As much as I absolutely hate the game, the open beta of Oaken Tower has been a game I find myself coming back to. It doesn't make me nearly as angry as when I first started playing the beta demo thing, but it's still enough to make me hate it just enough I keep coming back.

Completely different story for the KilaFlow demo, which has been real fun running and platforming at high speed, avoiding the viruses when possible. Great for not making me want to reach into the screen and strangle the game to death, all metaphorically. Too bad my desktop cannot run the demo all too well and I need my deck to do play it.

The only game I have been playing is The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth on my 3DS.

Revisiting Sekiro. I thought my skills would have waned over time but I picked it up after years of not playing, and I've still got it. 3 attempts max on each boss, most were first try. I just defeated the

Hades (finally got out after 22 runs), Silent Hill 2 Remake (I didn't remember there was a boss literally shaped like child rape), and some Expedition 33 (love it, but it's a JRPG to a fault, including cursed platforming sections).

I have been spending a bit of time enjoying the Nords in Race Room Racing Experience, the game is a lot of fun and really enjoying their new ranked races.

I have also spent some time in Le Mans Ultimate, but have had a bad time since the last update, which had been turning me off it. Turns out the update broke something so it no longer matched the driver for wheel rotation, and manually setting the has fixed everything. Bring on the 6hrs of Monza this weekend.

The Finals has been my go to multiplayer game and is amazing fun. Love the 3v3v3v3 capture and hold with all the destruction.

I also picked up Escape from Duckov in the sale, that has been a lot of fun and has been very satisfying to chill out with after racing or a few rounds of the finals.

I've been stomping bugs, spreading democracy and playing Poker.

I've been repeatedly dying in Silksong the whole break :/

Got expedition 33 running on the steam deck (with some amount of tweaking to make it run smooth - valve should not be marking that game as verified) and it has absorbed every moment of free time I have. Fully understand the hype now. Apart from that, Outer Wilds had been sitting in my library since the summer sale untouched and I've finally gotten into it, and Dispatch was really fun and beautifully animated.

Shooting shapes in Sektori, a stunningly good arcade twin-stick, bashing dragon toes and playing bells in Guild Wars 2, a fun ARPG-MMO where we recently added a few more dress-up dolls to our roster just because we play a lot and like a few more ways to play, and third, mowing down hallways full of bugs in Combat Complex, a top-down shooter ARPG that's weak on the ARPG aspects but the shooter side manages to feel like a great arcade twin-stick, plus some neat enemy-enemy friendly-fire mechanics.

Much more the first two than the third, as CC is good but it's in early access and they recently changed and botched the progression, so playing right now at my level/floor is basically worthless, and I just have to hope they eventually do something to fix it.

Sektori, though, is seriously good.

Outer Wilds has completely absorbed me. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about the game and am so glad I did!

I've been playing mega bonk. It's very addicting and fun

I caved and picked up Clair Obscur. It's a genre that I'm really not a fan of, but it's just so exceptionally well made that I'm thoroughly enjoying it anyway.

Aongside that, I've been playing Rogue Trader at last, after my wife has been bugging me to play it for over a year. It's very, very good. Probably one of the best RPGs I've ever played. The degree to which your narrative choices matter is phenomenal. There are scenes in the tutorial that define the entire game. And it nails the setting.

Lastly, I picked up a founders pack for Soulframe. The only bad decision anyone made when working on this game was calling it Soulframe - it is in absolutely no way the "Fantasy Warframe" people are imagining. The designers say their big inspiration was Dragons Dogma. For me, I'd say the gameplay has a lot of the feel of Breath of the Wild. The combat is exceptionally tight. Easily one of the best combat systems I've ever played. There's not a huge amount to do yet, but it's early access, that's understandable, and I think they absolutely made the right choice in nailing the feel of the game before worrying about how much of it there is.

Finally diving into Octopath Traveler 2.

Also played some good old Team Fortress 2.

Haven't played yet but soon probably some hilarious lobbies of Lethal Company

Guild wars reforged. I was thinking of firing up the old cd roms and then I saw the whole thing was re-released on steam. Been giving it a go - has held up well over 20 years.

Divinity Original Sin 2. I had this in my library for a while since i played BG3 and loved it. DOS is good too but way more difficult and the story is a bit weaker. Still a great game though.

Still wakes the deep. I love a good horror game and this one scratches the itch. The ambiance is great and the oil rig feels like a real place.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Playing the new DLC trying to cure a plague. Not as good as the other two dlcs but still good because more Henry is always good.

WoW Classic and Megabonk - both on the Steam Deck - have been a great holiday time sink.

Ball X Pit. Just bouncing my baby balls all over the place is the best.

divinity original sin 2: definitive edition(I have to say the full thing every time, so it annoys my partner.)

diddy kong racing (craving chunky bright colored polygons, and racist charicatures flying on carpets gifting golden balloons)

and super mario world. (mandatory)

Doing a new fallout 4 run. Been a couple years since I played.

Giving WorldWide Rush a solid go.

During what break? Xmas?

Factorio Minecraft and rimworld

But that's been the same for last few years so shrugs

I expedited 33 obscur clairs (damn, the new area is awesome), rescued some Yoshi eggs in Super Mario World and am now triggering all chronos I can find.

EU5 has been my sole game for over a month now. It needs some work, and I don't love paradox, and I think think the game is too much of a cookie-clicker reskin... but it's scratching that grand strategy itch.

I've also been on turtle-wow (private vanilla+) which has really been recapturing the spirit of 2004-08 wow for 7(?) years now.

Finishing old games for me:

• Opus Magnum
• Mages of Mystralia
• Trying (and failing) to beat the attack helicopter level in Teardown.

I was technically driving trains too, as I was playing The Trolley Solution.

Been playing kerbal space program on my steam deck. By playing I mean spending all my time editing the controller layout. So far I have an assembling layout, a flying layout, and a i just need to be able to push any letter or number sometimes and the virtual keyboard pops up in the background and dismisses itself if I try to switch to it layout which is radial menus of all the keys. I can switch back and forth between these with action sets. Steam input is kind of amazing tbh. Maybe I'll try to do a mission eventually, just gotta tweak my controller setup a bit more.

Background: I've never been a fan of the original Devil May Cry trilogy. I think they're foundational to what's probably my favorite genre, but as with a lot of foundational games, what came later surpassed them in most aspects.

What I'm doing this break: replaying through the trilogy in release order to see if I still hold the same opinion. I finished DMC1 and I'm halfway through DMC2 RN, and yup, I still hold the same opinion so far. Immense respect for the ideas this trilogy introduced, but I don't care what kind of nostalgia glue fans are huffing, there's a reason even Kamiya and Itsuno moved on from fixed cameras, for example.

They're fun games, but I would rather be replaying Bayonetta, DMC4 or 5, Assault Spy, or even Hi-Fi Rush. I enjoy the breadth and freedom all these descendants offer.

Been fucking around with pals in Palworld again. Also trying to get matching free time with a friend so we can play Space Marine 2

You all have enough time to play such a variety of games you can pick three best? Damn. I played one game. And it was a mobile one... :(

Been playing Vintage Story with my brother. Need to find some iron, and bees.