I just play Steam Deck and write about gaming + Linux a lot
I’m sure most of you here have heard about Cemu’s woes over the last few days. The AppImage and Ubuntu zip assets of Cemu 2.6 on the official GitHub was “compromised by a pro-Russian threat actor”.
Clearly this news isn’t good at all, even if it is a smaller batch who might be affected, but the interesting point to me is how RetroDECK has remained separate from this issue because of how it is run:
https://gardinerbryant.com/the-cemu-security-psa-and-why-retrodecks/
Yep, totally fine and safe :)
No glaring issues!
You might have to reinstall a plugin, but I’ve only seen that issue literally once. It only happens if that plugin is dependent on being on the beta channel.
Once you switch back to stable, just restart your Steam Deck and it’ll be good to go!
No data loss or anything awful. But if it helps, I’ll check in with my friend on Decky and get his confirmation before you do :)
Here’s my tip (being friends with the Decky team, and having reported on them/interviewed them for a long time now!)
When you install Decky, stay on the stable branch.
When there is a update for the Steam Deck, wait a few hours until Decky have their update, install that first.
Every single complaint about Decky is totally fixed with these two dead-simple actions.
Then grab SteamGridDB and change all your game art (that’s my fav plugin!)
So when the news circulated recently that the Lutris developer was using Claude to help write the code (and the angry posts/articles appeared) I figured I’d reach out to Mathieu to hear his side of things.
I chatted to him a little, asking for his side of the story. He goes into some depth on how he uses it as part of his work-flow, the transparency in open-source projects in general, licensing and ownership of code that A.I. writes, safety and so on. Plenty of answers from Lutris, if you’re curious on the topic. As ever, you can find the link here:
https://gardinerbryant.com/mathieu-comandon-explains-his-use-of-ai-in-lutris-development/
^ the man, the myth, the legend
I spent a few days chatting to the RetroDECK team (who are well and truly friends by now!), with the idea that it might be a good chance to focus on their real passion: retro gaming. Too often RetroDECK (which is all about emulation/retro gaming for the Steam Deck/Linux) just gets bottled up and mentioned as being less than it is.
Sure you get the typical emulation projects in there: PS2, PS3, Wii U, SNES and so on, but it really has so much more to offer to users. From odd little projects and engines to things like MUDs, pinball and more.
This was a nice chat with the team, it shows them all sharing what they’re so passionate about. Retro gaming in all its forms.
From my friend Lazorne in the interview:
What I hope to do is simply provide people with an easy way to experience those memories again, provided they still have access to their old games. For one person retro might mean the PlayStation 3, while for others it could be systems like the TRS-80 or the BBC Micro.Both viewpoints are valid and that is how we approach the components included in RetroDECK as well.
You can find my article and the whole interview here:
https://gardinerbryant.com/retrodeck-is-more-than-emulation-an-interview-with-the-devs/
I remember when I used to write ridiculously long and detailed guides on Steam Deck things, so many people asked me to do the same for installing and tweaking Windows for the Deck! I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to install and use it, but it sure isn’t my scene. Or recommendation.
Or if you do, plz look into O&O ShutUp 10+11
Come back and share how you found it, once you have!
Well, Im a sorry if I offended you
like someone working of an AI generated transcript
Can I just point out the insane irony of someone critiquing my writing when they can’t spell? This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so painful.
Of course you offended me. I’m a writer, and you said that I didn’t write it. It’s disgusting.
The funny thing (well, funny to me anyway) is that someone shared my article on Reddit, and it has been viewed so far 261K times. It has 918 upvotes and 89 comments. And do you know how many of them thought this was written by A.I.?
Zero.
Being a writer, a comment like yours is not only insulting, but dangerous to me. It also makes me really sad. So thanks.
I used to adore the en dash and em dash. If I see writing I did and submitted around with articles and guides from like three years ago, they’re all through it. But then GPT boomed and I couldn’t be bothered dealing with the allegations. Ironically, those claims still haunt me.
