Definitely, not disagreeing with that. I’ve played plenty of those games too. I just find that “enjoyment per hour” is actually better with shorter, finite games. But I also find myself spending a lot of time playing Civ or Stellaris haha
Well… Without spoiling anything I would say, you are a member of an alien species on another planet. You are also an aspiring astronaut about to take your first journey into space. Let’s just say your journey is quite remarkable.
May I recommend taking it a step further and going for games that have no cycle in them at all? That is, finite games that you can play and actually finish, for good. That’s what I’ve been looking for a lot lately.
Some recommendations:
The Talos Principle (puzzles with a story)
Outer Wilds (best to go in blind, read absolutely nothing about it, not even the steam description)
CrossCode (fast paced fun combat and a cool story and characters. Somewhat grindy but still finite)
Beacon Pines (short and sweet visual novel)
Chants of Sennaar (language translation game, surprisingly fun and satisfying)
I mean there’s games like… Minecraft that I certainly have played many, many times for many hours with lots of different combinations of mods. That’s repayable to the max.
Much like the gameplay itself, the story is another puzzle. You assemble the story from bits of emails and voice recordings that you find around the place.
There’s some reading required to appreciate it, as you find the emails and the various philosophical texts around the place. If you get bored, maybe that just isn’t for you. But I’d encourage you to give it a shot and see the story as another puzzle.