My general question ... where do you folks go when searching for replacement parts for aging technology, particularly pertaining to game consoles? I've come across iFixit, and of course there's Amazon and eBay as well, but I've been having some difficulty finding a particular part.

My specific issue is, I have an old Dualshock 4 (model CUH-ZDT2U, with PCB/motherboard model JDM-055) that is on the outs. It started experiencing some stick drift, so I took it apart to clean the contacts in the joystick housing to the best of my ability. In doing so, one of my kids managed to get a hold of the controllers' guts and break off the vibration motor wires from the board.

So, after taking the board and chassis to a local Makerspace, I got the wires soldered back onto the board. So far so good! However, the stick drift is still an issue and the vibration connection isn't that great. So now, I'm hoping to find some replacement parts - namely, a replacement board with the chassis and motors included.

One of the main reasons why I'm trying to refit this old controller, rather than replace it outright ... is because my wife bought the controller (and the PS4 it came with) as an anniversary present years ago. I'm the sentimental type and I'm trying to keep as much of this old controller going as I can, Ship-of-Theseus style. In addition, these controllers don't come cheap - $70 seems to be the basement these days for a new, in-box controller.

I've taken a swing at purchasing replacement parts off eBay - however, while the controller models matched, the board models did not. iFixit has the exact parts I need, but they are out of stock and their stock is inconsistent. I found another site - Fasttech.ca - that purports to have the same parts, but looking around online I've found a fair bit of discussion surrounding this site and the fact that it may be less-than-reputable.

Any advice on where else I might be able to look for parts?

I've been running Linux full-time pretty much since Valve released Proton. I remember submitting reports to ProtonDB back when it was just a shared Google Sheet! In the years that followed I made it a point to test and report out on different games as new versions of Proton were released and support improved. I thought it important that we have a good data set for what worked and what didn't. Over those years I tested hundreds of games and submitted as many reports to the database.

In thinking back over my gaming in 2023, however, I realized that I fell out of the habit of submitting reports because I'm so used to Proton working that it's stopped occurring to me that it might not.

That doesn't mean that there aren't some games that don't work -- it simply means that the success rate that I used to have (maybe 30-50% on average) has risen high enough that I'm genuinely surprised if something doesn't work (it's probably somewhere around 95% for me now, though that's biased by the types of games that I play). I actually tried to remember the last game that didn't work, and I genuinely couldn't tell you what it was. Everything I've played recently has booted like it's native.

Honestly, I genuinely don't even know which games are native and which run through Proton anymore. I've stopped caring!

I got my Steam Deck halfway through 2022. It was awesome, but it was definitely a bit rough around the edges. There weren't that many compatible games. The OS had some clunkiness. It matured though, and has gotten better. Among my friend group, I'm the only person who cares even a little bit about Linux. If you asked any of them to name three different Linux distributions they'd stare at you blankly because they wouldn't understand the question. Nevertheless, of my friends, SIX of them have Steam Decks and are now gaming regularly on Linux.

There are currently ~4,300 Deck Verified games and ~8,700 Deck Playable games according to Valve. On ProtonDB, ~8,600 games have been verified as working on Linux by at least three users, while ~19,700 games have been verified by at least one user. There is SO much variety available, and the speed with which we've gotten here has been pretty breathtaking.

This was my device breakdown for my Steam Replay for 2023:

• 55% Steam Deck
• 32% Linux
• 10% Virtual Reality
• 4% Windows

The only non-Linux gaming I did was VR and some local multiplayer stuff I have on a Windows machine hooked up to my TV.

I don't want to proselytize too much, but if you have a general interest in gaming, you could probably switch over to Linux full time and be perfectly happy with the variety of games you have available to you. Not too long ago, making the jump felt like a huge sacrifice because you'd be giving up so much -- SO many games were incompatible -- but it no longer feels that way. You can transfer and most of -- probably almost all -- your library will still work! Also, if a particular game doesn't work, there isn't too much sting because, well, there are thousands of others you can give your attention to.

If you have a specific game that you must play, then it's possibly a different story. If you love Destiny 2, for example, then full-time Linux definitely is not for you. The same goes VR -- it's simply not up to snuff on Linux yet. There are other niches too that don't transfer over as well (modding, racing sims, etc.) so, of course, this isn't a blanket recommendation and everyone's situation is different.

But for a prototypical person who's just your sort of general, everyday gamer? It's reached a point where they could be very happy on Linux. In fact, as proven by my friends and their Steam Decks, it's reached a point where people can be gaming on Linux and not even know they're doing that. That's how frictionless it's gotten!

I don't really have a point to this post other than to say it's incredible that we are where we are, and I'm beyond appreciative of all the effort that people have put in to making this possible.

I have been making a game with Rpg maker MZ in my free time. It is a slow process, but it is coming along. With no background or experience with coding, I had attempted to jump into Unity a while ago, but quickly became overwhelmed and gave up. Rpg Maker has felt like a great onboarding for learning game design. The simplicity of making events, adding in sprites, sound effects, dialog and anything else you want is amazing. I've gone from googling how to do the simplest of things, and now have a full town with npcs, a dungeon with puzzles and a few quests, and usually able to figure out any problems on my own. It feels like my own little world. I even have a small discord that I post updates to and get suggestions/comments from friends and family.

I think when I am done with this demo, I may give Unity another shot. I feel like I have a much better understanding of how to think when designing a game. I know Unity is a much bigger step, but I feel like I can at least see the staircase now.

So I guess my question for you is, what other programs have been instrumental to your game design journey? Have you used Rpg Maker and what are your thoughts on it?