I am not a professional gamer nor do I have much time to invest into a game in one stretch. However I do enjoy the cumulative progress I make with each session I have with the games, specifically progress of acquiring loot, money, powers or in-game materials. Are there any games that try to match my interests?

An example of such games would be Papa Louie’s food games. Though these are very simplistic and made for kids, their per-day game sessions (which last about 10 minutes) perfectly fit the idea of the type of game I am looking for. (I could have come up with a more appropriate or mature example, but that is exactly the point why I am looking for similar games.)

I have looked into the genre of roguelikes, however the basic premise of these games are that they start all over again from each session, which is what I am trying to avoid.

I can play on PC (controller included) and mobile. Apart from this, I would really appreciate if the game is under 10GB, single-player and is just easy in general to understand and play.

  •  OmegaMouse   ( @OmegaMouse@feddit.uk ) 
    40•1 year ago

    You might want to look specifically at rogue ‘lites’ which tend to have some form of upgrade system outside of the main gameplay loop. In Hades for example, you pick up certain items during a run which you can use to upgrade your character after you die. Other ones that spring to mind are Dead Cells, Slay the Spire, Monster Train and Rogue Legacy. All of these have generally quite short sessions and each run lets you improve your character for subsequent runs.

      •  l4sgc   ( @l4sgc@beehaw.org ) 
        2•1 year ago

        Vampire Survivors is the one I’m addicted to right now. It’s on pc and mobile; I bought it on steam and the dlc, my wife just plays free on android. I usually get very stressed out with combat in games, but it’s a roguelite that’s way more casual yet still manages to have a very satisfying game loop and progression between runs. In addition to upgrades that make your character more powerful, you can choose upgrades which make the enemies more powerful, so the game can always be the perfect level of difficulty as you naturally get better at it. It also has tons of additional achievements and challenges, I have like 100hrs in it and I haven’t even started the second dlc yet.

        Cult of the Lamb is the one my wife has been playing the most. It alternates dungeons with base-building / management. The cultists are super cute animals and it has a slightly dark/twisted comedic tone that we really like. Even though it’s single player, there’s also a twitch integration so your friends can watch and vote on whether to send rewards or challenges into the game, and customize their own NPC.

        I’ll second the recommendation for Hades, the art/music/voice-acting/story are all incredible. The gameplay did frustrate me a little bit at the start though, I thought it shouldn’t be so hard at the start that it’s impossible to win without the upgrades between runs. But even though it was initially unsatisfying to keep dying so early in the game, I realized the problem was actually my own expectations, and actually it was really fun being able to get a little farther each time and keep discovering new things. I played it in early-access and then shortly after release so idk if changes were made since then. Super excited for Hades 2!

    •  Skray   ( @Skray@kbin.social ) 
      1•1 year ago

      Survivor games which are very similar to roguelites can also be an option. Vampire Survivors being the big one. Runs are up to 30 minutes long with permanent unlocks in the form of characters and new power ups or boosts.