The ‘restored’ version is an official ROM hack of the NES version, so it can be played on the NES itself too via a flashcart.

Pokémon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire; unironically more addictive than the mainline Pokémon games.

The loss of built-in PWA support was the biggest disappointment I had when switching from Chrome to Firefox, with the add-on solutions I tried having one problem or another in replicating my goal of making opening a handful of websites I had set to be PWAs look as much like regular applications as possible. While I wouldn’t switch back to Chrome in a second, and am still trying to get the rest of my family to make the switch, there’s a number of things Firefox needs to implement to remove the remaining roadblocks for people looking to make the switch away from Chrome or another Chromium browser.

While I’m no fan of Epic Games for bribing companies to keep games off of Steam for a year or more, Valve’s market dominance in PC game sales isn’t a good thing for developers or consumers.

I’d hardly count something like a simple Solitaire clone app that could be otherwise played for free as a full game release… In terms of actual games, I’d much rather support mobile ports that can be bought for a one time price tag than those that are locked behind a subscription in perpetuity.

All states except Maine and Nebraska tally votes cast statewide and allocate all electoral votes from that state to the winner. Specific concentrations of voters in those states aren’t factored into the allocation.

Admittedly I did need a guide at times for Quern too; I think the best compromise is what Cyan did for Firmament and just include an optional hint system in the game itself. By avoiding the need to consult walkthroughs, not only would excessive spoilers be avoided, but the experience would remain self-contained, something especially important for a VR game.

Something they didn’t fix for the Myst remake that the Myst-like Quern is much better at is not making puzzles so obscure as to essentially require a guide to complete the game. Was anything done about that problem for the Riven remake?

Good on the EU for supporting consumer rights over corporate profits.

Just because it’s the norm doesn’t mean it’s not excessive. In contrast, Apple’s implementation of a 30% cut is even worse, since with an iPhone you can’t just install an app from another source (and even when you can in the case of the EU, there are recurring costs for doing so). Since Steam accounts for the majority of PC video game sales, with AAA titles only not releasing on it when they have a clear financial motive not to, Valve’s use of a price parity clause effectively makes it the arbiter of what the industry standard markup on PC should be.

Valve could still operate as it currently does, including having sufficient profits to account for R&D and long-term costs, at a lower cut of platform sales (as another commenter mentioned, Gabe Newell’s billion dollar yacht collection is demonstrative of the platform’s profitability, especially when one considers how much it costs to maintain ships). Products such as the Steam Deck make money for Valve too, as Steam Deck users (myself included) statistically buy more games on Steam as a result. I don’t support profiteering efforts by game publishers either, such as the Factorio price increase attributed to inflation, $70 game releases attributed to inflation when digital releases have reduced their costs, and micro transactions in general. In any case, however, given that cost increases are always the consumer’s responsibility, cost decreases should not simply be a means for companies to bolster their profit margins.

Just because there’s an outdated industry standard doesn’t mean it should be perpetuated, let alone supported, for eternity. Valve’s server hosting costs on a per-installation basis have fallen substantially since they first launched Steam, so there’s no reason why the 30% cut is still necessary; even 20% would leave them a sizable profit margin. I’m not a fan of the Epic Game Store for bribing companies to not release their games on Steam for a set amount of time, and choose not to use it as a result, but it’s time that the 30% industry standard be dropped. In purchasing a game I want to support continued development of that franchise, and $15 of a $50 purchase going to the storefront is not only excessive and inflationary, but harms developers as well.

Doesn’t this essentially integrate similar functionality to what one of the Decky plugins had been used for? Great that it’s an official feature now, in any case.

Valve distinguishes between the Steam Deck and other Linux systems in their monthly Steam usage statistics.

No worries, Minesweeper’s definitely a classic!

While Minesweeper’s a great example, since random levels are a feature of nearly every Minesweeper iteration in existence, I mentioned in my post that I was excluding such games from the list. For those looking for such a game though, Globesweeper and Tilesweeper are great options.

While it seems that the new startup movie is exclusive to the 1TB OLED model, is that model’s exclusive keyboard theme the same as the prior 512GB Steam Deck (DEX-85) or a new one?

A remake of Riven in the same vein as the latest Myst remake is among the next projects that Cyan Worlds is working on, so it might be worth waiting until it releases to play Riven.

I’ve been meaning to do a puzzle game recommendation overview on kbin after forgetting to back up an old post on the subject before purging my Reddit account, but I’ll share a few recommendations for the time being. Given that lots of Steam games are a much better deal if you wait for the Winter or Summer sales, I’ll list the regular and expected sale prices as such: (Regular/Sale). Since you’ve played the Portal Games and TSP, other three-dimensional exploration puzzle games in that vein include The Witness ($40/$10), The Talos Principle ($30/$4.50), Quern: Undying Thoughts ($25/$10), and Lightmatter ($20/$7). Among those, I think Quern is the best due to its resemblance to Myst without the solutions to most puzzles being overly obscure. Other three-dimensional puzzle games that focus less on exploration and more on puzzles include The Room Collection ($25/$7) and The House of Da Vinci Complete Bundle ($54/$27), with both series sold as individual games as well.

In terms of longevity, some 2D puzzle games have—in addition to their regular puzzle sets—daily puzzle sets or custom puzzle generation, adding to replay value at the cost of a degree of repetitiveness. These include LYNE ($3/$1.50) and LOOP: A Tranquil Puzzle Game ($5/$2.50), among others.

Steam games are though, which generates far more revenue than Steam Deck sales alone.