So, I’ve spent over 2 hours on Steam searching for a nice game to play. But it’s all junk, as far as I’m fed with Steam recommendations. I liked ksp2 1, cities skylines 1, age of empires 2, baldurs gate 3 a lot, I just finished Divinity original sin 2. I like rpgs and management / factory games like workers and resources, satisfactory etc. I’m having a lot of fun with split fiction when I play with a friend, but I need a proper singplayer game. Anything I could get which isn’t a total ripoff due to lack of gameplay or it being a bug simulator or dlc purchase mania?
EDIT: I’m a bit overwhelmed by all reactions. Thank you all so much! I have a lot of amazing recommendations to check out!
- Factorio, I know you said you couldn’t get into it, but try peaceful mode, it’s a great game even without enemies
- RimWorld, it’s an excellent colony management game
- Dwarf Fortress, this is the big boss, it’s really hard to start, but it’s the most complex simulation game out there. If you can get into it, it’s infinite hours of fun.
Horror/action: Dead Space.
FPS/time manipulation: Singularity.
Factory/combat(optional): Dyson Sphere ProjectSingularity still stands up as it’s graphics are decent. Super cheap on GoG. Dead Space if you get the original would be cheap. HD remaster would be more. If you love factory games but have never played DSP god damn do I wish I was you. Recommend playing without combat enabled on first run to just enjoy how gorgeous the game is and to help with learning everything before throwing in combat management
Kenshi.
If you can get past the kind of… weird control scheme…
The game is basically a single player mmorpg.
You start off as an absolute weakling, and there is no … scaling, the way most other rpgs either generally have certain levelled enemies in certain areas, that you progress through linearly or unlock sequentially, or just an outright whole world spanning dynamic level matching kind of system.
You can be battling a small beast… and then a herd of very, very much more dangerous beasts, or slavers, will just happen to pass by, and royally fuck up your day.
Every character in the game, including you, plays by the same rules.
All major NPCs can be killed, the game is also full of varying factions with varying alignments towars other factions, and they will treat your character differently based on your race, the kinds of actio s you do, your reputation with other factions.
The storytelling is … a sandbox/emergent approach. Not in the sense of ‘there are no story lines or quests’… but in the sense of… a whole lot of stuff is out there, but you have to self direct yourself to go out and find it, or randomly encounter it.
Also, you can gain allies, make your own faction, and control a small army… and you can even build your own settlement, and economically interact with the rest of the world.
… Its… kind of hard to describe.
There really aren’t any other games quite like Kenshi.
Its got a good sized modding scene, and it incorperates at least some elemenrs of… every game you mentioned.
If you use a mod to up your max follower/faction member count… you can basically play the game as an RTS (with pause). Build a settlement, recruit followers (or enslave them), arm them, fees them, train them up, and go take over a city if you want.
… Or play basically solo, just you and your bonedog, maybe as a bounty hunter for hire, or a hashish smuggler, or get a pack animal and run a trade caravan.
Factorio. Aka cracktorio.
The Bioshock games are really fun in a very dark way. They are incredibly unique—I haven’t played anything else quite like them. Personally, I liked the first two better than the third one. The first two take place underwater, which sort of creeped me out from the get-go. The third is in a city in the sky.
Factorio. If you enjoyed Satisfactory you should check out the game that created the genre. They have an excellent demo and although it’s relatively expensive compared to similar games, it’s the best one and runs like an absolute dream even when things get huge where a lot of similar games slow down.
Slay the spire is really fun and different than what you’ve listed.
It was the first rogue like deck building game. Fantastically done.
Factorio. If you like satisfactory and w&r then cracktorio is right up your alley.
There is also a free demo on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/If you enjoy the base game I would 100% recommend the expansion called Space Age with adds 4 more planets and space flight between them.
I played several factory games which is right up my alley. I know Factorio is the best of all by far, but I couldn’t get in to it somehow.
I couldn’t get into it either, but I loved mindustry (that someone else mentioned)
If you like factory designing games, I can recommend anything by Zachtronics.
They’re all esoteric programming/automation type puzzle games, and they all have their own unique solitaire games built-in for whenever you get tired of the main game.
My personal favourites are SpaceChem - scifi molecule factories - and Opus Magnum - steampunk alchemical molecule factories. Something about the molecules just works for me, don’t know why. Plus the Opus Magnum solitaire game is really unique and fun, and it has a user-made level feature, so you can keep playing.
Last Call BBS is a collection of minigames they made as their final release before shutting up shop, so it’s a lot more casual than the others, but a lot of fun.
Shall I recommend WarZone-2100 ? It’s free
Naturally we need to know which suggestions “won” ASAP
Have you considered Rimworld or 4x games? Stellaris, in particular, might be up your alley.
++++1 for Rimworld. The first time I really committed to learning to play that game, I lost almost 100 hours in ~3 weeks (which is a ton for me, since I have kids and a job… I lost a lot of sleep). The best part of Rimworld, is if there’s a vanilla mechanic you don’t like or wish was fleshed out more, there’s a 98% chance someone has made a mod for it.
But yeah, it isn’t for the faint of heart. It definitely has a learning curve and it isn’t super easy to just pick up and play for small amounts here and there. It’s a game that you really need at least 1-2 hours per session.
I’d recommend watching a quick start tutorial video before you start playing, as that’ll also give you an idea on whether or not you’ll like it.
I almost religiously play games without modding, but Rimworld is the major exception - it is simply too good to ignore.
It’s fairly playable without mods these days, I’d recommend new players at least try that to find out what they’d want to tweak before diving in. But yeah at 3k+ hours on steam it’s definitely one of the games that’s given a bunch for me. Very moddable but I’d suggest trying to keep your list light (not that that really stops me), use rimpy for mod management and grab the performance mods like rocketman and performance fish.
Stellaris, in particular, might be up your alley.
I like Stellaris quite a bit, but I should note that OP mentioned how he didn’t like spending money on DLC. Stellaris follows the typical Paradox approach of creating a lot of DLC to expand and extend the game and its gameplay as long as people are interested in buying it, and winding up with a large game that’ll cost you a lot if you want all the DLC. It may be worthwhile, but if one wants to get all the DLC, it’s gonna add a fair bit to the price.
(checks Steam)
The base game is $40. Buying every available piece of DLC (and it looks like they’re still coming out with more stuff) is another $429.
That being said, I’ve also got a lot of hours of gameplay out of Stellaris, so that does bring the cost-per-hour down quite a lot. But it depends on how much someone is going to play the thing.
+1 to RimWorld suggestion.
I played Stellaris, also HOI4 but those games were hard to learn, even harder to master.
I’ll go check Rimworld, thanks!
dwarf fortress?
I see no mention of Starsector, there should be mention of Starsector.
Try Starsector.
Not on steam, early 2000’s website, gameplay looks nice. This is a win for me. Thanks!