I've finally finished my exams, and now finnaly have some time to play. I was wondering what games I should try out? I usually end up playing for 30 minutes before losing my attention span, so I'm looking for a very immersive and simple to get into game. Anybody got any suggestions?
Outer Wilds. but in fear of spoiling it, I cannot tell you what makes it good. Jump in without knowing anything about the game is the best way to enjoy it.
Absolutely 100% this. Don’t look it up. It’s on game pass if you’re not confident - just grab it and play it. It’s possibly one of the best games ever made.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned yet but Diablo IV is immersive. You can tackle the main story early on and it doesn’t require grind to progress if you’re doing quests and dungeons. The quests are involved stories, for the most part, rather than fetch quests. There are voice overs, excellent graphics, detailed maps, and random NPCs with Lore to share.
It's a roguelike based on Finnish folklore. It has a killer groovy soundtrack, the pixel graphics are beautiful, and every pixel is simulated. It's hard. 30 minutes will probably be like 5 games for your first time, but it's addicting.
For reference, my win:lose ratio is like 1:60, which ain't bad for only having 178 hours in the game.
It's incredibly simple, yet incredibly complex at the same time.
Roguelites sound like a good fit for something to quickly grab your attention. There's all kinds of them but I'll go ahead and list off Hades, Dead Cells, Risk of Rain 2, and Streets of Rogue as just a few of the greats.
Deep Rock Galactic, as mentioned elsewhere, is also amazing. Depending on the type, you can do a mission or two in a 30 minute timeframe.
It hasn't been mentioned here yet so I'll chirp in: Dwarf Fortress! Imagine it as the sims, but with dwarves. Who are all alcoholics, even the children. And there's a literal hell, and you can go there (without the pesky need to die first). And, well, volcanoes and lava and magma and pumping magma through channels in the rock to use it for production purposes or as a defensive weapon, and goblins and elves and sieges and elves coming to besiege you because you cut down too many trees, wielding only wooden weapons and wearing wooden armor and riding "a gigantic monster in the shape of a tiger"...
Honestly, threes just so much to the game it's hard to really do it justice.
I would say, if you’re into colony management Sims, a similar, but less complicated(but equally horrifying) option would be Rimworld. I’ll never forget my first really successful colony ended when four prisoners started a prison break, someone had a mental break, and the pyromaniac just started lighting everything on fire and I had made the whole base out of wood.. good times… The game has only been improved by the expansions(I wasn’t initially won over by Royalty, but I came around) and the Dev is awesome
Warhammer 40K Darktide. Not much of a story except for the opening but and a few cutscenes as you level up, basically create a character, get a gun, get a melee weapon, drop into a map and kill things. Rounds can last 20-30 minutes. Pretty mindless co-op game (bots fill in any open spots) but so much fun.
Having fixed the way suppression works and basically fully released crafting I'm comfortable saying that Darktide is probably the second best modern horde shooter on the market right now. (DRG has been smoking the competition for awhile now)
Deep Rock Galactic takes about take time to finish a mission. Great game, but works better with multiplayer. In terms of single player, I've been playing Halls of Torment (Vampire Survivors meets Diablo esthetic).
I'll throw DSP (Dyson Sphere Program) into the ring. Imagine Factorio or Satisfactory, just more eh ... chill vibes? And as a friend of mine put it, you "dont need to have a PhD to understand logistics", which may be a positive or a negative depending on your outlook, I guess.
And you're colonizing planets and star systems in order to build the titular Dyson Sphere.
Is it perfect? Nah, also to play multiplayer (which I am) you need to whip out your modding tools, so to speak.
second DSP. My only complaint is... actually, i can't think of any? Maybe that you get so far through the tech tree before even leaving your home planet, but well, it's still in early access 🤷♂️
Baba is You - A puzzle game that's so simple they even write out the rules in big letters on every single level for you. Easy, right? Right?
Celeste - A platformer with 8-way airdashes. I'm sure you've already heard enough about how amazing the base game is, so I just want to take a moment to shoutout the incredible modding scene for more content. My favorites are Spring 2020 Collab, Strawberry Jam, Glyph, Conqueror's Peak, and Into the Jungle.
CrossCode - Phenomenal action RPG. Combat is fast and explosive, dungeons are very obviously Zelda inspired but with way more puzzles. Packed with tons and tons and tons of sidequests, many of which put unique twists on the combat system to keep you on your toes. Make sure to grab the epilogue DLC.