It can be so exhausting that we need to do this to appear human now. It can just be heartbreaking!
What the absolute fuck.
No. Jesus. What the hell? I’ve been writing on here for a long time. And I’m not A.I.
So gross.
In fact, tiny edit here. The moderator of this community will speak for me, I’ve been writing things for this space for a long time now. More than that I’m more than happy for you to come and join our discord if you’d like. I have friends in there like the former lead tech writing for Forbes, or the guy who owns the site who will speak for me and what I write.
I hate this shit. The mere face we can write and this whole new scene of A.I. replicating writers’ work and then it is doubted and we have to deal with this is the worlds’ most exhausting nonsense to deal with.
So I asked my friends on the RetroDECK team if they’d be open to me asking them a few questions about their latest update (which is a full rewrite of RetroDECK), and they were more than happy to.
For context, RetroDECK is a Flatpak-distributed retro gaming platform designed to bundle clients, multi-emulators, game engines, tools, ports and emulators into a single, self-contained application. Built around the ES-DE frontend and targeting platforms like the Steam Deck and desktop Linux, its aim is simple in concept: make endless retro gaming easy to install, easy to remove, and easy to maintain, without requiring users to manually piece together emulators, dependencies, and configurations.
I’ve used RetroDECK for years now on my Steam Deck, and absolutely swear by it over the alternatives. I love their work, and definitely encourage you to try it if you haven’t already :)
Here’s a little edit, my full questions and answers with the devs is available to read with the following link:
https://gardinerbryant.com/retrodeck-thtalking-about-their-bigget-update-yet/
NSL is created by a racist jerk and coded with GPT.
What’s not to love?
I spy two of my very good friends in this picture!
So my last article of the year was a bit of a fun one. Far less effort than usual (which is a win to me!).
I asked a lot of developer and creator friends to share their experiences with 2025, and what they expect from 2026. The same three questions to each of them.
If you’re interested in reading what everyone said, then this might be a fun one for you. There’s a few deep dives into dev work, which is always fun to read.
The link is here:
https://gardinerbryant.com/2025-wrap-up/
Plenty of Steam Deck-centric devs are in here. But also, all kinds. From RetroDECK, Heroic Games Launcher, Mr Sujano and GammaOS to Junk Store, RomM, and just oh-so-more. I hope you enjoy this one.
And I hope the start to 2026 has been a good one for all of you here!
If you buy PC games at all (especially over the last 12 months given how positive the news around them has been) then you’ve probably heard of GOG.
GOG is a platform that sells games completely DRM-free, meaning there’s no Digital Rights Management shoehorned into the games. For a lil context, Mass Effect Legendary Edition or GTA V use DRM. Their system checks for an online connection and will outright stop you from playing your legally purchased, single-player game if you’re offline for too long. Gross, right?
GOG though refuses to sell games with this nonsense. Every game on GOG must have no DRM attached. From AAA to indie titles, with a lot that lean heavily toward older and classic releases.
I use programs like Heroic or Junk Store to play my (extensive) GOG collection on my Steam Deck. It makes it a breeze, and really builds on what the Steam Deck is capable of, in my eyes anyway.
Anyway…
I got the chance to chat to the developer of GameSieve. This is a site which lets you search, track and filter games for sale. GOG’s site does a reasonable job with selling you games, but something like GameSieve was purpose built just to make all of this easier.
I chatted to them about how they made it, why they did, what goes into maintaining it, and a little on the future. If you’ve not visited the site before, make sure you do!
They do such lovely work, I think it deserves a lot more recognition!
That sounds super interesting!
Also makes me sad that all that has disappeared now to time. I’d love to have seen it :(
An easy mistake to make!
You’ll be thinking of my good friend Gardiner, whose YouTube channel is well known!
But no, I just write on his site. I used to contribute to a bunch of sites and spaces you might know, but these days I only share articles on his site.
And thank you! I appreciate that, glad you enjoyed this one :)
If you ever run into an issue (you won’t now though, that’s for sure), feel free to message me on here. I’m always happy to help!