All of them? There’s several that I can name off the top of my head that are just fun to play: Valheim, the forest, subnautica, ark: se. You can even include some that aren’t completely the norm, like terraria, satisfactory, or avorion. Hell, several of those even have really neat stories as part of the gameplay, like subnautica and the forest (and maybe valheim if you like the sort of narrative that’s crafted).
Like I said, not completely the norm. With its first person emphasis though, it plays a lot more like a survival crafting game that has the food/water cycles turned off.
I’ve been getting back into Palworld these last couple days. I love the game, the pals have such personalities and there are so many and I actually want to collect them all.
However some of the world settings don’t really seem to be working right for me, so that’s kind of annoying.
ARK (and Palworld, which directly copies most of its mechanics) was actually the first game that came to mind when reading the OP. Higher rarity blueprints require hundreds of times the resources as their basic counterparts just to increase the amount of busywork you need to do in late-game. Why does a shotgun that deals 50% more damage require enough metal to build multiple skyscrapers? Or in Palworld, that plus the drops from a dozen boss battles to make one item?
If you didn’t experience a magical feeling the first time you saw some of the stuff you see in Minecraft, I dunno what to say. Maybe you’re young and that level of 3D procedural generation has always been there, but once upon a time it was unusual. We called it “multiplayer lego” except you can fight zombies.
Semi-joking there; dysmantle is a breath of fresh air imo. It’s not as survival-focused as some games; you don’t have to eat, for example, and the crafting that you do is… actually worth it, and usually dead simple to unlock because if you’ve been progressively destroying literally everything like the game wants you to do, you have plenty of stuff shortly after unlocking the thing. And yes I do have a save file in which I am attempting to clear every breakable item in the game, which is almost everything. Because why not.
The game is mostly just explore, break shit, kill zombies, build a base if you want (there are some quests but you can destroy everything after if you don’t want it. It serves no real purpose beyond a creativity outlet), and eventually escape the island. After you learn all the story through finding random scraps of information because that’s right, all people except you are zombies! You don’t talk to anyone! And that really enhances the game imo.
That one has a magic I’ve been looking to get again with another game but no, it’s too unique! The horrors! The studio is working on another game called dysplaced which is going to be drum roll an open world survival crafter!! I’m actually excited to try it because of dysmantle, though! :)
I generally like the sandboxy gameplay and exploration, but what I dislike is that nearly all of them have some BS design flaw that the devs double down on, and a lot of them tend to rely on padded grind as ‘progression’ which often just feels awful.
The saints row series is pretty good. It was kind of a GTA knockoff but was much sillier and let you actually keep and upgrade/paint cars. It really lets you make the game yours. In… Number 3 or 4 the player gets movement abilities that make using a car actually slower so that really killed the vibe, but the ridiculousness was higher than ever so it kind of balanced. I’d recommend playing them in order or at least watching YouTube videos because the story is sort of linear.
Someone else said morrowind which really is the ultimate “do whatever you want” game. You’re basically never locked out of anything by not doing the main quest, and nearly every npc is killable, even essential ones (though the game will tell you if you do this so you can reload a save). There’s no vehicles really so I don’t know if that’s the vibe you’re going for, but it really is a blast if you can accept the painfully outdated graphics and mediocre combat system.
Valheim is a survival crafter exploration game that can be surprisingly cozy, and sailing around is fun. Also not the vibe I think you’re looking for but I love it so I shill it when I can.
Cyberpunk is actually a damn decent game now, and the world has SO MUCH crammed into it you can just wander and do whatever activity you run into for ages without getting bored. Even the smallest side story has lore that illustrates a tiny piece of night city and I find that really cool.
I think saints row probably best matches what you’re looking for without being a sequel to a game you already mentioned. Cyberpunk too, probably.
Only in single player games and typically only when it’s too challenging like that mission/quest that is just really frustrating.
Or if I’ve already beaten the game and lost progress and just want to quickly get back to where I was.
Other than that, not really much. Maybe once in a while just to fuck around, but that’s about it for me. I don’t think it should be that big of a deal for single player offline games and you’re not trying to hit a leaderboard. It’s annoying seeing those on some games’ leaderboards and it’s obvious they’re there just because they cheated.
