What's the game you play when nothing else sounds good?
What's the game you play when nothing else sounds good?
Do you have a game you play over and over, when nothing else fits your mood? That game that is infinitely re-playable, somewhat the same every time and somewhat new and interesting?
For me it's the games in the Orcs Must Die series. But mostly OMD 3. I play the mode called Scramble, where you have to beat 5 rounds of orcs, and they get harder and harder as you progress. There are random things to make it harder (nerfs) and you can choose 1 thing per round to make it easier (buffs). I've probably played that something like 300 times now since I beat the main game + DLCs a long while ago. I go into a special mental state while playing, since I know it all so well, and just zone out for about an hour each time.
Patient gamers, what's your "I will keep playing this game for the rest of my life" fallback?
I play the "What's that black dot on the wall and is it moving?" game.
Very fun until one actually starts moving.
Stellaris with the Star Trek: New Horizons mod. Currently doing a Borg run, at war with the Dominion right now, but of course, resistance is futile.
Creeper World 4, the daily map usually has a good duration. Takes your thoughts off everything else pretty well, yet is not too demanding. And you can vary your play style yourself a bit / set your own limitations, depending on how much of a challenge you want right now or how much time you want to spend.
Risk of Rain 2. And if that doesn't work, Risk of Rain 2.
Probably Fortnite. It's not just one battle royale game anymore. If I feel like racing, I can play Rocket Racing. If I feel like building, I can play Lego Fortnite. Festival if I want a Guitar Hero experience, Ballistic if I want a Counter-Strike experience, and so on. It's all tied to Epic's servers though, so it's not for life.
I was trying Terraria, which has a lot of creativity possibilities. I was trying to earthwork/terraform a small world (i.e. trying to make it level from ocean to ocean), while simultaneously "voidforming" another small world (i.e. digging out every single "removable" block before Hardmode, which obviously excluded Lihzard temple blocks, Dungeon blocks and Crimson/Corruption altars; for lava, I was using the infinite bucket trick to replicate honey in order to consume lava from the Underworld; I don't plan on reaching Hardmode for such world). I was taking blocks from the second world (the world to be voidformed) and "smuggling" them into the first world (the world to be terraformed) in order to compensate for the need for additional blocks (e.g. sand, ice, mud, etc) when biomes were generated below ocean level.
Turns out that I was doing this not exactly for fun and enjoyment, but something to "try to keep myself busy and away from bad thoughts", and that was not really a good goal for myself. By now, it has been weeks since I last played.
X-Com (1993)+Mods, Jagged Alliance 2, Master of Orion 2, Starsector, Avorion and lately Balatro and Peglin for mindless fun.
The Warhammer tide games, either Vermintide 2 or Darktide. Best melee combat in a video game, relatively short rounds, and super satisfying to just genocide some heretic/xeno hordes for the Emperor/Sigmar.
You just alerted me to the existence of Orcs Must Die 3, and I am going to check it out after absolutely loving the first 2.
For me its titanfall 2. Simply because its quite casual and the rounds don't take too long. Just hop on and if you get absolutely obliderated the next round will be better.
Crawl: Stone Soup. Classic rogue like. You can play it in the browser so it's very fast to get going. Minotaur Berserker is a nice semi brainless flow.
I'll play a multiplayer shooter or civilization 6
For me it is loading up Xonotic to strafe jump around and blast bots. The movement in Xonotic is hypnotic, and while I usually play in short bursts I don't think I will ever get bored of returning over and over again to learn the nuances and creative opportunities of combat and movement in Xonotic. All it takes is the first strafe jump to put a stupid smile on my face.
Also I love open world driving games and Motortown is my jam. I do urgent taxi jobs and just let my mind relax as I drive like a complete madman. The tire grip and burnout mechanics along with the vehicle handling in general is the best I have tried in any game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369670/Motor_Town_Behind_The_Wheel/
FIFA, a lot of the time. Lately it's been Rocket League.
I did that a lot with Subnautica but I think I've worn it out. I would make up challenge runs for myself to spice it up and I've run out of those. It was my "I want to play a video game right now" game. I kinda wish I had fewer objections to Subnautica 2, because there's things I like about that game and things I don't and the don'ts slightly outweigh the things that do.
I’ll load up Spider-man a couple times a month just to go on patrol, and stop random crimes.
Been doing this since Spider-man 2 came out on the original Xbox. Glad the new one came out, and I don’t have to chase that kid’s damn balloon anymore.
Slay the spire. Quick 30-45 minute run is just enough to kill time.
I have no idea why, but Wurm Online always manages to draw me back. Guess it's a Zen and the Art of Imping addiction.
Crypt of the Necrodancer.
Really fun roguelike game where you and enemies have to move to the beat of that floor's song. I think part of the reason I still play it a lot is that it's amenable to very short sessions. I've played enough that runs go fast and I either clear or die within 10 minutes.
Over 1200 hours now almost a decade after release, and a huge chunk of that is probably sessions of under 30 mins in length.
FTL.
When I'm too tired or depressed to dive deep into something it's always something really simple like Ring of Pain, Vampire Survivors, or other slow paced stuff.
Europa Universalis IV. There are tons of countries to play, lots of variation each time, and so many options for self challenges (e.g. accomplish goal by year).
The only thing that would get me to stop playing is if EUV is good, and then only a few years and DLC in. Even then, I could see myself coming back to it.
For me that's rocket league.
I love hunting for achievements and there’s always one unfinished game that’s a fallback to push a bit further in these cases where I stare at my Steam library for five minutes without starting anything, right now it‘s „if in doubt, play Metal Gear Solid V“
Runs 60 FPS all high on the Deck as well, which is crazy to me
These days I mostly just grind the same handful of games. Actually having a hard time pulling myself away long enough to get through the JRPGs on my backlog...
- Skullgirls
- Them's Fightin' Herds
- Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]
- Riichi Mahjong (Mahjong Soul, Riichi City, IRL)
- Slay the Spire
- Puyo Puyo Champions
- Panel de Pon
Phigros
It's a mobile rhythm game without ads and in-app purchases. It's also completely offline so I don't need an internet connection to play.
I've been chipping away at that deep rock galactic reverse bullet hell game for a while now. Don't have the patience to play anything for more than half an hour these days.
Project Zomboid, or one of the Arkham games.
Recently, some doom mod
There's good free multiplayer games (e.g. delat force, marvel rivals, deadlock)
Unless you mean single-player
Ys Seven for the PSP. I have Ys VII and Ys: MoC for the Vita and Ys IX for the Switch, but there's something about Seven that keeps me coming back.
Marvel Snap
Hardspace: Shipbreaker. If I’m wanting to play a game but don’t have anything specific it usually means I just want a mental break from life. Shipbreaker is perfect for that. It’s fun and engaging but you play at your own pace and no one is shooting at you. Plus you’re floating around in space with 6 degrees of movement (not considering 360 degrees of rotation) tearing apart spaceships!
what's your "I will keep playing this game for the rest of my life" fallback?
Lately it's OpenRCT, Counterstrike 2, or Cities Skylines. On the phone it's minecraft.
Shmups. Not any one in particular, although ESP Ra.De. or DDP DaiOuJou often tend to be top of my list.
Otherwise, Streets of Rage 2 or TMNT: Turtles in Time.TV