Turn based jrpgs like Final fantasy series games, octopath traveller, dragon warrior

Sam and max beyond space and time, comedy point and click adventure style game

DOOM

All of the old scummVM adventure games; Sam and max hit the road, monkey island, day of the tentacle, etc

For something more cinematic I’d look at platinum games like Bayonetta, god of wars, mass effects, gears, half-lifes, dark souls

I would avoid something really puzzle heavy like professor Layton or tactical like civ or Stellaris I enjoy watching/listening to people play games but those usually can’t hold my interest unless I’m playing

Edit: a couple more recent titles to add are Pentiment and Kentucky route zero

Is this the one where devolver digital does something goofy? That’s usually pretty fun

BotW was a great exploration and movement game. I think the things that help are fun transportation methods and a big open world to use them in. So Tony hawk might be a lot of fun to just ride around but the levels are too small for any real exploration. Or daggerfall is a huge open world, but traveling feels pretty tedious. MMOs are kinda fun for this but the leveled regions means some places are very dangerous to move around in without a group or higher levels. Forza 4/5 were a lot of fun for this if you ignore the loot box casino garbage. The last couple Spider-Mans were really good for this & Burnout paradise was a good one too.

I can’t think of a setting that would universally apply to all games, like I’d be hard pressed to say a setting in Tetris that would apply to Minecraft. Vision and auditory accessibility is probably about it, but those settings would look pretty different I think depending on the game or genre of game.

Sounds like a counter recommendary (anti-recommendist?), whatever they recommend look for the opposite instead

Wow, replied before I saw this. 2 on live references in a single thread, feel like I just spotted a bigfoot or something

💀

I’d probably go for historic impact if there’s no more games I’d want a good selection of what people considered major titles of video game history. Maybe one classic, one old console, one arcade fighter, one modern PC, and one online shooter.

Pong

The legend of Zelda

Tekken 3

World of Warcraft classic

Team fortress 2

The more effort it puts on the media consumer to engage actively over long periods of time like a game, book, textbook, etc for more gradual and lasting dopamine instead of a series of small dopamine spikes seems the trick. Social media is fast food for your attention, too much adversely effects your mental health just like too much fast food effects your physical health. Habits build results good or bad. Video games that give similar small, frequent dopamine spikes like skinner boxes (casino games, candy crush, vampire survivors, cod, etc) are probably going to be more similar to the junk food social media compared to games like journey, the last of us, puzzles, etc.

2d/3d: I want to keep both thumbs on the sticks for 3d so I prefer a controller like this 3rd party Xbox with back buttons and extra shoulder buttons

Fighting: leverless is a lot of fun, I have a slab mini and a junk food micro lite I prefer the micro it’s way lighter

Dwarf fortress, chess, crosswords, Nonograms, sudoku

Check out scummVM and ROMs for old point and click adventure games like grim fandango, monkey island, Sam & max, etc

I don’t think there’s a too big for a simulation type game world, go all the way. But for more directed game styles that are narrative driven or more carnival ride than simulation don’t make it boring use techniques from past games; the keeping distant landmarks in view outside like in New Vegas, or hilly landscapes to obscure stuff to discover like in Zelda or Skyrim. Bad examples would be like traveling between towns in daggerfall or those monuments in the middle of nowhere in starfield.

The secret of Monkey island games have a tropical Halloween feel with ghost pirates and root beer

Kentucky route zero for a slower ghost story, dear Esther for a walking sim ghost story both with great soundtracks

I remember they used to do gm run player events around Halloween in EverQuest back in the day and on project 1999, not sure if any mmo or online games theses days still have human gms

Hey look over there, it’s a scapegoat

Special interest journalism is usually overrun by corporate interests and inflated reviews. Find someone who knows the history of the industry and was fired or left an organization for something like reporting a low review to search out integrity for individuals.

A game doesn’t have to offer anything, if they can offer modes without compromising on their artistic integrity good for them otherwise just make the best game they can without requiring they cater to the largest demographic.

