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.
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
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
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.
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?
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.
Super auto pets!
Might’ve meant “material” progress, like “tangible” or progress that’s real and meaningful? “Materialistic” I think usually just means thinking about things you own rather than the quality of your life and relationships? Though saying it out now, I guess that works kind of… But I’ve only ever heard “materialistic” referring to people who only care about what someone owns rather than being a good person; never about video games or the kind of progress I think you’re wanting.
Anyway, lots of good suggestions here. I can’t add anything that meets all your qualifications; but if you are willing to dramatically break your install size requirement, I’ve been having a lot of fun lately with the Forza Horizon games (4 and 5) which are open-world racing/challenge games; but literally everything you do contributes to experience points and money you can use to upgrade and purchase new cars, and there are a lot of challenges which aren’t just races, there’s speed trials (how fast can you hit this one stretch of road), trick trials (how many jumps can you pull if in a minute) and so on.
But the install is like 65GB for FH4, and 150+GB for FH5… hundreds of high detail cars and massive open worlds, I guess… :(
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!
“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.
Hades or dead cells - both are fantastic roguelites that you can pretty much pause at any time and have loads of replayability
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.
