Enlarge (credit: Sad Owl Studios)

Careful Ars readers may have noticed that my byline was absent from the site for a large portion of July and August (if you missed me, please leave a comment so my editors will know how much. If you didn’t notice… do not leave a comment). That’s because I was using a large hunk of saved-up vacation time to tour around Europe from a “home base” in beautiful Switzerland, where I’ve been living and working for the summer.

The timing of that trip meant I didn’t have access to my usual PC gaming rig, consoles, or reliable Internet for the anticipated launch of Baldur’s Gate III, on which I’m now playing catch up. It also means I needed some more bite-sized games that could be played during stolen moments on trains and in hotels during vacation travel downtime.

Luckily, a few recent indie releases on the Steam Deck were happy to fill in those bits of time. Here are a few of the games I found most interesting on my European travels.