what is currently your favourite game to play on your steam deck/handheld right now?

Yall got too much money

Sounds like you should be paid more
- I’m unemployed and broke, but you're right.

Dead Cells. Started like a month ago, and can't put it down.

Came back to Slay the Spire to beat the game with some of the other characters. It’s great on steam deck and the iOS app is nice too. The whole card game concept has finally clicking with me as I realize I should endeavor to make my deck as small as possible, not as large, so have started skipping most card rewards and removing cards from my deck as much as possible. This means the cards I actually want to play will come up more times.

It really took me a while to figure out that removing cards from your deck is a good thing most of the time. Balatro works the same way.

Creating custom wrestlers in WWF No mercy (N64)

Got a huge crusty guy that I named "General Strike"

The Legend Of Zelda TOTK using an emulator, with some mods for optimization to get quasi stable 25-30 fps

peekaboo
- Peeaky Boos

I was playing MHGU but I fucking hate the Nibelsnarf fight so I have taken a hiatus.

Elden ring still. About to tick into my 500th hour of playtime

Elden ring plays fine on the steam deck? If so damn I need to get one
- Yes!
  
  Mostly low/medium settings, drop the resolution to 1024x960, enable FSR in the Deck’s settings, cap the framerate to 45 FPS and it’ll mostly stay there.
  
  I’m usually really sensitive to anything below 60fps but for some reason it feels very smooth and playable this way.
- It plays okay ish on low settings in docked mode. I wouldn't try it in handheld. 20-30fps usually. All my 500 hours are not on deck although a healthy portion of them are.
I don't think I've ever got more than 100 hours in a game before. It must be really good.
- I just really like the genre. If you add up all my time in the souls games it is in the thousands. I'm not even that good I just really like them

I'm playing Castlevania Symphony of the Night for the first time on my phone. I do connect my Bluetooth controller for boss fights, because the touchscreen controls are jank if I really need fine control. It's crazy how much stuff is in this game, and the sprite work is unreal.

Soundtrack is amazing. I have a bright green Greatest Hits copy that is sitting in a shoebox in my closet waiting to be replayed.
I should check it out!

Hades II Signalis Cassette Beasts

Balatro, although I wish there was a mobile version, because it seems like a waste to play it on the Deck.

I got Skater XL from a recent Humble Bundle, and it runs really well. If you've ever played the Skate series, the controls are really similar where you do almost everything with the sticks, so I've unfortunately kinda stopped playing it on the Deck after someone online made a good point that it'll probably wear the sticks out really fast. I also got Bomb Rush Cyberfunk recently, and it's a good facsimile until Sega releases a new Jet Set Radio.

Other than that, a bunch of shmups and emulated games, especially MAME.

For what it’s worth, the stick’s are really easily replaceable. Maybe 15 minutes for the whole procedure and that’s just time spent unscrewing it.

I was surprised how expensive those replacements were though

There are tons, haha, but I'm currently playing Fear & Hunger. MAJOR CW on that one, of every type, but it's a dark mess I can't help but want to push deeper into the dungeon.

Signalis was amazing, the anticommunism was cringe but the personal story being told made me ball my eyes out.

Next up on my list is Crosscode, but it has bugs with OLED screens. Also going to play Disco Elysium, Cassette Beasts, and maybe Monster Hunter: Rise to prepare for Wilds.

Cool picks!

Monster Hunter: GU

Love playing Pokemon HGSS on a phone. The UI is perfect for phone emulation

Bad answer but the DS version of Shiren the Wanderer. Great game to poke at, easy to pick up and put down.

No bad answers

I’m playing Sea of Stars on my Switch. Very good classic RPG feel with interesting game mechanics and a cool story.

Looks great!

Slay the Spire has been my boo for the past two years on ny Switch Lite. I peck away at Celeste here and there but StS is just so damn well-made.

I have a retro handheld now but have paralysis analysis on what game to dive into there. Gotten through some of Advance Wars 2 and Fire Emblem on GBA as well as Lost Vikings on SNES; while also dabbling in Suikoden 1, a GBA Castlevania, and various platformers

Favorite use might be when I had a friend who also played guild wars 2. They could play on the deck while I was on the desktop, and it was basically couch co-op.

For the intended use, I think I put a lot of time into Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 and bravely default 2. Good couch games.

Balatro and Cult of the Lamb

VSCodium

One of my friends really likes Amazing Cultivation Simulator on his steam deck

I've been playing alot of Dying Light 2, The Crew, and some No Man's Sky.

I was a teenage exocolonist. It's kind of like a life sim, where you're put on a remote planet to get away from an apocalyptic Earth and you grow up learning about the history and nature of humanity and colonization, while reckoning with your own impact on the planet that your people have escaped to. It's got some surprising depth to it.