Mods - I am not sure how to read the rule against game suggestions. If it means no asking for suggestions please just wipe the post. No harm, no foul.
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Fall is usually my busiest time of year preparing for winter in our little forest home. But I have been given orders from the doctors to basically take bedrest for up to 3 months, but I’m allowed to be sitting up… So books and games are basically all that is on the menu.
I enjoy automation games, tower defense, survival/building games, and exploration games.
I dislike ‘souls-like’ experiences where combat is tight and requires perfect timing. In fact in most games where combat can be disabled I usually do that.
My top games of all time would be factorio, minecraft, WoW/FFXIV (yeah… i know. But they count as one), Dyson sphere program, vampire survivors (and many of that type), and gemcraft type TD games.
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Some games that have been recommended and tried, but don’t work for me right now or I have already finished:
mindustry, satisfactory, valheim, no man’s sky, alchemy factory, luanti, terraria.
Thanks in advance for your time. Much appreciated.
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Wow what a thread. You all rock! Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I have grabbed demos for most of these and will write a follow-up post at some point with my thoughts on some of them.
But for now… The Last Caretaker grabbed me almost instantly. Highly recommend even after only playing the demo.
If you haven’t played it yet, give a try to Astroneer, a space automation/exploration game with no combat and light survival elements (basically oxygen). Above Snakes is also fairly cool, is an isometric survival game where you build the world piece by piece. I have also had fun playing As We Descend it’s a roguelite deck-builder of sorts, but with some turn-based tactics RPG mixed in. Because you like mmos, I’d take a look at Bitcraft.
Another set for the list. Above snakes looks especially intriguing. Thanks!
Humanity is a great Civ alternative. Much more responsible and responsive developer and publisher. They also do the endless legend and endless space strategy games.
Fantastic soundtracks and art style. Very well polished games.
Ooh, I had not heard of this either. Thanks!
If you want to sink countless hours into it and are looking for automation, building and exploration… maybe X4: Foundations is something for you? It’s basically a giant, fully simulated space sandbox. (And you’d also be supporting a small independent studio, writing their own engine etc.)
These are all the right words, in the right order, to pique my interest. thanks!
Oxygen Not Included
Its a colony management sim with plenty of depth. Design plumbing and electricity systems. Farm and ranch. Make oxygen because … its not included. Disease management. Expand your base. Adorable art style. I love the game and was my go to when I was bed-ridden. Hope you enjoy your time off even though your sick.
Definitely sounds right. On the list!
thanks
Rimworld, the best war crimes simulator.
Open transport tycoon, open source remake of the best transport simulator ever.
Another one for rimworld. I’ll bump it up the list a bit. I am a bit afraid that the learning curve will eat my downtime and then I’ll just be addicted but have stuff to do :p
The learning curve is quick, it has different AI “Storytellers” called Phoebe Basebuilder that can give you a more chill experience.
And then there is Cassandra Classic for the dev curated experience that is challenging without being impossible.
And then there is Randy Random for when you absolutely have to have the slavers abducting your colonists get hit by a chunk of Uranium from space.
Without a doubt, this game has the highest levels of replayability I have ever seen in a game.
Factorio. KeeperFX
Factorio is an old love, but not the one I want to spend this time with ;)
KeeperFX is a huge undertaking. Huge respect there. Added to the long list. Thanks.
If factorio is an old love, then Keeperfx / dungeon keeper will bring much joy :) There is some fighting, but you don’t have to pvp at all on the og game, and you can basically just construct death mazes of traps. Kept me sane when i was in hospital
Crazy machines is another fun one, its rube goldberg, Two Point hospital is like theme hospital so add that one too if you were a bullfrog fan
Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Game about cutting up spaceships with lasers and gravity tools with a bit of a narrative.
It’s not a great alignment for the types you identified, but I like all the things you mentioned and found this quite nice.
Thanks! I’ll check it out.
Emberward would be right up your alley. It’s a rogue-like TD with tetrimono you customize during your run. It just went 1.0 last week and has 96% positive ratings on Steam with almost 4,000 reviews. It’s also currently on launch sale.
I installed the demo and did one level. This is really promising!
First thing that comes to mind is stardew valley, very chill, you can sink hundreds hour without noticing, best farm sim out there.
About automation and roguelike, I’d suggest plateup, it’s a cooking roguelike where you manage a restaurant, but there are some automation elements to it, one of the things I like doing is building fully automated restaurants to beat a run.