Even if I was in the market the way they manufacturer & sell them you won’t get one for list price for the first year or two

Some of the jrpgs like final fantasy are great, octopath traveler, dwarf fortress menu is up there as a minimalistic folk. I’ll go with pillars of eternity

Same argument Sony gave when EverQuest 2 launched with stupid high required specs. World of Warcraft launched a month later you could run on any video card from the last 5 years and the whole franchise still hasn’t recovered.

Dear Esther and Kentucky route zero for the music and atmosphere, elden ring for the atmosphere and challenge. Something with an engaging story planescape torment & torment tides of numenera.

Return to monkey island was pretty fun if you enjoy the originals or telltale versions. The movement and gunplay in d2 was a lot of fun, too bad they screwed up so bad with the expansions and monetization.

Anime jiggle physics, Dvorak’s 9th, and the moon

https://youtu.be/-fxVmBhXclQ

Just got to the Lower Ward on my planscape: torment replay. The soundtrack is great, found a couple different paths to take by dying I didn’t even think about when I played it last time. Updated my journal.

Planscape torment is in there if you want some old school crpg.

ScummVM is an old point and click adventure game engine with a ton of classics (Sam and max, day of the tentacle, Indiana Jones, etc).

lichess.org for free chess, puzzles and matches for different modes

Alphacross is pretty good for crosswords but it looks like they don’t let you add your own sources which is a bummer and a couple sources have circled letters in puzzles that don’t show up that can make it a little janky

And there’s always DOOM

I use dns ad blocking so some of the cookies popups from the same host show up. This site either wants you to subscribe or accept ads and sending cookie trackers to advertisers, sure I could accept and assume my browser will successful block the third party cookies, but I don’t consent so I won’t accept.

Can’t read the article without accepting sending cookies to thousands of companies. The only time I can remember having to restart was god of war 2, I was playing on hard and there was a boss I couldn’t beat after about a week of multiple gaming sessions. It wouldn’t let you charge difficulty on the fly so I had to restart the game on medium.

I’ve beaten dark souls 3, most of elden ring and the first dlc, Bloodborne, play fighting games, etc. I also like point and click adventure games with little or no control challenges that focus mostly on plot and character development through story events.

I’m okay with some games not catering to everyone as long as they are transparent about it, just like I wouldn’t expect white knuckle challenges that take practice and fast reactions from a cozy comfort game like animal crossing.

https://lichess.org/ FOSS run by a nonprofit with tons of players and game modes if anyone is looking to get into it

I enjoy more arcade style racing games so over the last few years the ones I enjoyed the most were burnout paradise and the remake, trackmania, and forza horizon 4 and 5

I played some tourneys through CAL in counterstrike a long time ago and there was some tough competition on the amateur side. The pros were on another level from most amateur teams but a few of the amateur teams could still give them some competition.

Pillars of eternity 1 and 2, octopath traveler, Chrono trigger, streets of rage, sonic 1-3, and doom eternal were all pretty amazing

Same, played the first into late game and

Second I played most of the characters to their third quest maybe about halfway though the game and the day/night addition was fun but the narrative style and level gating in the second could use more work imo.

I played terminal velocity, kind of like the ‘we have descent at home’

Also around that time there was a game Magic Carpet EA published that had a similar feel

Doom WADs for a huge back catalog, elder scrolls mods for Bethesda tools and a pretty big player base, Unity/UE for more professional game designer tools, mega man maker for something quick and simple and fun to jump into

4 and 5 were both fun if you ignore the in game store and goals and just play around in the open world with other players or find some stretch of road to see if you can get a top speed, perfect a drift around a sharp turn, etc.

If you want to check out some classics look up project 1999 for EverQuest or the classic world of warcraft servers. RuneScape isn’t a bad choice if you’re into the grind.

Modern I don’t think there’s much I can recommend, even the subscription based games have stores attached now & few or no in game events run by GMs