Beat Saber & VTOL VR are my recommendations for VR games that can be more then a 30min ExpErIEncE.

You didn’t ask, I know… :-)

But see, for some people and some genres, the fiddling and trying and testing and redoing IS the actual gameplay.

BG3 is a good example, Factorio came up in this thread as well. And from a certain perspective BG3 is as much of a playground as Tears of the Kingdom. The latter hides the numbers from you, the former invites you to play with them.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I for example can’t seem to get into story driven single player games such as God of War or Farcry. The constant tutorialising drives me nuts…

Ultimate Chicken Horse has quickly become the goto-local-multiplayer in my group.

The game design is so devilishly elegant: you co-create 2D jump&run levels. Together you want to make them so easy that at least one player can finish the level (and get points), but also hard enough that not all of the group get through (no one gets points).

It’s great. Will most likely be on sale. Don’t sleep on it!

More people need to try Starsector. It’s so goddamn good.

How would I go about getting this running on the SteamDeck? Is the .net requirement a dealbreaker?

Was my first thought too.

Not a shooter or a space RTS, but proper prime directive star trekking. Honestly I don’t even know what you would DO in the game. But I can imagine the UI clearly, so there is that…

Maybe somewhat like to old 90s point and click adventure games, only in 2023?!? I don’t know. I want it though.

Check out https://crossplaygames.com/ - for me it’s one of those bookmarks that I get back to again and again over the years.

„Robinsons Requiem“, available on GoG.

It’s a survival horror first person rpg with a semi realistic health system. It’s creepy and hard and so goddamn good. I’m am actually surprised that it gets mentioned so rarely because I would not know of any other earlier game with those now so ubiquitous survival mechanics.

May I throw „Cassette Beasts“ in the mix? Is it premium as in the seventh installment of a series that lost its soul with the second release? As in costs 60+€ and is a collectathon with no heart? No. Not premium.

But it has

• tons of replayability. Gotta catch them all.
• an intriguing story that is surprisingly mature for a pokeyman game
• fan-tas-tic soundtrack

Also lots of stuff to find and discover. Also also does not break the bank. Also also also does not eat the SteamDecks battery for lunch, because it’s only 2D. And finally, for us old people, the combat is turn based. You will not fail because of lacking reflexes.

Sounds good, but only in theory.

I think you almost comically underestimate Metas power to bring eyeballs and therefor content to a platform. In due time the vast majority of Activity Pub „stuff“ will happen under Metas regime. The initial services such as Mastodon or Lemmy will merely be a blip on the radar. Sure, they will continue to exist, but the mass adoption and the network effects that come with it will be under Metas claim on the fediverse. And then it’s „embrace, extend, extinguish“ again (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish).

It’s crazy to me that this is a web app. I usually prefer native apps, but this thing? Wow.

I got burned with the Stardew Valley board game - it's very cute, but also not a great game. And for my non-designer brain it's way easier to translate Stardew into a boardgame than Terraria. I will definitely wait out some reviews and the BGG forums...