Still on roguelike, I sunk a few hours on backpack hero, where backpack management is the most important thing and battles are turn focused instead of action focused, position and items you have will be the difference.
All of these are very fun and hooked me for hours for different reasons, hope you’ll enjoy them.
plateup and backpack hero are both new to me. Thanks! Stardew lost my interest but was definitely a lot of fun for a while.
Yesterday I bought “Ball x Pit” (Vampire Survivors meets Pinball) and “No Man’s Sky” (Space Exploration/Survival). And Last week I’ve played around 12h of one of my favourite survival games “Valheim” that just came out of Early access.
I hope you get well soon. m
VS and pinball. I never would have guessed. This does look cool though. Thanks for the rec.
These might not be for you but I want to provide a couple of options that aren’t exactly what you’re asking for but are pretty close. No offense taken if you think they are terrible.
Lonestar - Top down space rogue-like where you place modules in your ship to synergize damage output. Also known as ‘space math’.
Sunless Skies - Steam punk space train set in the Fallen London universe. Emphasis on exploration and the setting just oozes style. Also the soundtrack is awesome.
Halcyon 6 - Take control of a space station and try to put together a fleet to replace the one that gets nuked at the start of the game.
These all sound very much worth a look. Thank you for the recs.
You’re very welcome.
Caves of Qud is one of the best exploration games I’ve ever played. It’s a traditional roguelike where the overworld map is the same each time but the world history, factions, and most individual zones are procedurally generated each time you start over.
You play as either a mutated human with strange bonuses like extra arms, the ability to mind control, wings, etc. or a Truekin that starts with higher base stats and the ability to use implant tech to do things like replace your legs with tank treads or your eyes with night-vision goggles.
It’s a deep simulation; all of the NPCs in the game are as fully modeled as the player character, the NPCs you meet are a result of the generated history, and the best choice is often to run away.
It’s turn-based with multiple difficulty levels. I recommend playing on classic, but the other ways are just as valid.
I really want to enjoy it, but that game, and dwarf fortress are just too much for me. I just get overloaded with information and I don’t enjoy it.
In a weird way I would recommend Tales Of Maj’Eyal, Tangledeep, Golden Krone Hotel or Shattered Pixel Dungeon <-- free and open source as good ways to dive into this kind of game, and have more fun learning the mechanics, Caves Of Qud overwhelms me too which might make my main suggestion sound insane but shrugs…
https://store.steampowered.com/app/259680/Tales_of_MajEyal/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/628770/Tangledeep/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/497800/Golden_Krone_Hotel/
Honestly my primary recommendation is Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead, yes it is also ridiculously deep but it isn’t balanced to be a balls to the wall dungeon crawler, you can approach it however you want and modulate difficulty/complexity through your player choices though you can always get unlucky. CDDA actually isn’t that “hard” if you don’t take big risks.
Why not Project Zomboid? CDDA’s world is just so rich there is no way Project Zomboid will catch up and if I want realtime and multiplayer Endgame Road To Salvation or Survivalist Invisible Strain compliment CDDA better in my opinion.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cataclysm-dark-days-ahead
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264920/Endgame_Road_To_Salvation/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1054510/Survivalist_Invisible_Strain/
If you want a more focused experience where dying doesn’t end your run try the superb Sky Islands mode included in the base CDDA game now.
Is there any way to play CDDA without the ascii graphics?
Thanks! Heard about this game several times now but kept getting distracted by other stuff. Gonna give it a try!
Remember you can always press ? and type in a description to look up a command!
It’s definitely not for everyone, but once you begin to understand the systems there’s nothing else like it.
This seems really cool! Thank you for sharing.
If you enjoy automation, tower defense, survival/building games Rimworld might be of interest to you. Enjoying committing war crimes is optional but a nice bonus!
I have fought against rimworld for many years for fear of being subsumed entirely by the game. but thst is kind of what I need right now isn’t it? Top of the list!
thx!
Sounds perfect, 3 months will be a good start anyway!
Clanworld seems worth checking out too as a bit cozier alternative.
You’d love space engineers.
Ooh this does look great. No demo so it goes at the end of the list, but I will get to it!
Honestly though the game could use more of a campaign, right now its hard to find a goal beyond basic survival.
Space engineers 2 seems to be stepping up to the task, but still needs a couple more years before I’d reccomend it.
Me and my friend did modded se (getting a server running on anything that isn’t windows is really fucking annoying) and we did have fun. Problem is that he is Australian and I’m on basically the other side of the globe so timing stopped working out. Also coupled with him also getting a job.
