Hey I like these kinds of posts. Hopefully you get some good suggestions.

So. You want mostly indies, you like RPG alot, but kind of actually want less of the usual and more unique or good games you don’t generally have access to on PS5 or Switch.

Hmmm

Apico - you are beekeeper/breeder.

Brotato, Vampire Survivors, Rogue Genesia, Nova Drift - Take your pick. Different themed games with similar styles. You survive hordes of enemies and level up attempting to build ways to destroy the hordes and survive. Vampire Survivors is looked upon as maybe the top of its class. Nova Drift is a promising space themed version of the arena bullet hell style survival games.

Circuit Superstars - cool little retro style racing game. Feels kinda like micro machines used to on NES.

Core Keeper - Kind of like Terraria meets Stardew Valley. Speaking of which…

Stardew Valley, Coral Island - Farming Type games.

Dave the Diver - You are a diver by day, hauling up fish, sushi restaurant worker by night. Story to be had here and good gameplay.

Dome Keeper - Cool wave survival game. Dig to find minerals and gadgets, upgrade your dome, kill baddies, rinse repeat till you win or die.

Dinkum - Like Animal Crossing with alot of features. More exploration. More farming. More stuff to do pretty much. Australian themed.

Dorf Romantik - Super chill tile laying game.

FTL Faster Than Light - Rogue like game where you managing a ship and it’s crew. Lots of strategy and options and things to discover. Example: if you are boarded you can open doors on your ship to vent oxygen out of the ship and suffocate the intruders. Likewise can put out fires on the ship that way.

Hero’s Hour - Very similar to the Heroes of Might and Magic Series.

Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries - more of a “blockbuster” type of game, but very pure version of a mech pilot sim.

Noita - Very tough interesting roguelike. You are a mage and you craft wands. Just about everything can be destroyed or interacted with.

Oxygen Not Included - Colony Style Sim. This one is you attempting to carve out a semblance of survival in a harsh environment. Lots of mechanical things that are neat to build.

RimWorld - Another Colony style sim. This one is very detailed about the people and aspects of society.

Plate Up - Cool cooking game. Recommended with friends.

Project Zomboid - Zombie Apocalypse Survival game. People either love this or hate this. On base settings even scratches can infect you and getting bit is almost always a death sentence. Can tweak the difficulty to make it less insane. Good mod support.

Rift Breaker - Don’t know if this one got console ports. Is a cool top down builder/shooter.

Shadowrun Returns - Cyberpunk setting RPG. Very cool game. Has multiple games.

Songs of Conquest - Another Heroes of might and magic style game.

Baldur’s Gate 1&2 - classic DND style RPG.

Grim Dawn - Very Diablo 2 style of game. Some claim it’s even better than Diablo 3&4.

Papers, Please - Very Different game. You are a border checkpoint officer and you approve and deny entry into your country based on state sanctioned rules. Some people will try to falsify information and it’s up to you to weed them out. Story lines ensue.

Space Rangers HD - I’ll be honest, this one will take a bit of work to map out controls for. Hopefully someone has a community control profile for it. But this RPG goes down in the history books for me. You are a pilot of a ship fighting against a large sentient AI force known as the Dominators. Upgrade your ship, be a pirate, be a merchant, do text based missions, do RTS style missions, has a top down arcade mini game, loads to discover, storyline is sort of weaker but the game is so unique. All kinds of game genres represented in the game, with the main game being essentially turn based combat. Just a super unique RPG title.

War for the Overworld - Dungeon Keeper style game.

Boltgun - Don’t know if it has ports yet or not. Described as a classic style “boomer shooter” like old Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, etc. You are a Space Marine from Warhammer 40k universe.

Against the Storm - Very interesting Roguelike Colony builder.

Legend Bowl - Retro Style Football game.

Space Pirates and Zombies 1&2 - Unique sort of space looter game.

Ooblets - Can’t describe it, very interesting pet collection type of game.

Kynseed - Life Sim Sandbox RPG

Hexarchy - Civilization style game but uses cards for you to perform many actions in the game. Unique.

Fabledom - Colony Builder. Very cute. Like a storybook game. Early Access.

Beneath Oresa - Promising Roguelike Deckbuilder. Good animations.

Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader - Due out very soon. Looks like an outstanding Xcom Style game with some good RPG elements.

And many many more games. This list is sort of RPG light, and not a lot of “Blockbuster” titles as requested. Hopefully something in here would be something you’d enjoy. Check them out!

