Albion Online & Cardpocalypse + 1 More - Steam Deck Tested | Aug 21
Kia ora Everyone!
Not much to report from this past week. If you saw my post a while back about my poor car getting damaged, it finally went in to the panel beaters on Thursday. I won’t get it back until sometime Tuesday, but at least it’ll be all fixed up when I do.
On the gaming front, Eben and I have finally gotten stuck into some games. Eben finished Tomb Raider: Game of the Year Edition and has moved on to Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration, and he seems to be having a good time with it. Nice to see him getting some quality game time instead of working all hours.
As I mentioned last week, Steelrising gave me a jolt of energy for gaming again. Funny thing is I’ve barely touched it since. Instead I went back and finished Echo Generation: Midnight Edition, and it was a lot of fun. I love the 90s feel and spotting things I remember from growing up. I kind of miss cassette tapes and video stores, although we still have the odd one in the smaller towns here in NZ. Seeing an old computer and floppy disks in there was cool too. Those were the days, and this was a nice way to relive those simpler times for a bit.
Not sure what I’ll play next. Maybe Caravan SandWitch, or I might get back to Steelrising. Mostly I’m just happy to have the motivation to keep playing. If you’ve got a suggestion, send it my way. I’m open to pretty much any type of game, so let me know if there’s something I should try.
Current System Setup
- Junk Store Pro: v3.2.0.0 (Stable Channel)
- Junk Store Plugin: v1.1.13 (Main/Default)
- Decky Loader: v3.2.8-pre1 (Pre-release)
- Proton: GE-Proton 11.1
- SteamOS: v3.8.16 (Stable)
This Week’s Featured Games View Full List →
Epic Games Giveaway
This week featuring Albion Online, Cardpocalypse.
Still works out of the box and launches without any issues, just make sure you've got an Albion account set up before you start. MMOs aren't my thing, but if this one is your sort of game then grab the Epic Mage Bundle that's on offer this week as part of Epic's weekly giveaways.
View compatibility details →
A neat deckbuilder where you play a kid on their first day at a new school. It's set in the 90s, so it'll scratch that nostalgia itch if you grew up then like we did. From what I've seen the plot looks similar to Echo Generation, with monsters to fight, and I'm not sure I want to tackle it so close on the heels of that one. It's going on the backlog though, because it does look like a bit of fun. The card battles are quick, the mechanics are easy to pick up, and the story is pretty relatable if you were a 90s kid.
View compatibility details →Amazon Prime Gaming
This week featuring Spray Paint Simulator.
This one is absorbing and weirdly cathartic. I lost about an hour without noticing, just happily spray painting things and watching them slowly transform. Then at the end you pull off all the prep work, the masking tape and the paper, and it reminded me of antifouling our boat. It's so rewarding seeing the end result of all that effort. I might keep this on my Deck for the days when I need a pick me up.
View compatibility details →Looking Forward
Next up on the free games front:
Epic Games: Epic’s got Rival Stars Horse Racing: Desktop Edition and Breathedge coming this week. Breathedge has been given away before, so you may already have it sitting in your Epic library. I think it was free on Steam not that long ago too, and when I last tested it, it worked out of the box. Rival Stars I’m less sure about. I do like a sim and tend to get sucked into them even when I’m not sold at first, so this one will probably hook me whether I want it to or not. We won’t know for sure until I’ve tested it.
Amazon Prime Gaming: Two Epic codes from Prime this week, Clash: Artifacts of Chaos and Havendock. Havendock has been given away by Epic before, so here’s your chance to grab it if you missed out and you’ve got an Amazon Luna (Prime Gaming) account. Clash looks great, and watching the gameplay footage has me excited. It looks like the sort of game that keeps me motivated and looking forward to a session.
What did you make of this week’s giveaways? I’d love to hear how you get on with them if you give any a go.
For game-specific issues, feedback, or just a chat, you'll still find us on Discord or Reddit.
As always we hope you’ve had an awesome weekend,
Annie & Eben (aka The Junk Store Team)