Nostalgia, a Game Boy, and a Steam Deck

Not so much about battery power and portability; more about searching for a feeling.

I've been playing and tinkering with Valve's Steam Deck handheld for a couple weeks, and so far it's been a tinkerer's paradise. I'm not about to go into a full review for the thing because I've never been the most hardware-focused guy, so I'll leave a link to Nerrel's video review for that purpose.

Instead, I wanted to talk about a couple feelings it's given me. It's made me think a lot about what role a handheld can have for its owner, and why that isolated, "I'm only focusing on what's in front of me" has been nice.

I originally bought the Steam Deck on sale, because they were clearing out their LCD screen stock; I wanted something that could essentially live in a USB-C dock and serve as a media PC for my TV set, and for my treadmill desk. Since then I've spent a lot of time adjusting and making everything just so — it is a Linux machine, after all — and it's hitting all those lovely "feeling rewarded for tinkering, adjusting, and making things incrementally better" loops.¹

I can't help thinking, though, about how it reminds me of the Game Boy I had as a child.

My parents divorced when I was relatively young, and I think my Game Boy was the first thing that I owned, rather than one parent or another. Things had to be left at one house or the other: my Super Nintendo, books, toys — whatever — all had their own place, and it's not like I was bringing bags full of things back and forth.

I think I got my Game Boy around 8 or 9; I remember the Tiny Toons Sports game I got with it. I remember buying The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening second-hand from a store purely because Nintendo Power magazine had conditioned me to associate "that Zelda shield logo" with quality I hadn't tasted yet. I had three separate Pokemon cartridges; a Red (which was stolen), a Blue (whose battery shorted after the Game Boy fell in a puddle) and another Red, which unfortunately was lost in a move, or somewhere. I remember finishing my Pokédex by meeting my friend Daniel in the park by his house, feeling incredibly excited for his charitable donation of the Omanyte I needed².

I remember the need for four AA batteries, and the back cover falling off, getting lost, and requiring duct tape as a replacement. I remember the fading red light when the batteries were about to go. I remember "DOT MATRIX WITH STEREO SOUND" on the grey faceplate. I remember that falling off due to failing glue.

A Game Boy that looks like mine, courtesy of a couple eBay listings.

I remember the weird pride I felt when I could go to my dad's house for a weekend, start a new file of Pokemon (I don't remember which version) and finishing the Elite Four by Sunday. I remember the dreaded "go outside to play" or the weeks-long camping trips, and still being able to game; obviously as an adult I appreciate those memories, but gaming was somewhere I felt comfortable getting lost in.

The image of playing a game while on the night road trip home, straining to see against a screen without a backlight, and relying on the street lamps... it's common for a reason. It's a space of calm, exhaustion, and quiet. We had room to get lost in our own worlds in the safety and isolation of that back seat. Maybe I’d stolen the batteries from a flashlight, or a VCR remote — never the main TV remote, as they’d miss that one.

We moved my dad out of that house maybe two years ago, and I think while we did it, memories of those summers were one of the loudest things in my brain.

I'm not exactly sure where I lost track of that Game Boy, but I've made an effort to keep a lot of my other childhood gaming relics; I still have my Super Nintendo with a collection of cartridges. Some are classics — I'd never sell them, but their value would be ruined by the "MATTHEW" that I scrawled on the front with Sharpie, with my phone number matching on the back.

While these things eventually lived with me as I grew up, until then, they were still things that stayed at someone's house — they were gifts, expensive, or something not to be loaned out. My Game Boy, for the most part, was mine. And I think that mattered a lot.

Part of why I got a Steam Deck was the desire to get away from my ADHD-influenced practice of gaming with podcasts, streams, YouTube videos or whatever else on another monitor. It's become harder to just focus and concentrate on the thing at hand, and in certain situations, I've ruined experiences by looking at games or media as "a thing to get through and cross off my list."

Even having the option of another space means the temptation to bring up a guide, or get pulled away by a social media feed. A session that I could otherwise be focused on for a while would become fractured, with an increasing chance that I'd just never come back.

I think I feel sick of that, even though it's hard to stop. Much like those nights where I could just sit at a keyboard and write my heart out, it feels like a much more peaceful time that I'm nostalgic for. Thankfully, I think as I type away at the piece you're reading right now, I'm starting to approach that zone again. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping to make it more of a practice.

Practice feels like a good word. I almost need to find and plan excuses to play with my Steam Deck, rather than just leaving it as some pseudo-computer I can take on a plan. I don't find it a wasted purchase by any means — it's more that it's a tool to help me move towards a way of thinking and a personal peace.

Instead of a game in the cartridge slot and maybe one extra in my pocket, I have my entire Steam Library, ROM dumps and disc images. Instead of the four colours of a Game Boy, I have literally, as Nerrel mentions, "a portable Playstation 4." I don't think this is an "embarrassment of riches" scenario as much as it is a highlight on how much that willingness to play, rather than treating play as a task to check off a to-do list.

Gunpei Yokoi was the main designer for the Game Boy, and in reading about him, I learned about the concept of "lateral thinking with withered technology." Basically, instead of focusing on expensive components which would increase unit cost, Yokoi encouraged the Game Boy to use cheaper LCD screens with less colours. They were plentiful due to the boom of calculator screens in Japan, and it enabled the Game Boy to also have a lot longer battery life (30 hours on four AAs) than say, the oft-maligned Game Gear (3-5 hours on six AAs).

Yeah, this meant the graphics weren't as sophisticated, but it allowed Nintendo to go to its developers and say "we challenge you to make things fun regardless with the limited tools you have." It probably sucked for a lot of companies, but keeping unit price down and saying "yeah, you'll get a fair bit of life from it when you buy batteries" meant the install/purchase base was large enough to still be attractive for people to develop for.

I admire Gunpei Yokoi a lot. There’s a reason I have a Game Boy patent document framed at my place (thanks for the gift Leah).

I'm maybe getting away from the Steam Deck a bit, but I think that creativity with circumstances is admirable, and to a certain extent, I feel like Valve are trying to play with that concept, even indirectly. Being able to access the Steam Library I already own, instead of buying a new one, is huge. Being able to certify games as "Deck Verified" if they meet a specific criteria is also a great way to encourage sales; it doesn't require a separate Steam Deck version of a game from the developer, just the flexibility to meet the checks.

As I've grown older, I've really appreciated the capability of devices to let me tinker and just futz with things I don't like, and I think this is what I appreciate most about the Deck. I know that's not going to be attractive for everyone; I think that especially as people age they just want something that "just works." For the most part, the Deck does just work, but it's not immediately apparent what you need to do when something doesn't.

But I’ve earned that control through a lot of trial and error. Just like my Game Boy, my Steam Deck is mine, and partially because I’ve made it mine. It helps me build a world for myself, and it just happens to be away from my PC.

And below, for completion’s sake:

Banner image: by Alex Andrews.

1. Talking about gameplay loops right before a video depicting Balatro wasn’t intentional, I promise.

2. We haven’t talked in multiple decades, but you’re a champion, Daniel.