Another great game I played recently is Subnautica. More exploration/crafting than survival, but still great. That's the one game I wish I could erase from my memory to start over.
Some odd ones: Euro/America Truck Simulator. Very relaxing games.
I also have a fairly big library on GoG, my all-time favorites:
* The Tomb Raider series (up to the 5th). The Legend/Anniversary/Underworld trilogy is also not bad, but I really don't like the latest reboot.
* The Broken Sword series
* The Myst series up to Revelation
* Raft: Also relaxing, sounds, environment, you have to keep yourself alive, also good with friends. Similar as above but different theme
* Magic the gathering on Steam: Card game, with light story, and ready decks
* The Talos Principle: Puzzle game like Portal, and an interesting story
* Soldat: Quite old 2d shooter, but very funny, fast play for a quick break at work
1. Kingdom Reborn: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1307890/Kingdoms_Reborn/
2. Factorio: https://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/?l=french
3. Oxygen Not Included: https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/
4. Civilization 5: https://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_V/
1. I find it satisfying to build a large self-sustaining empire.
2. I love programming, this game is like development but without the annoyances. I prefer the top-down 2D over Satisfactory/Dyson Sphere Program's 3D, you get a nicer overview of what's going on
3. Dealing with heat/gas/fluid dynamics and logistics in this game is so fun.
4. I enjoy conquering the world from time to time.
If you like that, try Limbo, built by the same indie studio. Similar concept but I liked Inside better.
- X-COM: UFO Defense [aka Enemy Unknown] (Strategy and Tactics)
- Outer Wilds [with Echoes of the Eye DLC] (Space exploration, micro edition)
- DOOM (The FPS that broke the world)
- Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Interactive essay on the nature of frustration and difficulty)
- Subnautica (The only good Survival Craft-em-up)
- Undertale (90s Kid RPG: The Movie: The Game)
- Yakuza 0: an action-adventure JRPG, with a really good story. It's a prequel to the well-known series, but 0 is the best in my opinion. It was actually my favorite game before I played P5R.
- Final Fantasy XIV: an MMORPG. I haven't followed the story, but it's considered to be one of the best FF story in recent years. If you have an MMO itch, go for it!
- Dead Cells: a rogue-lite made by an employee-respecting company. Try, die, get good. It's like Dark Souls but in 2D.
- Crusader Kings II or III: strategy game and dynasty simulator where you can conquer the world.
- Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel: coop FPS shot'n'loot.
Civilization series.
XCOM series.
Fallout New Vegas (RPG)
Knights of the Old Republic (RPG)
Dishonored (Infiltration shooter)
Divinity Original Sin (RPG)
1. Civilization 5 (I know it's not too recent but I haven't gotten around to trying Civ 6 yet.)
2. Pillars of Eternity 1&2 - a party-based RPG with a great storyline and several hours of gameplay.
3. Darkest dungeon - turn-based RPG with really challenging and very different gameplay. Mindless slashing and magicking won't get you through this one.
Sometimes I also go back to the console-era classics of the RPG genre. My favourites - Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger and the Shining Force series.
Also CS. It's a nice game in which i can focus 10 minutes a d that's it. No bullshit
The Outer Wilds - a technical masterpiece and a game where you can beat the game very quickly if you know what to do, but you have to put in about 10-15 hours of exploration all across a solar system to gain the knowledge of what you need to do in order to beat it. An excellent creepy, puzzly, and deadly mystery.
Persona 5 Royal - The combat can get a little samey in this game, but the style, soundtrack, and world is amazing. Also love how you have to decide what activities you spend your free time on, as you can only do a few at a time.
Danganronpa series - Bonkers murder mystery graphic novel that stretches across multiple games with an extremely creative story.
Civilization series - masterpiece of 'just one more turn' gameplay. I don't play it too many times in a year, but whenever I do sit down to play it again, I tend to lose a weekend to it.
Baba Is You - clever puzzle that requires you to change your thinking entirely to solve its puzzles, as by pushing together and breaking apart pieces of sentences you can change the rules of the level in very surprising ways.
Super Mario Odyssey - tons of fun with lots to find and collect, and figuring out for the first time what all you can possess with Cappy and what new creative abilities it grants you is super fun.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - a huge world to explore that just barf a bunch of icons on the map and tells you to go there to do some minigame thing like Ubisoft does. You see something that looks different and interesting in the distance? Go there, and you will likely be rewarded. Also tons of interesting physics puzzles.
God of War - great story, feels like you're playing a movie at times, gorgeous visuals, super fluid combat (actually tried going back to breath of the wild after a playthrough of this and BOTW's combat felt pretty boring in comparison), and even some clever puzzles thanks to being able to throw an axe that freezes things that you can recall from anywhere.
Into The Breach - Clever tactics game that helped refresh the formula by telling you exactly what the enemy is about to do on their next turn, so it becomes a puzzle in figuring out how to minimize or redirect their targets/movements and/or who needs to be eliminated most this turn.
Hades - clever rogue-like game where the story advances between runs, and people react to how far you progressed in that run. and within the run, you're given lots of choices of how to grow and expand your character each level, by choosing from multiple exits that tell you the type of reward you'll get for clearing it, and even the rewards themselves giving you multiple options within each type. I do wish it had a bit more variety in the level structure itself, though, but it's fun enough to play I still managed to sink 20 hours into it, which is probably the most I've ever put into a rogue-like.
Nier Automata - amazing soundtrack I listen to in the background all the time (even went to the concert), interesting mash up of ideas and genres and multiple perspectives storytelling together.
