Despite not being able to connect to Paul's chat (bloody PC's) I did manage to have productive evening. Built a proper boat, sailed up the coast and found a great stash of copper and tin, came back made loads of ingots while taming some boars, obviously named, shame you can't name the piggies.

First sea expidition



Pulling in to home



Making Bacon

Yeah it takes a while to get em tame.

Oh and I discovered not all burial chambers are burial chambers.

Lovely pics.

3rd boss down and began to explore the swamps. A million new crafting options to explore. Great stuff.

Oh yeh. Second.

Not too bad, but a step up from the first.

We're now pretty much where I got up to on PC solo. Started to redo the outpost that's near the Swamp as it was a bit cramped. The swamp can get tough do to poison. Time to brew up some poison resistance mead.

I'm on Day 98 and while my place is pretty good no way have I got brass armour or sword, so I'd say you are doing well!

I spent years in World Of Warcraft mining and blacksmithing pretty much full time.

Can't you play Xbox games on the Steam Deck anyway? Probably not worth the hassle for £15 like. I'll be looking into it once they restock the cheapest Deck

Starting over is always fun in these games, with the added knowledge. One of the things i like about Valheim is that when you get to certain points it's like you're starting out again, albeit with more gear, as you need to be building multiple bases over time.

So it gets better. Now got the Deck setup on my dock (thanks for my Santa Gav!) and it automatically detects the mouse and keyboard, no going into settings, and on the big monitor at the missus. She’s at work all day so that’s me sorted.

Interesting seed this new world. Seems to have small pockets of Black Forest and not one big one that I had in my other place, I’ve found three so far and I’m built across a lake from a great double copper deposit and another just up the coast the other way. Now to go delving as I need some cores.

After alot of deaths we finally, I think....maybe, have the Swamps mastered. Full sets of iron armour, weapons and Huntsmans bow. Started to build all the new craft station enhancements.

We did pick a fight with a Lox from the nearby plains biome. Those things don't fuck about. They hit you, you die. I think they are a few biomes ahead of where we're up to gear and food wise though.

Grew some turnips which unlocked new crafting options.....SAUSAGES. We'll eat like Kings from now on.

Oh, and a Troll attacked and managed to take the front of our base clean off....

Our base in Hell can get quite lairy, being near the swamp and plains, but it's doing us OK.

Oh man fuck The Elder. He's a prick

The swamp is tough and unforgiving. The plains are unpossible

It’s been an interesting long weekend playing this.

I’ve found the location of the Elder miles away but not before accidentally sailing into the swamp, getting mobbed, my karve destroyed and I just managed to leg it out of there, with god knows what chasing me. I setup an outpost quite a way south of the swamp and came prepared with a portal, so easy enough to get back to home base.

I had bronze armour at level 2 but after I kept bumping into trolls, I had enough to get my troll armour to level and the difference is negligible, not as slow and the sneaky modifier had come in handy. Managed to back stab a troll with massive damage, but he turned out to be a one-star jobbie so I had to leg it after he planted a tree on my head.

So I’m now brewing potions ready to take on the Elder once I get back to my PC. The Steam Deck is solid but it does occasionally hang for a split second. I’ve also realised I hate dying in this more than any other game. It’s such a pain to lose your stuff and have to leg it back to get it, so I’m taking my time and being super cautious.

Oh and I also discovered something strange out in the ocean, but it did open up some additional crafting options.

Some snaps of our great voyage looking for a decent spot to set up a portal to the third boss. Up and down the coast being chased by something nasty, having to negotiate out way through a very shallow and narrow Suez Canal type channel between two continents while avoiding a one star troll, only to get ganked seconds after leaving the boat.

We couldn't find anywhere that wasn't absolutely awful, so we've had to bite the bullet and plough ahead regardless. The boss is double hard as fuck, in a terrible pace to fight and takes ages to damage, so as night fell we ended up being overwhelmed by enemies. Somehow managed to get our gear back so next time it will have to be another head down arse up power gathering session to improve our gear, make new weapons and knock up some Michelin star grub and tonics before we can have another crack at him