Hi guys! So, yeah…Which games are good for a nice gaming session while on a flight? Last time I played one of the newer Tomb Raider games, and while performance was good, it decked (heh) the battery in less than 1h… So, while I like these too, if the flight doesn’t have a socket under the seat I might want to play games that don’t kill the battery immediately. What’s your best/most addictive Deck games? Also, after the whole big N mess…how’s the Switch emulation these days?
You can call me a shill,
But I just get an Anker Prime 27,650mAh battery bank because it supports 140w PD.
Lasts my wife and myself a 4 hours flight with maybe 30% left over.
I got it because it can charge my laptop as well.
Steam deck is 40Whr and the battery is nearly 100Whr.
So you’ll get 2.5 times longer playing time with it.
Same here (well, different model–26k and 87W–but same strategy). Even just as a backup in case of unexpected travel hiccups, a large (airline approved) PD-capable battery back is very handy to have. I never worry about finding an outlet in an aircraft or airport, and I’ve spent my fair share of time stranded in transit.
I’ve got a similar battery bank. It’ll turn 4 hours of capability into 12, with no issues.
Mine is a veektomx MAX65W. 20,000mah.
Just be aware of capacities. The limit is either 100Wh or 160Wh depending on the airline. That works out at 27,000mah or 43,250mah respectively. Most power banks are below this, but not all.
Second this, especially if you do want to play bigger games like Cyberpunk. Also tends to come in handy for road trips, or extended stays outside which I love.
Limitations are the spice of life
I have a small 10,000mAh power bank too, but given some countries restrictions, I refuse to travel with anything bigger. Some picky countries will take away (confiscate) anything bigger than 10k mAh. I already lost a 13,000mAh and another 15,000mAh on this mistake, on separate trips. This 10,000mAh power bank does provide some additional juice, but gets killed pretty fast.
Woah, which countries?
I’ve traveled quite a lot and no one has even bothered me about my size.
China I’m sure they did it. I think the second time it was… Vietnam maybe?
Stardew valley. Set tdp to lowest it can go. Doesn’t affect performance. I was getting like an 8 hr runtime estimate.
I’ve seen people get Stardew down to 3.8w on the original deck for 10+ hours. Think it requires tweaking CPU settings with Power tools though.
Most 2d games give me solid battery life. Hades, balatro, dead cells, pizza tower, streets of rage 4 all kept me entertained through cross country flights with no external power. But really you should just get a fat battery pack, it’s just plain useful for keeping all your devices topped up.
Most 2d games give me solid battery life
I can’t agree here, 2d games have the capacity to be extremely resource efficient but a lot of PC 2d games were developed by developers with monster gaming PCs and they never really bothered to optimize them.
Yeah I mean I definitely have games like Noita that are 2d and happily empty the battery in 2, 2.5 hours. Guess I was just speaking relatively to tomb raider, 2d games I can usually minimize the tdp with no performance impacts and carry on for 4 to 6 hours, compared to any average AAA 3d game that is going to have a hard stop around 1.5-3 hours.
I figure a cross country us flight is around 4.5 hours, those games I listed proved they go the distance. I’m struggling to think of a single 3d title that would make it.
I’m struggling to think of a single 3d title that would make it.
Xonotic would like a word
Well lol sure, I’ll concede there’s a whole world of games that were built for spec equivalents to a smart toaster that would stretch the battery. Just nothing I’d personally want to play. We already did the 90s.
Just nothing I’d personally want to play. We already did the 90s. I agree for most games, but boomer shooters/movement shooters have had a resurgence in popularity in the last couple of years, Dusk, Ion Fury, Doom, Post Void, Prodeus, Forgive Me Father etc etc… people clearly like them and the genre evidently has a lot of unexplored territory and a lot of potential younger fans who weren’t exposed to movement shooters in their heyday.
The thing is, the genre of arena shooters basically died entirely off, there may be niches of people playing old games like Quake 3 Arena (or Quake Live, basically same thing) but there is little innovation going on, it is more like nostalgic revisiting. Xonotic (formerly known as Nexuiz) is one of the few exceptions, it is an arena shooters/movement shooters that struck out on its own (years ago) with a movement style heavily inspired by Quake but with a much more creative and fun approach to weapons featuring alt fire modes for each weapon in the spirit of Unreal Tournament. Xonotic incorporates lessons learned from the decades the arena shooter genre has been around in a way other arena shooters/movement shooters have largely failed to do. For example the blaster being added to the starting weapons seems like a relatively trivial choice, but it is actually key to the success of Xonotic long term. The blaster being a starting weapon encourages newer players to experiment with rocket jump techniques while also putting rocket jump movement mechanics at the center of high skilled play. If you always spawn with the blaster, than it is natural to train with a focus on incorporating blaster rocket jumps into your movement at a deep level and that naturally nudges players to push the envelope of competitive movement and positioning.
