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.
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.
Hades was absolutely my first suggestion too. Aside from the drip-feed of upgrades, it also rewards perseverance with plot progression.
+1 for Hades
Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll check them out.
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!
Would like to second Hades as a suggestion. Lovely story, characters, mechanics, aesthetics, difficulty curve (which adjusts as needed), just a lovely game!
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.
It’s interesting that this has now become its own genre! I haven’t actually played any - what games are there besides Vampire Survivors and Brotato?
Halls of Torment is probably my favorite “clone”. Feels like “Vampire Survivors, but Diablo”.
Soulstone Survivors is also pretty good.Thanks - I wasn’t aware of either of those before! Is VS still the best of the lot?
Army of Ruin is the best VS game imo, and surpasses it. After playing it, going back to VS is bleeeh :)
Im going to add cult of the lambs to this
I would add Everspace as well. You can fit a round into a 15 minute block if you wanted to, or save in the middle
Outer Wilds. By it’s very nature, the game splits itself into 20 minute blocks.
You don’t make ‘materialistic progress’, but you’ll almost always make progress in the game; the progress you make is finding out new information. Yes, it starts over every time, but you aren’t losing progress. It’s also just, in general, an excellent game.
I found this game a little hard to get into personally since it seems to tell you very little of what to do in some areas. I do need to pick it up and try again soon though
I had the same problem, and a friend pushed me to try it a second time. It was absolutely worth it. I’d say if you get stuck on one “puzzle,” go somewhere else and see what you can find. The shipboard computer is also helpful at pointing out where you missed something or what to look for next.
There is always abundant information on pretty much exactly what to do for each puzzle, but its not always were you’d expect to find it. I got totally stuck on one planet looked up the solution and could not imagine anyone ever thinking to try it. Of course, turns out another character had already been there, and the game tells you he had already been there, and he tells you exactly what to do if you can find him.
So when I did the dlc I just trusted solutions would show up eventually and managed to complete the whole thing with no guides.
Second The Outer Wilds. Anything you can do in the game can be accomplished in more or less 20 minuets. There is meta progression in the form of a ship log that keeps track of each run’s exploration and important information. You’ll probably end up wanting to binge it though to figure out the narrative.
Just made a Lemmy for it yesterday here: https://vlemmy.net/c/outerwilds
I want to point out the obvious choice by recommending Minecraft. It is very easy to proficient, acquiring in game materials is all you do. Play sessions can be as long as you want since it is a open sandbox and you can add as much depth as you want via mods.
Or minecraft dungeons…
Yep and both it and the open source Minetest are highly moddable to tailor the experience to your liking.
Vampire Survivor is def a good recommendation, though I also have to mention Deep Rock Galactic!
It has a great gameplay loop that always stays fresh due to the four different classes and the procedurally generated levels. It has both solo and co-op, and both are fun in their own way. Plus it has the most positive online community I’ve ever come across which is a nice bonus. It’s on sale for the summer sale of you wanna check it out.
I second Deep Rock Galactic. It’s one of the only games that I know of where it has seasonal events and a battle pass but both are free and if you don’t complete it, it all gets added to the loot pool so you can get it later on. The missions also only last between 20-45 minutes depending on difficulty and stuff so you can pick it up and play whenever you have extra time. To add on to the community aspect: almost everyone from veterans of the game to new players are very welcoming to newcomers :)
Super auto pets!
Hades is a good one. Every run is under 20 minutes and makes some reasonable progress with personal upgrades.
Minecraft is also good at this. Even if you’ve only got 5 minutes, 5 minutes of mining or 5 minutes of building is appreciable. The only task that I would avoid (without a map markers mod) is exploration.
On mobile, I’ve been really enjoying Mini Metro. You typically finish a level in 5-10 minutes, and it can be surprisingly challenging.
Against the Storm is also good. Every game is a couple hours long, but you can drop it and pick it up at will. The game never gets so bogged down that it’s too hard to just look around your settlement while paused and remind yourself what needs doing.
Another option is a rhythm game like Etterna. You don’t progress with levels or game mechanics, but in the skills you gain as a player. I’ve found the skills in accuracy and such to be surprisingly durable, and easy to make marked improvements just playing a 1-5 minute song every day. Though while the time needed is only a couple minutes, I think that going more than a week or so without a session would result in some degradation of skills that you’d have to get back.
Vampire Surviver spawned a new genre of games that are great single session games. There are a lot of variations, but the core loop of vampire survivors is similar to a rouge-like, but focuses on making each run fun and rewarding. You generally get points of some sort for a run, which you invest into a skill tree or stat points, and your next run is better as a result. Even most rouge-lites try not to give you a huge advantage with your unlocks, but Vampire Survivor and it’s ilk really focus on that. As a result, the repetition isn’t as brutal, and death doesn’t feel like a punishment.
Does this new genre have a name? Or do you have other examples like it? I really enjoyed Vampire Survivor so I would love to try something similar to it.
The main tags I see applied to that genre is Survivors-like or Bullet Hell.
My personal favorite of that genre is Soulstone Survivors. Highly recommend checking it out!
Thanks, that one looks kinda similar to Vampire Survivor - just added it to my wishlist.
Stardew Valley might be right up your alley.
Each day in the game is fairly short, just under 15 minutes. Each days progress carries over to the next, so you have nice short start/stop sessions.
There is loot you can gain, lots of money to build and expand along with resources like food to grow or wood to harvest that then allow for more buildings on your property. Caves to explore, relationships to form with other villagers in the town, and a bunch of unlockable things to show steady progress.
My wife and I both got hooked, and over the years have sunk 500+ hours into it just from doing various replays.
Its a small game storage size-wise, single or multi-player are equally enjoyable, and not a big money investment.
This is very different from the other examples, but have you tried XCOM 1 or 2?
In both games you control a squad of commandos through turn based missions to repel an alien invasion of earth.
The soldiers all have special classes and gain ranks through experience, meaning you’ll have made tangible progress and got more powerful with each promotion a surviving soldier receives.
Between missions, you also construct a base / facility which structures the strategic side of the campaign.
Both games also have a good mobile / tablet port.
XCOM is one of the best RTS I’ve ever played!
Countless hours poured into those games, especially the first one!
Hades or dead cells - both are fantastic roguelites that you can pretty much pause at any time and have loads of replayability
Hades and it’s upcoming successor Hades 2 (but i doubt Hades 2 will be under 10gb).
Hades is a rougelike you specifically will enjoy because there is persistent progress in terms of upgrades and buffs almost each run, so you’re not really resetting anything. It’s a masterpiece in its own right, but I think it will be a good fit for you too. Hope this helps!
Stardew Valley has 20 minute days, and you can go to sleep earlier if you like to end the day at any point.
That’s exactly what I play Stardew Valley for -each in-game day lasts only a few minutes and ending the day saves automatically. Progress (as in extending your farm, befriending villagers, exploring the mines) is pretty much constant & endless.
“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.”
…Except this isn’t true of what we’d traditionally call rogue-lites, which is really most roguelikes these days. The vast, vast majority have a lot of meta progression systems to the point where people actually expect it these days.
For example with Binding of Isaac, you unlock items and story beats with certain milestones like “beat the final boss 10 times” or “use this item while having this effect”, and these allow you to progress further into the story and also unlock new items. I’d suggest giving Hades a shot if binding of Isaac doesn’t look appealing to you, very nice andrelativrly east rougelite.
Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I am happy to part of this wonderful and helpful community!