Have fun with your new deck!

+1 for Vampire Survivors and Dave the Diver.

Imo embarrassed skin, don’t sell the vita. Unless it’s just impossible for you to get the OLED steam deck without selling something, I just can’t see selling a no longer manufactured piece of good gaming hardware to get a new system.

The vita is going to get more and more rare but I don’t think it’s going to have a price boom until it hits collectors status.

Afaik vita is considered to be one of the best hand held emulation devices. That may have changed.

They aren’t just gonna suddenly stop making the steam deck. You’ll be able to get one just about any time you want it and have the cash for it.

Guy I talked to once said never sell your systems and it’s a bad idea. I tend to agree.

Me personally, when I have, have always regretted it later at some point. I sold my NES and a sizeable library when I was young to get a SNES. Then later sold it and a Genesis to get a PS1. Sold my PS1 to get a PS2. Gave away my original Gameboy. Honestly wish I had kept the NES, the SNES, and the Genesis. I still hung on to my Atari 2600. It’s just in a box taking up closet space, but still glad I have it.

If I hadn’t sold my systems and cut more grass or something growing up, I would have 30+ years of preserved gaming history.

But all this is just an opinion of a guy you don’t know. If you are bent on selling the thing, I’m sure someone would be glad to buy it, and the steam deck most definitely has more processing power. I know it runs PS3 and below easily. Some folks even emulate switch. Still can’t do xbox360, but that emulator is a mess right now, not the hardwares fault.

Alt Account 3, there are definitely threads in this reddit that talk about Emudeck and getting it setup. Some of them covering oddball things that happen to stop it from finding your roms and everything. I wrote in some of those topics.

My first time trying to get it setup ended up with me factory resetting my deck since I hadn’t done anything other than install some games from steam.

You’ll have some special troubles with getting it to recognize roms on a sd card if you do that. Unless they tweaked the script, I fixed that one by typing in the directory for it to look for the roms manually. Capitalization mattered.

Please search on here for Emudeck stuff. Gotta be some help on here for ya.

Follow the instructions step by step on the install directions. I know it used to be required to be in desktop mode and to close steam while doing the install and looking for the roms. A keyboard and mouse would help you significantly during setup if you have one and a way to plug them into the deck.

Five games. But two copies of two games.

Mythforce x2 Mechwarrior 5 and all it’s DLC except Dragons Gambit. Space Marine Anniversary Edition Core Keeper x2 Circuit Superstars

Mythforce and Core Keeper for the wife.

We are currently playing Dinkum. I know she will love Core Keeper. I’m rolling the dice on Mythforce.

So might end up backlogging Core Keeper till Dinkum is exhausted. Then we also have Grounded. Just huge time sink games. Oh and we should probably go back to Stardew sometime soon…

Haha… maybe won’t get to play all these as much as I had hoped after all. 😆

LOL

Hey buddy. Don’t be feeling like you got to justify anything. Just don’t put your wants ahead of the needs of the family.

You work, you provide, and sometimes Dad deserves a toy.

You don’t muzzle the oxen that treads out the corn.
That is to say, if you are working to provide like you do, then what is it if you dip into the cash you are making?

Make sure the bills are paid, make sure Christmas is covered if you all celebrate it, and that everyone will have their needs met. If you meet all those criteria and still got the dosh, then live a little. Can’t take that money with you when you leave here noway. Just take the side eye and do something nice in return like wash the dishes or something. Give her a big ol’ smooch and tell her you love her. Or cook a fancy meal.

That’s how I really feel about it.

Now if you actually want talked out of it?

It’s flash in the pan tech. There’s gonna be another new thing in a year or two or three that’ll grab your attention then too. You’ll want it too. You’ll live if you don’t get it. You could just buy a lap desk off of Amazon to sit the PC on for way under the price of the OLED or the LCD.

I don’t feel like that at all.

It’ll probably in reality revolutionize your recreational time with freedom of movement and access to instant gaming. Beware of taking it to bed with you, you may never be asleep at a decent hour. It won’t run everything silky smooth 60 fps highest graphical settings in every game always, but it sure will play a ton of games. Some that are even in “playable” status or “unverified” or “unsupported” and not “verified” will be smooth like butter. Add to that that you can do emulation on it and easily pull off all the way up to the PS3 era, and you’ve got a crazy little toy in your hands there.

Do buy a nice grip case, some thumb grips for the control sticks, and a nice screen protector alright? Merry Christmas.