Guild Wars 2 and Dear Esther
Patient Gamers
A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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I have no idea why, but Wurm Online always manages to draw me back. Guess it's a Zen and the Art of Imping addiction.
When I'm too tired or depressed to dive deep into something it's always something really simple like Ring of Pain, Vampire Survivors, or other slow paced stuff.
Factorio, Minecraft, Stardew Valley. Also solitaire on my phone (PySolFC).
Slay the spire. Quick 30-45 minute run is just enough to kill time.
FTL.
Rogue-lites are basically made to be infinitely re-playable and if I find one I like then I keep going back to it. Enter the Gungeon is a game I've played for years. Then there was a while this spot was taken by Slay the Spire and Balatro in turn. Now I'm back to Enter the Gungeon.
Enter the Gungeon
I had to look it up but that looks cool! Thanks for the idea.
A warning before you jump in: it's crazy difficult. It took me about 70 hours of gameplay to be able to finish a play through...but after that it became pretty repeatable once I had learnt how to do it. This is pretty standard, but the failed runs are all fun and the gameplay is excellent and hilarious. I can give some generic starter tips if you want, things I wished I knew before having to learn the hard way (equally learning the hard way is the way rogue-lites are intended to work, so up to you).
The enemies are bullets that are holding guns and shooting bullets at you. You can unlock a gun that looks like a bullet, that shoots bullets that look like guns, that shoot their own bullets. Everything in the game is a pun.
Also see Voidigo, Blazing Beaks and of course Nuclear Throne!
HL2, Portal 2, Far Cry (1), Commander Keen, Supreme Commander, Raptor: Call of the Shadows. Halo MCC but particularly 2.
Oh sweet I can get Raptor for 84¢ right now, haven't played that since the '90s
Deep Rock Galactic is good even in singleplayer.
Rock and stone, to the bone!
Crypt of the Necrodancer.
Really fun roguelike game where you and enemies have to move to the beat of that floor's song. I think part of the reason I still play it a lot is that it's amenable to very short sessions. I've played enough that runs go fast and I either clear or die within 10 minutes.
Over 1200 hours now almost a decade after release, and a huge chunk of that is probably sessions of under 30 mins in length.
And the soundtrack is great too
Dark Souls. If there's nothing else I want to play, I'm always up for another run through Lordran with a build I've never tried before.
The run up to the gargoyles in ds1 is very good and sometimes that's what I do. After that the pacing has some hiccups, but that first part is A+
I'll often go through O&S, and then lose steam during one of the Lord Souls afterward.
For me this is the most unhinged option. But then DS is like putting hot needles in my eyes to me.
StarCraft. The original. My brain and body is hardwired to play that game. "SCV ready" triggers something. I have a fantasy of retiring in an old folks home and me and a few of my fellow geriatrics fire that shit up and play LAN games until the DNR kicks in.
The atmosphere in that game is very unique and extremely well done. No shade to SC2, it just didn't require capture the feel, the music, the dread the way SC1 does
The Long Dark. Something about wandering an icy wasteland scavenging, hunting, fishing, works for me.
Europa Universalis IV. There are tons of countries to play, lots of variation each time, and so many options for self challenges (e.g. accomplish goal by year).
The only thing that would get me to stop playing is if EUV is good, and then only a few years and DLC in. Even then, I could see myself coming back to it.
I'm late but: Fights In Tight Spaces. I thoroughly enjoy their daily challenges, and save my replays when I have a spectacular run with no damage.
For years that game was Warframe for me. Just turn of my brain and run missions I know inside and out while watching twitch from the corner of eye on a second monitor. At some point I wanted to have more time to play other games so I stopped and didn't find a new cozy game
These days I mostly just grind the same handful of games. Actually having a hard time pulling myself away long enough to get through the JRPGs on my backlog...
- Skullgirls
- Them's Fightin' Herds
- Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]
- Riichi Mahjong (Mahjong Soul, Riichi City, IRL)
- Slay the Spire
- Puyo Puyo Champions
- Panel de Pon
For me that's rocket league.
Space Engineers. I can just build and build and build, and the community seems to always have a few new interesting mods whenever I'm looking to start a new world.
Phigros
It's a mobile rhythm game without ads and in-app purchases. It's also completely offline so I don't need an internet connection to play.
I love hunting for achievements and there’s always one unfinished game that’s a fallback to push a bit further in these cases where I stare at my Steam library for five minutes without starting anything, right now it‘s „if in doubt, play Metal Gear Solid V“
Runs 60 FPS all high on the Deck as well, which is crazy to me