For this reason, and many others including the extremely high skill ceiling of the bots you can play against offline, I think Xonotic is definitely a game people shouldn’t just look at and think “oh, another outdated 90s shooter that plays like the rest of them that I have already played to death”. Not to mention that Xonotic is a free and open source game that you can download directly from most linux package managers (on the Steam Deck just search for it in the Discover package manager while in Desktop Mode). Finally, to return to my original point, for people playing Xonotic on a powerful gaming computer, the age of the Darkplaces engine (continuous development stretching back to 1999 with Quake) is more a curiosity than anything, but for a mobile device with a limited battery, the extreme efficiency of the Darkplaces engine that Xonotic runs on takes on a whole new context. As intense as the action gets in Xonotic, my Steam Deck’s fan never even spins up except on an initial level load for a brieffff little whir.
If you want to zoom around arenas mindlessly blasting bots in a shooter where you can feel like you are always improving your shooter skills (that has a basically unlimited skill ceiling), that you can play in brief spurts on the go, Xonotic is… accidentally perfect. You could play a singleplayer boomer shooter, but the gameplay just isn’t going to be as fluid or deep as Xonotic even if Xonotic is just endless battles in multiplayer arenas with no meta progression (although the singleplayer campaign has a series of challenges that are genuinely fun to play through while still keeping it feeling fresh).
I explain my thoughts further, but the post got long and I didn't want to take up a huge amount of space for people who aren't interested
This duel between two high level Xonotic players is a good example of the diverse dynamics to Xonotic gunplay and movement. Movement gets EXTREMELY fast at points with huge leaps of mobility possible with the blaster, but also there are moments of slow tension and posturing. The movement in Xonotic, especially when you incorporate blaster jumps, is just fun as hell. Bunny hopping and swooping around feels so good compared to the uninspired movement mechanics of most modern shooters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zp5md9iRrU
Ok, so I made an argument for Xonotic as not just another 90s shooter to forget about, but you might have a stereotype in your head that playing a Quake style game with joysticks like the Steam Deck has, would be hell… It is true that if you aren’t familiar with playing console shooters with a gamepad and have only ever used a mouse and keyboard (like pretty much 100% of other arena shooter players lol) you might find it difficult. However, if you have familiarity with playing halo or whatever… all you have to do is to incorporate gyroscope mouse control as a complement to your joystick aiming and once you get comfortable with it you can easily compete in most shooters with average to above average mouse and keyboard players (no autoaim required) though of course you are going to have a big disadvantage with a lower resolution & refresh rate monitor. What then about strafe jumping? Wouldn’t that be annoying pressing the jump button every time or having to hold a jump button (usually one of the face buttons, A on the xbox)?
This is where things start to become almost comical with Xonotic unintentionally being the perfect Steam Deck shooter. Using the below control scheme strafe jumping somehow feels MORE natural with joystick movement control than with a mouse and keyboard, which sounds like an absurd claim given how this genre of shooters, next to the rts genre, is the genre of gaming that the superiority of mouse and keyboard control is considered most dominant. I stand by the claim though, for someone who hasn’t played a Quake like game it is easier to learn to strafe jump fluidly with my steam deck control scheme as you don’t have to climb the un-intuitive learning curve of developing the muscle memory for timing when to press left and right movement keys to keep momentum, you just move the joystick in the direction you want to go and off you swoop into the sunset.
My steam controller mapping for Xonotic is:
Gyro set to always on (set it to toggle on and off with dpad if you want)
The 4 rear buttons, 2 bumpers and 2 joystick clicks are mapped to the various Xonotic weapons (number keys). Arguably superior to toggling weapons on a keyboard once you have muscle memory? You need one more mapping to get all weapons mapped, I suggest a button chord between the left and right bumper as that has worked well for me.
Left joystick is mapped to a 8 Way (Overlap) directional pad with an Overlap Region setting of 4100. The Outer Command Radius is set to 29395 (might need to fiddle with this value for your particular steam deck), and the Outer Ring Command set to spacebar.
That last setting is the real kicker, when you push the movement joystick (left joystick) to its full extent you automatically start strafe jumping which honestly makes strafe jumping feel more intuitive than using a keyboard and mouse. Keeping momentum through complex direction changes is also easy since the joystick is basically already integrates that for you, you just pick a direction and push the joystick. You might need to adjust these values for your particular Steam Deck.
Link to video demo of me playing Xonotic with this control scheme:
I’ve been getting into Stardew Valley for the first time and it sips on battery power. I think I went almost 5 hours before charging, and that was with WiFi and Bluetooth enabled. I imagine it would go for at least an hour longer with airplane mode on.
I once played Terraria for more than 5 hours on battery and it still had battery leftover.
How comfortable did you feel with gamepad based control with the steam deck in terraria.
It’s been a while but if I remember correctly Terraria instead of using the default gamepad config it took advantage of all the controls on the Steam Deck for a unique and pleasant experience.