Last Epoch: A Diablo 2 like game.
All in all I love to draft out heroes and see how they work out.
2. Final Fantasy - RPG for the original NES
Get off my lawn!
It is a kind of emergent game where you can only know the rules by playing the game and by an unspoken, but somehow mutual agreement with the other players.
Here are a few of the rules that I learned:
1. It's a two-person game. You can only play with one other player at a time.
2. You challenge an opponent by looking them in the eyes and not looking away at the point where you would be expected to do so. The other player accepts the challenge by not averting their gaze. If they don't want to play, they will look away or ignore you. In either case, they will make their intention clear very quickly. It takes maybe a couple of seconds for all this to transpire.
3. You win if you keep your gaze fixed until the other player looks away.
4. The game is a draw if the other player is forced to look away, for example because it's their stop, or another passenger demands their attention etc.
5. If eye contact is interrupted, for example because people come and stand between the players, the result is undefined. If contact is re-established, a new game must be initiated by one of the players challenging the other all over again.
6. If the other player behaves aggressively, tries to ridicule the opponent, or otherwise tries to disrupt the opponent's gaze, they are disqualified. The only contact between the players must be gazing into each other's eyes.
7. Blinking is allowed, but excessive blinking may be cause for disqualification.
8. It is fine to challenge a player after losing a first round. I found that in that case there is a heavy psychological penalty, though and I usually lost again in that situation.
9. It is a game played by men. A man staring at a woman's eyes can be creepy or scary and so it is hard to make a fair challenge. I've never seen two women play. On the other hand, I also never saw two men play when I wasn't one of them.
Those are the rules I remember. This was a long time ago, and perhaps the rules would have changed now that I'm not a young man anymore.
I became quite good at the game, although I was not undefeated. I played for a couple of years, primarily on long train rides that lasted half an hour or more.
I have not played the game for many years now.
- XCOM 2 War of the Chosen
- Diablo 2 (sometimes with Median XL mod)
- Dark Souls 1
- Zelda: BOTW
- Metal Gear Solid 5
there is also a 4 version gameplay which is fun
- Shovel Knight: is a wealth of information about solid level design, specifically about how to use and reuse mechanics in interesting ways, and how to make levels accessible using multiple mechanics/strategies. A good resource to use when thinking about how to reuse and adapt mechanics and mash genres together.
- Undertale: Games as narrative and using mechanics to reinforce narrative/philosophy. Undertale is a master-class in how to approach meaningful, artistic game design through a technical lens where you're not just saying that your game is art, you're backing that up with smart design choices that effectively communicate and reinforce your theme.
- Baba is You: Puzzle design and using systems to build puzzles, how to build puzzles that feel creative and that don't feel like busywork. Baba is You is also really hard, and there's some good lessons here about how having systems that feel playful as well as having ways to branch out and go in different directions and do different puzzles out of order can help alleviate some of the frustration that comes from really difficult puzzles -- also some of the areas where that falls slightly flat. Compare the systemic design in Baba is You and Spelunky and figure out how the design philosophies here overlap.
- Spelunky: Systemic design and how to do randomization/generation well. Spelunky does a great job of teaching the difference between breadth of content and depth of content in randomization. I think Spelunky is also a really great example of how making all of your numbers (health, inventory, etc) smaller and can make individual actions feel more impactful and can make each choice feel more meaningful. Compare with Noita, which I think goes in the opposite direction to its detriment, it's a higher-res destructible terrain that somehow feels more samey in part because of the higher granularity of destruction and stats. It is possible that Spelunky 2 should be here instead of 1, but I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet, and I've avoided spoilers so I don't know anything about it (waiting on a Linux/Non-Steam release).
- Rayman Legends: Flow state in games, level design as a communicative act with the player. When you play a lot of this game, you start to internalize how the level designers think and what motifs they use while designing levels. After a while, playing the game feels like you're just following a conversation with the level designer, you can start to predict what they're going to throw at you, and when you get into this flow state during daily challenges or endless modes, it's almost like you're dancing with the designer, you learn these "moves" and you're just endlessly executing them and trusting that the designer will act predictably. See if you can figure out how to play through the music levels where the screen gets all screwy (note that these levels are not deaf-accessible). Take a step back and think about how Rayman Legends uses consistency and repeated sections in levels to help mitigate issues like blind/unknown jumps in endless mode.
- Terraria: Terraria on its surface shouldn't be good, because it's grindy and has really broad mechanics and a ton of mini-systems that don't seem like they strictly need to be there, and the controls aren't particularly tight, and you basically need a wiki to play it well, and yet Terraria is excellent and it's worth trying to figure out why the game works so well when other games like it don't to the same degree. Terraria has a massive breadth of just... stuff. And it all kind of works because the sheer quantity of content kind of covers up the fact that you're doing random loot drops and that most of the game's systems are optional. It took me a while to start enjoying it, when I first played it I bounced off really hard. But I regularly go back to it because it breaks a lot of rules that I have and yet I still love it, so it's a good reminder that a lot of design isn't set in stone, and it's a good example of how to break design rules well. I mention that Slay the Spire below feels "generous", Terraria is also a game that feels generous: you have a bunch of rare items that are annoying to get, but there are so many of them that you're still constantly finding cool things. Pull out the systems that it has and look at how they interact with each other: most of them are optional, but many of them still have benefits or intertwine with each other in weird ways. Contrast with Starbound: why does Terraria feel like it's bursting at the seams with content vs Starbound feeling kind of samey? Revisit Spelunky and think about randomization again.