Does “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” count for both?

We don’t know. Valve has said they have no plans for a Steam Deck 2 any time soon, not until they can offer whatever they consider to be a substantial enough upgrade. It’s possible ARM could be a means to that end, but we don’t know. FEX probably needs to make a lot more progress before they can even consider it. Maybe it will by the time Deck 2 enters the conversation. We don’t know.

Attending Combo Breaker is the highlight of my year every year. In 2025 I was able to fit Frosty Faustings into my travel budget too. Managed to place 17th in Mystery Bracket both times, and they were very wild bracket runs. I saw Gyakuten Puzzle Bancho and turned to my opponent to utter a sentence no one wants to hear in Mystery: “I’m sorry, I know how to play this game.” Also at CB I was able to make it out of pools in Under Night In-Birth II, and it was a hella stacked bracket so I’m pretty happy with that one.

Been focusing more on my mahjong career, attended Riichi Nomi Open and Philadelphia Riichi Open as my first two tournaments. Didn’t do so hot though. But of course, when I win it’s because I’m skilled, when I lose it was just bad luck.

New arcade opened up near me with modded Maimai, Wacca, and Chunithm cabinets. I told myself I’m never going back to Round 1 again, though R1 does have the new official international Maimai now so I guess that’s something. I also got back into Dance Dance Revolution a little, but I’m still not very good.

As for actual new releases, Deltarune is obvious. Kirby Air Riders is a sequel I waited 22 years for, and it was worth the wait. The original is one of my favorite games of all time and I’m blown away by how much higher they raised the bar. Online City Trial is everything childhood me ever dreamed of. And I have to shout out Rhythm Doctor finally exiting Early Access, the final chapter is a wonderful conclusion that gave me a lot of emotions.

Visual novels would be good if you’re looking for something low-energy.

I respect Sakurai saying he put everything he wanted into the base game and doesn’t want to do DLC. But man, I just can’t stop thinking how cool it would be to add the classic City map as an alternate. Feels like a big omission.

And Adeleine.

One of the bonus levels in Rhythm Doctor is a Bits and Bops collab. There’s also an Unbeatable level, so it’s a funny coincidence to have all three games launch in the same week.

The people who want to leave, did. The only ones still there have dug in their heels.

People stay on mainstream corporate platforms no matter how badly they enshittify because that’s where everyone else is. They don’t want to jump ship unless everyone else will jump ship with them, and so nobody makes the first move.

Lemmy isn’t more popular because Lemmy isn’t more popular. Lemmy wants to be an alternative to Reddit, but the best thing Reddit had going for it was all the niche communities for fandoms, hobbies, and other interests. That’s something that just can’t exist here, because if you take a niche thing and multiply it by a niche platform, I’ll bet that I might very well be the only person on this platform who is into some of my hyperfixations. So people who want to talk about topics that have no community here, leave and go back to bigger platforms.

I’m still here to try and push for a better future, but I honestly don’t know how we can grow this place to the kind of critical mass it would take to really get the ball rolling.

Boing.

I don’t think every Fediverse platform needs to support every type of post, and I especially don’t think it’s an impending catastrophe if they don’t. In fact I think it’s better to specialize. Even though Mbin supports microblogging, I prefer using this account solely for threads and a separate Pleroma account for microblogging.

I wouldn’t worry. Dread was extremely well received, and set up a big plot hook for a continuation.

How do they deal with CSAM and other illegal material? (I’m guessing the answer is that they don’t)

I think you’re describing the Nintendo DS.

Kirby Air Riders definitely feels like it keeps that spirit alive. The game could’ve just been City Trial and I would’ve paid $70 just to play City Trial, but they packed everything else in there too because they could.

The Fiend’s Cauldron from Kid Icarus Uprising. At the start of a stage, you have to wager currency on how high of a difficulty you want to attempt, on a sliding scale from 0.0 to 9.0. Higher difficulties cost more to play, and if you fail, you lose your bet and the difficulty drops if you choose Continue. It’s an interesting system for how it forces you to check your ego and self-evaluate just how much you think you can handle.

TF2 was the original gacha game.

If I’m going to put 100+ hours into a game, there better be a setting to mute BGM, because no matter how good the OST is I will eventually tire of it and want to listen to something else.

Grinding evasion by dual wielding shields and attacking yourself is peak game design.

If you’d read the article, Valve says they’re working with anticheat devs to come up with a solution together. This can only happen with their cooperation, if Valve somehow could bypass it on their own that would represent a vulnerability that should and would get patched.

TBH, I kinda get the feeling that’s what most of the hype surrounding the Machine is. People hoping it sells well, but not necessarily people planning to buy one for themselves.