Everything should be controllable. Give me all the options. Every graphical feature, every UI element, even gameplay mechanics. If it is as simple as adjusting a number or selecting something from a table, give me the option to control it myself.
Now that’s a game I haven’t thought about in a while. I backed the game in 2013 and played it for 100+ hours in beta, but dropped it shortly after 1.0 because I didn’t like many of the fundamental changes they introduced. Last played September 2016 apparently. How is the game these days? Maybe I’ll join and give it another try.
I just wrote some detail on this into another reply here, but suffice it to say that the game with mods these days is nothing like the original game.
Out of the hundreds of games I’ve played, I’ve never seen a community put so much effort into modding a game. It’s turned a game that held my groups attention for 2-3 weeks into a half a year endeavor.
Developers should spend effort vouching for a launch without startup logos. Even if supporting libraries/publishers are credited some other way, startup movies take up a lot of time when gamers launch the game many times.
Trails in the Sky has a feature where you can choose to launch the game directly into your most recent save game rather than ending up at the menus. This would be a boon for many singleplayer games, especially those with densely animated menus.
Too many games are “survival” games now which really means they will make you do a bunch of chores to get to the sub par shooter or adventure game the chores gate you from. No, I don’t want to chop wood and get rope or whatever for the 50th game that never innovates on any of these mechanics to get to the “good part”
Also lots of fun games seem to be ruined because they are battle royales.
Excessive reliance on audio recordings and written text for storytelling / world building. Oh look another game where I’m alone in this world and I have to listen to a ton of audio recordings or collect snippets of text throughout the entire game to learn anything about this world and what happened to it!
If anything, let it be audio, not text, I’m tired of reading through often very subpar writing, I just glaze over it. Better yet, have actual (skippable) voice actors read any text out loud. Ideally, weave all that info into the game’s main storyline or side quests, and have it communicated to the player via interesting NPCs. Also, use environmental storytelling more than info-dumps. Show, don’t tell.
Text/in-world notes/memos/books and found audio recordings have a place but don’t let that be the main way of learning about the world or my place in it.
I understand it’s also a budget issue, so I’ll cut indie games some slack.
I agree on everything except the audio over text bit. If it has to be anything, let it be text. Let me be able to skim it if I want, don’t make me sit through an audio file to get background lore.
If it isn’t gonna be presented through the actual storytelling of the gameplay, put it in a text file.
Yeah I get it, but I like having the option of having a voice actor narrate the text to me rather than having to read everything. Especially as I mostly game on a TV that was not meant for reading.
Not really. It’s less to do with hearing/perception and more how the human brain processes regular speech; neurodivergent people, like those with ADHD and/or autism like myself, process these things differently.
The brain processes singing differently than regular speech and the issue with audio processing disorder is that how we process regular speech makes it hard for us to hold conversation. Like I need people to repeat things a few times occasionally and if I’m not paying direct attention to the person speaking then voices are basically like “whomp-whomp” from Peanuts, so if someone calls for me while I’m doing something I straight up won’t know I’m being called for.
So needing to listen to an audio log takes forever cause I need to replay it a few times to fully process the words being spoken. Especially if they have audio effects like distortion added over the voice.
That’s normal. The brain isn’t able to process multiple sources at the same time, it has to bounce around and eventually too many inputs means nothing gets processed.
For those with APD, even a single input is a struggle.
I see. Happens to me too that I lose focus while listening to an audio recording. But not to the extent you describe. Have always had difficulty separating voices from background noise though, like when a few people talk in parallel or when loud music is playing in the background. I don’t remember what that’s called, but I remember a long time ago reading that it’s a thing. Doesn’t affect my gaming much though if at all. Anyway I’m always interested in things having to do with auditory perception, thanks for sharing.
I’d prefer text over audio, so long as I can skip the text when I am done reading. (Grr argh to the games that have both, but won’t let me skip because the NPC isn’t done speaking.)
Being able to choose either as the primary information delivery would be fantastic.
True, reading is faster. Narrating I find more pleasant, more engaging if done well. But that’s personal opinion. So having an option would be great. And yes to making dialogues or narration skippable. I think most games do that nowadays. To be honest, if I am really immersed and interested and the voice acting is top notch I may not skip at all. But that should be left to the player to decide.
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