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The 2024 Steam Awards winners had been introduced final week, and whereas all the winners are wonderful video games, I discovered it very arduous to agree with a few of them. One of many ones that made much less sense to me was the winner of the Finest Recreation on Steam Deck award. God of Battle Ragnarok received the award, and whereas it is an incredible recreation, it is not the best to play on the go. The 4 different nominated video games are significantly better experiences, and I need to make the case for why I really feel Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Dealer ought to have received.
Now, all the different nominated video games deserve the prize, too. They’re all wonderful to play on the Steam Deck, however there’s one thing particular about Rogue Dealer that stands proud. At 30 FPS, Rogue Dealer is completely playable and runs fairly properly on the Steam Deck, however on high of that, there’s one thing particular about taking part in an immense recreation on a transportable machine. It makes the sport really feel that rather more particular to expertise, and with the ability to sleep and resume the machine at any time when with out closing the sport feels important for longer experiences like this.
On high of that, the quantity of labor the group put into making it as playable as potential on the Steam Deck is superior. I had the possibility not too long ago to ask developer Owlcat Video games a few questions on how they obtained the sport working on the Deck and obtained it optimized for the smaller display, and among the solutions actually amazed me.
The questions had been answered by two members of the group: Pavel Turchin, Lead UX/UI Engineer, and Anatoly Shestov, Govt Producer.
Query:
What particularly did the group do to get it optimized and working properly on the Deck?
Reply (Pavel):
The very first thing we did was to play on the Steam Deck ourselves through the developmentstage. Our group consists of individuals who want taking part in with a gamepad as a substitute of a PC, and someof them select the Steam Deck as their gaming console. I do not forget that earlier than the mainrelease, there have been fairly a couple of particular points, like unsupported video encoding or unreadablysmall textual content in character barks or tooltips. Fortunately, attentive group members observed and fixedthese issues in time. Typically, the strict textual content dimension necessities are a key facet of theSteam Deck.
Query:
Have been there any challenges you confronted as you continued to optimize?
Reply (Pavel):
Once we discuss optimization, it’s extra correct to think about optimization not simply forthe Steam Deck however for all console platforms. This, in fact, has been a giant problem for us.Consoles are way more restricted when it comes to assets. Our builders labored arduous to gatherevery little enchancment they might, piece by piece. We had been very joyful at any time when wemanaged to unlock even 10 MB of reminiscence.
We’ve all the time been dedicated to not compromising on the visible high quality of the sport. It seemsthat we’ve succeeded in sustaining a excessive customary of visuals whereas making certain the sport runsmoothly on consoles. For the Steam Deck, we created a particular video configuration designedspecifically for its specification.
Query:
Did the smaller display dimension of the Deck pose any points for textual content and UI dimension?
Reply (Pavel):
Sure, in fact! When creating for the Steam Deck, font dimension is way more essential than for traditional consoles. The Valve group can also be very thorough when reviewing builds for Steam Deck compatibility. To optimize the interface, we created a particular device that checks the display and alerts the QA engineer if any textual content is just too small.
An attention-grabbing second of the event was redrawing the gamepad button icons to makelabels like R1 and L1 simpler to learn. Whereas the scale was advantageous for different consoles, we needed to adjustit particularly for the Steam Deck.
Query:
Now that you’ve got gone via the optimization course of in your finish, would you say it wasworthwhile and advocate it to fellow builders to take the time to get their video games playableon the Steam Deck?
Reply (Anatoly):
Undoubtedly. We see that the viewers preferring to play our video games by way of steamdeckincreases – this clearly signifies that such efforts are worthwhile. And furthermore, it’s greatplatform for the video games, the place you don’t must rush and have time to assume earlier than doinganything.
Query:
How did you guys really feel once you noticed Rogue Dealer nominated for the Finest Steam DeckGame award on the Steam Awards?
Reply (Anatoly):
We had been fairly shocked. Primarily as a result of in direct communication with us, playerspraise us for our cautious presentation of setting, narrative, companions, and visuals, however thesentiment about consolation by no means proves to be probably the most vocal.
Query:
And eventually, what’s your present favourite recreation to play on the Steam Deck?
Reply:
Pavel: Proper now, I’m principally taking part in Hades. Hades has just one downside! Sadly, it’s not agame I can play on Steam Deck earlier than mattress—my spouse says I press the buttons too loudly andasks me to maneuver to a different room. 🙂 It’s such an incredible recreation! I’m thrilled that Rogue Traderis nominated in the identical class as Hades. It means our group did one thing proper, and we’llkeep striving to make it even higher.
Anatoly: For me, it is Tactical Breach Wizards. This recreation, good in its personal proper, appears to have beenoriginally designed for extremely localized areas, selections, and narrative – so it reveals itself in allits glory on the Steam Deck.
I’ve all the time cherished seeing builders get their video games working properly on Steam Deck, and I realized a few attention-grabbing elements of the optimization course of for Rogue Dealer. The truth that the group developed a selected device to detect if textual content is just too small on the display in order that they know the place to extend the textual content dimension was tremendous cool to be taught, and I respect that they went forward to redraw sure glyphs and icons to cater particularly to the Deck.
There are many wonderful titles to play on the Steam Deck, however nothing beats taking part in longer RPGs on the go. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Dealer is unquestionably one among my favorites, and though it shocked me just a little when it was nominated for the Finest Recreation on Steam Deck award, I do really feel it deserved to be there and even win fully.
I additionally need to give a giant thanks to Pavel, Anatoly, and Owlcat for answering my questions. It is all the time a pleasure to see how builders optimize their video games for the Steam Deck, and what particular strategies they should get it working properly.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Dealer might be bought on Steam for $49.99, however you will get it on GreenManGaming for $27.49.
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