Oh last time I tried to play Terraria with joysticks/gamepad it felt too clunky for me to really be interested in continuing to play. I should revisit it.
Hallow Knight is a good Metroidvania. I think i can run it at 90 fps with no drops with the 8w profile.
Xonotic against the (reallllyy hard) bots is a great time if you are comfortable with playing fps games with joysticks and gyro. I mention it just because it probably has the best performance of any 3D shooter/action game in existence given it is built on the darkplaces engine which is a descendent of the original quake engine.
The steamdeck is stone cold when I play Xonotic whipping around multiplayer levels at 60fps blasting opponents, the fan doesn’t even go on lol. I am not suggesting playing it for the whole flight but it is a great game you can start playing quickly and immediately jump into really intense FPS combat.
Maybe people will think this is an obscure suggestion for the steam deck but boomer shooters have become more and more popular and yet… Xonotic’s combat is WAYYYY more locked in and nuanced than those games will ever be since Xonotic is the end result of decades of tweaking the Quake multiplayer combat formula whereas boomer shooters are trying to recreate the vibes from scratch.
The rocket launcher in Xonotic that you can steer with your aim after it has launched is hands down the best rocket launcher in multiplayer shooters, is a strong contender for being Best Rocket Launcher Ever and is a BLAST to control with gyroscope.
What kind of games do you like?
Here’s a similar question, my answer should also be relevant to your question.
As for Switch emulation, yuzu still runs great, with many playable games on the deck. If you don’t have the AppImage or Flatpak already, make sure to get it from a reputable source.
Edit: Or, if you’re lazy, just use Ryujinx (also available in EmuDeck).
Anything 2D… Or emulators for old (2D) consoles, or DosBOX…
Wife and I did Dorf Romantik on a recent long train ride and we had a great time. It’s very cozy/calm which helps when you want to stay low energy and not bother your neighbors. And I fully agree with the battery pack idea - it gives me a ton of peace of mind when I’m traveling.
This is my airplane go to. Love it!
Factorio is great on battery life until you start doing the mega factory things but that’s post game which will take you a long time to get to
OpenTTD.
Do you have any good guides or QuickStart videos for getting into OpenTTD? Or recommendations for curated and balanced mod packs?
cassete beasts is a pokemon-like game, that wont require to much power.
ember knights is very simmiliar to hades, both are great roguelikes.
doom2, blood, duke nukem 3d etc run with low power consumption.
a hat in time is a 3d jump n run that can ve limitted to 10 watt tdp (maybe less)
Thanks! I’ve been playing a hat in time for a bit…looks promising! Will need to try the couch multiplayer, might be interesting!
ember knights is very simmiliar to hades, both are great roguelikes.
Some more relatively resource efficient roguelikes, all of these are extremely critically acclaimed and are absolute bangers:
Enter The Gungeon
Voidigo
Star Of Providence (previously called Monolith)
Spirits Abyss
Deep In Galaxies
Deathroad To Canada
One Step From Eden
Atomicrops
Spelunky 2
Wizard Of Legend
Fury Unleashed
Colt Canyon
Heroes Of Hammerwatch
KeeperRL
Teleglitch
Tangledeep
Wayward
Caveblazers
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Sky Rogue
Brigador Up Armored Edition
Sigma Impact
Nuclear Throne
Also, after the whole big N mess…how’s the Switch emulation these days?
It’s still solid, but battery life will be terrible compared to native options.
Thanks! Last time I tried TOTK performance sucked. It was a few months ago.
Yeah, I never got my copy of TotK to run well enough on my deck to be worth playing over the switch version. I’ve heard other people claim it runs good, so I don’t know if they’re using better settings than me, if they have lower standards, or if they don’t have it on switch to compare performance.
I’ve got totk running at around 30-40 fps with some hitches using TOTK optimizer https://github.com/MaxLastBreath/TOTK-mods/releases
Well that sounds pretty good, I’ll probably check that out. I never got to finish TotK because my kids are always wanting the switch. If I can get it running well on my deck that’ll help a lot.
I’m assuming you use the low preset with Ryujinx?
I use the steam deck preset with yuzu. I also changed the resolution to 900p and increased the framecap to 40 fps and menu to 90 IIRC
I also lowered draw distance slightly. Can’t remember if I made any other adjustments
Thanks!
I haven’t been on a flight in 10 years that didn’t have an outlet or USB to plug into. You’ll probably be fine.
IME most domestic flights and commuter flights don’t have them.
LOL no I won’t. I had this issue just last year on a flight from Indonesia I believe. Might have been Vietnam. There’s quite a few countries that might have not updated their planes with plugs. Hence the question.
Ooook ya I guess I’m full of shit. Vietjet never had them that I can recall. I guess I just wasn’t thinking of short flights like that. My bad.
Which long flight have you flown that had them? I’ve flown a few over the last five years, and only one had USB. Air Canada, WestJet, RyanAir, Korean Air, and Aer Lingus didn’t have one, all for international flights that weren’t short.
