If anyone reading this thread hasn’t played it, imma give no further information but just…go play Outer Wilds, ok?

Hollow Knight and Vampire Survivors are the ones that managed got me hooked in the last few months

Disco Elysium for certain. Everything about it is perfect from the writing to the music.

If you like open source gaming, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

Turn based zombie (and other creatures) survival game with very intricate crafting mechanics. It plays in the same style as a classic roguelike (think stuff like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) when it comes to movement.

Anything in the game can be broken down into components, and most things can be built back up from those components. The vehicle building system is also very solid, you can make a fully customized hybrid car with remote turrets, a horse-pulled shopping cart, or anything in-between.

The game has a pretty big focus on realism, there’s concepts such as sound and smell which determine how you are detected by creatures. I remember reading about a user on the community discord server who researched the properties of bug chitin because they wanted to change the giant bugs you can fight in the game.

The biggest downside is that it’s pretty obtuse to get into if you have no experience with similar games. Movement is most efficiently done using the numpad, as the 1,3,7,9 keys work as diagonals. Most keys on your keyboard perform a separate action (e.g. ‘e’ to examine, ‘t’ to throw, uppercase ‘E’ to eat etc.). You’ll find yourself checking the controls often. Similarly, there’s basically no tutorial. Or more specifically, there’s no way to make a good tutorial for how much you can do in the game. The mechanics are all so diverse and so deep that the only realistic way to learn about them is either trial and error, or asking questions on the community discord server.

That being said, it’s one of the best sandbox games out there. And it’s free, so why not try it?

A Short Hike is simply delightful. I just started playing it and it feels so genuine and kind, just a cute and happy little game!

This is a really weird one:

There was a time where I played an unhealthy amount of My Summer Car. The basic premise is your parents are going on vacation and leave you alone in their lakeside house in Finland with nothing to do. Then it is up to you what you want to do. However, there is chassis and engine from an old car in your garage, that’s just waiting to be put together. So you go out, buy some groceries from the next local store, realise you forgot to buy lots and lots of beer, go back and buy that and then it’s off.

You’re building that car in that garage part after part while listening to Finnish death metal and the buzzing of flies if you neglect showering for too long. Swearing, driving drunk on a motorcycle, hopefully not getting caught by police, going out fishing with your motorboat, finding little secrets in the world. The other characters even have some weird backstories that you can uncover.

The game can be very punishing but also super rewarding and funny. It’s definitely very time intensive, so that is something you can really sink your teeth in. You do want to have a guide at hand in order to build the car, because that is one hell of a task. If you’re in for that kind of experience, it’s a very bumpy but funny ride.

Jalopy is such a neat game! Steam recommended it to me after playing my summer car.

My current favorite is project zomboid. It’s become my default suggestion when someone asks for a good survival/zombie game just because of how intricate the in game mechanics are. Not only that, it has a massive community of players and modders who are constantly adding to and updating workshop content.

Multiplayer with friends is a blast also.

Factorio. The factory must grow And Deep Rock Galactic. For Rock and Stone

So many.

Hollow Knight, Celeste, Outer Wilds, Subnautica, Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire and Zachtronics games likely need no introduction. Then there’s also…

Bug Fables. Incredibly satisfying Paper Mario-like which has thrived into its own thing.

Baba is You/Environmental Station Alpha, hempuli games. The former you’ve likely heard of, a logic Sokobon with truly mindbending puzzles deeper within (and a level editor!! god, I could gush about level editors for hours). ESA is an older hempuli metroidvania. If you’re a fan of that genre, it’s among the best.

Caves of Qud – the best true roguelike IMO. It has so much flavor.

Slime Rancher [2], my beloved serotonin game.

Against the Storm, really well polished citybuilder that emphasizes the first few hours of citybuilding. It’s a bit hard to explain here, but I’d suggest looking into it if you’re a fan!

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga, my personal favorite tactical RPG.

I could go on but I gotta draw the line somewhere…

How has no one mentioned Stardew Valley? Where my farmers at?

My all time favourite has to be The Return of the Obra Dinn. In my opnion it is the single best detective game. Not only is the narrative very captivating, but the deduction process cant be brute forced. It simply is a master piece.

I can’t give favorites out of everything - too many to choose from, all too different from each other! But some I really like include:

The My Time at Portia / Sandrock games. Super chill crafting life sims for relaxing. Critically, you can increase the length of the day for more chill (in sandrock at least, can’t remember if portia has this too).

Hollow Night

The Sea Will Claim Everything. Left of center folks, especially if you fondly remember Freddie Fish and Putt-putt, in particular should play this. It’s like an indie, wordily philosophical version of those types of games but for adults. It has so much whimsy, and you can click on everything and anything and get a unique little bit of description or animation. I love it so much but don’t recommend it often enough.

Since I don’t wanna say Terraria all the time, I’ll say Crashlands! I’ve really enjoyed it, it has a fun game loop, crazy NPCs and isn’t taking anything seriously. The only gripe I have is that it doesn’t have much replayability.

FTL FTW.

Alright, not much to go off of but I’ll try based on my playtimes and exclude some very popular games.

• Cook Serve Delicious (1, 2, or 3, my wife and I have probably 400h between the two of us). A fast moving cooking game that tests your dexterity. If you want to understand the flow of the game, I personally recommend trying CSD1 on an iPad if at all possible since the touch controls help you understand the flow of the game, then once you know the flow, you add in a keyboard or controller in CSD2 or 3. 3 is my personal favorite.

• Cassette Beasts (51h). Pokemon always has a special place in my heart and I’ve bounced off other games that try to emulate it. Cassette Beasts hooked me with their creature designs and awesome soundtrack.

• Zero Sievert (33h, Early Access). I haven’t messed around with the big name extraction shooters like Tarkov or Hunt, but the appeal of a single player third person top down extraction shooter with a pretty cool style surprised me at how much I enjoyed it. The only reason I put it down was to save up for whenever it eventually releases.

• Heat Signature (31h). Very run based, but the whole idea is you have to infiltrate ships all over the galaxy and accomplish your assigned objective on that ship. Maybe you need to hijack it, maybe you need to capture/kill someone, there’s a lot of options. The fun really came with weird scenarios where you’d have to find unusual answers like breaking a window to launch yourself into space with your target and get scooped up by your ship, or hack the turrets and lure the enemies into a kill box.

• Griftlands (18h). Card game similar to Slay The Spire where you build up your deck and get progressively more powerful against more dangerous enemies. The part I thought was cool is you can try to negotiate with your enemies just as easily as fighting them. Negotiation has it’s own separate deck you can boost up over time.

• Everhood (12h). A weird exploration and rhythm game with some good humor injected. I can’t even really tell you what exactly happened since it’s been a minute since I played it, but all I know is it got really philosophical and after it ended, I felt almost hollowed out at how beautiful/profound it was.

• Antichamber (11h). A portal-like game that plays with spatial puzzles and navigating an ever shifting labrynth.

I could list out a ton more, I love these smaller and weirder types of games, but hopefully something sounds good!