Well, for a practical example, my Ryzen 5 5600x and Radeon 6600xt combo is juuust out of the running for games coming out right now, I’d say. The VRAM limitations at 8GB are becoming apparent and there’s been a few instances where the 5600x struggles in games that hit CPUs hard. But I’d say that’s because there’s been an oddly big jump in system requirements, recently.
I’m this person and god do I wish I wasn’t, sometimes. So many games have been way less interesting than they could’ve been for me because for me, fun is learning to play the game well. I’m not sure what frustrates me more, the way people who don’t have that attitude say “I play games to have fun” as if I don’t, or me looking at the recent LoZ games as failures design-wise because they’re too easy to cheese.
The Ally is what you’d want. Laptops aren’t really all that portable if portability is the goal. The Deck would be better from a “pick up and play” perspective but if you use Game Pass it’d be worth it to pick up the Ally instead, obviously.
First thing’s first: Luciole is right. Making hardline categories doesn’t work and you’re better off coming up with properties games could have. But if we’re gonna go down this route:
Dwarf Fortress adventure mode is one among a few games (Stoneshard being another?) that go for… an open-world with fairly traditional rogueish mechanics?
Hardcore Diablo, alongside other ARPGs and stuff like Tales of Maj’Eyal and Rift Wizard, I’d call “skill rogues”? If we’re not gonna care whether they’re turn-based or not. Games where you have a bunch of skills to unlock with cooldowns and very little importance placed on map loot.
Calling everything that isn’t turn-based an “action rogue” seems wrong. Like, Barony? Sure it’s real-time, but it’s seriously the classic Roguelike experience, except in first-person and co-op now. It’s rad as hell.
Something you’re missing IMO is… sandbox-ness? Like the “skill rogues” don’t have a lot of systems that can interact in weird unexpected ways. Nethack is the quintessential systemic sandbox. More modern examples would include Spelunky and to a much greater extent Noita. There’s a lot of overlap with totally different genres here- Immersive sims inherit some of Nethack’s sauce, and so does Dwarf Fortress (as in Fortress Mode).
What the heck even are DoomRL and Jupiter Hell? They’re turn-based but built to almost feel like they’re not. I feel like they’re their own special thing in a way.
I just wish people weren’t so adamant about the whole “no spoilers” thing with it. It sort of soured my time with it when I finished the intro and was kinda just like… oh, it’s the Majora’s Mask thing. That’s the big mind-blowing twist people are talking about.
I guess what I’m saying is thanks for just talking about what actually makes it so unique / impressive.
Does Cogmind count? Because even when I see people discussing games like it, which are already pretty niche, it never comes up. That’s tragic, because oh my god, just read some of these articles. This developer is obsessive and even if you don’t get too deep into Cogmind it’s an incredible toy to just screw around with and just see what happens.