[Pavel Djundik, creator of SteamDB and noted Steam data geek (opens in new tab), says, "Valve is working on a "game notes" system. While "game notes" is vague and can mean many things, the consensus expectation is that it will be a way to attach and record personal notes to a game without having to release the alt-tab or write on paper while playing.

Back in the day, game manuals often had a blank page or two in the back for notes. If the equivalent of this could appear in the Steam overlay, ideally with screenshots and links as well as text notes, it would surely be useful for games where you have to remember a bunch of codes and numbers. Most of my screenshots are random walls with potential puzzle clues on them, or conversational scenes with NPCs giving instructions.

Notes is a feature that has been requested for years, with a 2018 post on the Steam subreddit (open in new tab) suggesting that it would be "great for planning CS strategies or taking notes on Dota 2 builds."

Another user on the Steam forum (open in new tab) Another user in 2019 (open) suggested the same thing, saying, "If I can take notes within the Steam platform, instead of having to worry about losing my physical gaming notebook or having to search for it every game, I can use the platform I'm interacting with to access my Easy access to my gaming notebooks, I think there is a large percentage of the Steam community that takes some form of notes while gaming, and there are games like roguelikes and metroidvania where taking notes is almost essential to the progression of the game and is very well suited for note-taking. There are many.

When I was playing "Her Story" I jotted down a lot of theories and potentially fascinating words, and when I was playing old RPGs without auto-mapping I drew dungeon maps on scrap paper. No need to alt-tab to other programs to see them. A place to store frequently used GTA 5 cheats, Skyrim console commands, passwords and vault combinations used in immersive sims.

According to Djundik, Valve is "also developing a notification page similar to the mobile app notification page. The new notification system should be used in the Steam client once the old vgui parts of the client (outer shell, settings, server browser, etc.) are replaced.

This is not a very exciting addition. I don't like the annoyance of the "unread notification" icon, and the Steam mobile app mostly just uses notifications to remind you that a game on your wishlist is on sale, something you can more easily see by looking at your wishlist.

Steam is currently running a Spring Sale through March 23. After that, the next Steam sale is the Puzzle Festival in late April, and Steam's big summer sale begins on June 29.