reads stick position using magnets and Hall effect sensors instead of potentiometers that can wear out. It offers an advanced digital snapback filter that doesn’t reduce responsiveness and actually improves responsiveness in Melee. It also features gate calibration, swappable buttons, and facilitates installation of discrete switches on the D-pad and face buttons.