Best Party Games Playable On Steam Decks

Party games have been a cornerstone of the video game industry for decades, evolving from the early days of multiplayer arcade cabinets to modern online and local co-op experiences. These games are designed to bring people together, offering chaotic, fast-paced, and often hilarious gameplay that thrives on friendly competition and teamwork.

With the rise of handheld gaming devices like the Steam Deck, party games have become more accessible than ever, allowing you to take the fun on the go. Whether you’re battling it out in a platform fighter, strategizing in a digital board game, or working together in a co-op challenge, there’s a party game for every group and occasion.

10

Stick Fight: The Game

From the early ’90s, home-animated shorts featuring stick figures surged in popularity on the internet, evolving into intense stick figure battles. These animations not only provided a fun way for creators to hone their skills but also highlighted the capabilities of various animation programs. However, with the death of Flash Animator and Flash Player, the golden age of stick figure animations saw a sharp downturn.

Stick Fight: The Game pays tribute to this legacy by bringing the chaotic charm of stick figure battles to an interactive format. You and up to three other players take control of stick figures, each with unique mechanics and abilities, and engage in fast-paced, physics-based combat. The game’s unpredictable arenas, environmental hazards, and an arsenal of quirky weapons add to the mayhem, ensuring every match is as hilarious as it is intense.

9

100% Orange Juice

• Platform: Windows
• Released: August 14, 2009
• Genre: Board Game

100% Orange Juice is an anime-style digital board game developed by Orange_Juice, featuring characters and locations from Acceleration of Suguri, Flying Red Barrel ~The Diary of a Little Aviator~ , Sora, QP Shooting, and Alicianrone. The game blends strategy, chance, and card-based mechanics in a chaotic, fast-paced multiplayer experience.

Each player starts by selecting a character and a custom deck of cards. Players take turns rolling a die to move around the board, encountering different event tiles and engaging in battles when landing on the same space as another player. Combat is determined by dice rolls and strategic card play, with the goal of outmaneuvering opponents and earning stars to achieve victory. Special board tiles add further unpredictability, with effects like teleportation, healing, or setting traps. The key to success is in timing, strategy, and luck!

8

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection

If you’ve got a need for speed, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed has you covered! The Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection bundles together the core game, along with two DLC packs: Metal Sonic & Outrun DLC and Ryo Hazuki DLC. This collection delivers everything you need for fast-paced, quirky kart racing action.

Featuring over 20 characters and 25 tracks, you and your friends can race as Sonic, his friends, and other SEGA legends, across a variety of wild tracks. What sets this game apart is its “transformed” gameplay… your vehicles shift between karts, boats, and planes, depending on the terrain.

7

PlateUp!

PlateUp! is a fast-paced restaurant simulation game where you and your friends take on the roles of chefs and servers, working together to run a successful restaurant. Combining the chaos of cooperative kitchen gameplay with roguelite mechanics, each run presents new challenges, from evolving customer demands to randomized restaurant layouts.

As you progress, you can upgrade equipment, automate tasks, and customize your restaurant to improve efficiency. But be prepared: once service starts, it’s a frantic rush to cook meals, serve customers, and keep everything running smoothly. You might want to down a coffee or energy drink before booting up the game.

6

Escape Academy

In Escape Academy, you and your friends take on the role of students at a prestigious academy dedicated to mastering the art of escape rooms. This immersive puzzle game challenges you to solve a series of escape-room-style scenarios, each designed to test your problem-solving skills, teamwork, and ability to think under pressure.

Escape Academy’s rooms are created by actual escape room designers, giving the game a similar feel to the real-life experience.

Each level locks you in a unique environment, from high-tech laboratories to booby-trapped libraries. You’ll need to search for hidden clues, crack codes, and complete a variety of missions before time runs out. While Escape Academy can be tackled solo, it truly shines as a cooperative experience.

5

Tetris Effect: Connected

Tetris Effect: Connected takes the classic Tetris gameplay and reimagines it for a new generation. The game features over 30 stages, each with its own stunning visuals and music that changes as you play. It’s like playing Tetris in a whole new world, where the soundtrack and graphics react to every move you make.

The game adds a new level of engagement with its cross-platform multiplayer mode, allowing you to challenge friends both locally and online. There are multiple game modes to explore, from classic head-to-head matches to cooperative team efforts where you work together to take down challenging bosses. If you’re more into competing, you can face off against others in score-based competitions to see who can rack up the highest points.

For those who prefer to sit back and enjoy the spectacle, the Spectator mode offers a relaxed way to watch others play, all while enjoying the stunning visuals and dynamic soundtrack. Don’t forget your bowl of popcorn!

4

Brawlhalla

Brawlhalla is a fast-paced, cross-platform fighting game that shares gameplay mechanics with the Super Smash Bros. series. Players battle in dynamic arenas filled with platforms and hazards, aiming to knock opponents off the stage and be the last one standing. With simple mechanics, the game is easy to pick up but offers plenty of room for skillful play and strategic combos.

The base game is free-to-play and features a rotating roster of characters, with over 50 unique Legends to unlock. Each character has their own fighting style, wielding different weapons that change their attack options. Beyond its core modes, Brawlhalla also offers ranked battles, casual free-for-alls, and special crossover events featuring iconic characters from other franchises.

3

Golf With Your Friends

Golf With Your Friends takes miniature golf to a whole new level, offering a fast-paced and chaotic twist on the classic game. Up to 12 players can jump into a match together, competing on a variety of unique and whimsical courses. Whether you’re navigating a haunted museum, putting through a pirate ship, or making your way across an enchanted forest, each course presents its own set of obstacles and creative hazards that keep the game fresh and exciting.

Customization is a huge part of the fun. As you play, you unlock a range of cosmetics, from colorful trails and hats to unique skins that let you personalize your golf ball. But the real chaos comes from gameplay modifiers; you can add power-ups, set up tricky traps, or even swap out golf balls for basketballs, hockey pucks, or cubes, completely changing the physics and strategy of the game.

2

Ultimate Chicken Horse

Ultimate Chicken Horse is a chaotic platforming party game where you and your friends take control of different animals, each competing to reach the flag at the end of the level. The twist? You build the level as you play!

At the start of each round, players select various platforms, traps, and obstacles to place on the map, either helping themselves reach the goal or hindering their opponents. Strategy is key: you’ll need to strike a balance between challenging your opponents and creating a path for you to progress through the level. With creative level-building, unpredictable mechanics, and hilarious gameplay, Ultimate Chicken Horse is a game of skill, sabotage, and sheer absurdity.

1

Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a cooperative puzzle game that challenges you to communicate effectively under pressure. One player takes on the role of the Defuser, responsible for interacting with a randomly generated bomb, while the other players act as Experts, equipped with a bomb defusal manual. The catch? The Defuser can’t see the manual, and the Experts can’t see the bomb.

Only the Defuser needs the base game to play. The manual is available online for the Experts to reference. As such, only one Steam Deck needs to have Keep Talking and Nobody Dies installed, since it can be handed over to each Defuser in turn.

To succeed, you must work together, describing the bomb’s various modules, such as wires, keypads, and mazes, while the Experts use the manual to determine the correct steps to defuse the situation. As the timer counts down, communication becomes increasingly crucial, making for a tense and exciting multiplayer experience.