Crypt of the Necrodancer - Rhythm game/roguelike sounds like the strangest mashup ever. But what's even stranger is just how well it works. It's just a matter of keeping 4/4 time, but forcing a steady pace forces you to think fast and not make any mistakes. Every death is clearly your fault as every enemy is designed to be beatable using only a base dagger without getting hit (and indeed there's a challenge character that forces exactly this), but dealing with swarms is where it gets complicated. I especially recommend trying to speedrun, playing for speed really makes this game adrenaline-fueled as you have to pace yourself judging how much time you can afford to gather items if you want to make sub-15 or sub-10. Danny Baranowsky's soundtrack absolutely delivers. Get both the Amplified and Synchrony DLCs.
Dicey Dungeons - A roguelike, uh, dicebuilder? I'd call it a sort of Slay the Spire-lite, not quite as much depth and you'll probably fall back on the same builds a lot, but it's still good casual fun to unwind with.
OneShot - Fairly reminiscent of Undertale, if you liked that you'll probably enjoy this too. And like Undertale I don't want to say too much, take my word for it and let it surprise you.
Panel Attack - FOSS clone of Panel de Pon/Puzzle League with modding support and netplay. Also check out Super Plexis for a commercial clone that's still in early alpha but has a lot of ambitious features planned.
Simon Tatham's Puzzles - Big FOSS collection of logic puzzles. Most of them have lots of parameters you can play with to generate any size board you want at whatever difficulty and various other tweaks.
Skullgirls - Still the best damn fighting game of all time. Almost never not on sale, hell you probably already own this by now and may not even realize it.
Slay the Spire - Roguelike deckbuilder, basic idea is that after each combat you get to add a card to your deck, plus collect relics from elites/events/shops/bosses which provide passive effects. There's a ton of depth in trying to assemble the perfect deck one card at a time, resource management gets very complicated balancing what you need in the short-term versus what you want to take to the endgame. Tons and tons of possibilities, you can pretty much expect to never build the same deck twice. Oh, and did I mention there's 20 levels of hard modes once you think you've gotten A0 down? Also has a very powerful mod API with Steam Workshop support, check out Packmaster and Adventurer for my favorite must-plays.
Super Hexagon - The object of the game is to survive 60 seconds without getting hit. You won't. Perfect for quick play sessions, just one more try... Also try Open Hexagon for a spiritual successor.
Them's Fightin' Herds - Another great fighting game, been waiting a long time for this port to bring us up to a grand total of two good fighting games on Linux. Has a lot of really cool features like a big story mode with overworld exploration, a cute lobby system with cosmetics to collect and treasure chests to fight for, a dynamic music system that reacts to the fight, and even a semi-cooperative dungeon crawler mode. Has crossplay with consoles as well. Full review.
Ultimate Chicken Horse - Start on a nearly empty platformer map, each round everyone adds one object somewhere on the map then you all try to finish the level. Whoever finishes gets a point, plus bonus points for whoever finished first or collected coins that have been placed. Then you add another set of objects and repeat. Quickly becomes hilariously chaotic as you try to figure out how to balance screwing everyone else over while still making sure you can win, only to realize that after a few rounds you have all built a horrifying monstrosity. Has full crossplay with console versions.
Undertale - If you've somehow been living under a rock and haven't had the entire game spoiled for you by now, just take my word for it and go play this. The less you know going in the better. Deltarune too.
VA-11 Hall-A - Visual novel with a unique framing device: instead of directly choosing dialogue options, the story unfolds based on the drinks you serve everyone. Sounds bizarre but it somehow works. Great atmosphere, charming characters, hilarious writing.
Anything by Zachtronics - A bunch of different engineering puzzle games where you have to write code or build a machine to solve problems. Once you've solved the puzzle, yyou can see a histogram comparing your solution to everyone else's on a few different metrics, encouraging you to go back and try to optimize it further. I recommend Opus Magnum as the best entry point.
I don't think it's for everyone, but I've played https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/ for about 600 hours at this point. It's a roguelike deckbuilder -- you build a deck of cards and work your way through a randomly generated map, constantly trying to get stronger at a faster rate than the enemies you'll face, by picking up new cards, relics that give you certain bonuses, and also by removing your starter cards that aren't very good compared to ones you pick up later.
It's a difficult game, especially if you start going up in difficulty ("ascension"), but very rewarding. If it's for you, it's a game you can play basically forever.
A single run takes 1-1.5 hours once you're used to it (rarely more than 70 mins for me), maybe closer to 2 hours when you're a few days in. The game saves at every floor, about 50 times per run, so it's easy to quit and come back.
I should point out that I had a strong aversion to any kind of game involving cards, yet ended up falling in love with StS to the point that it might be my second most played game of all time just three years later.
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