

I appreciate your thoughts here, but I wonder if you’ve ever played Disco Elysium? To me, that game comes closest to approximating the storytelling prowess of a novel while also retaining player agency in significant ways. I pitch the game to people as “a point and click mystery game crossed with an existential novel.”
Slay the Spire is excellent. It’s a deep game that’s easy to play sort of mindlessly if you’d like. Lots of replayability.