When I was kid, I could sit in front of TV for hours and sink a day or two away into a game and have no problem having to start the game over from the beginning. Time meant nothing to me and I wasted it like it was a near infinite resource.
Now I am a parent and ain’t got time for some of the nonsense that’s in games nowadays. I’m lucky if I have even an hour to play each night.
A good example: Forza Horizon 5 allows you to switch cars mid game without traveling back to a house. That to me is a huge time saver compared to the recent NFS games.
Contrarily, Forza Motorsport (2023) makes you do qualifications every round. While realistic, a big time sink.
That said, what are some of your favorite games that have respect for your limited time?
Roguelike games are generally pretty good for this as they will have shorter run durations with some kind of metaprogression. Slay The Spire is the first one that came to my mind.
Also games that have some smaller unit of progression which can be measured independently of the larger game, like Darkest Dungeon, which takes ages to finish, but each individual delve into the dungeon is relatively short and straightforward.
Hijacking this comment for recommending my two favorite rouge lites Noita and Balatro. Both have the possibility to save and quit at any time.
And Balatro doesn’t take so long for a run like StS.
Yes but what really is progress?
I’ve found a lot of Roguelikes that I’ve played force you to rebuild your arsenal every game and repeatedly progress through to the same boss that can annihilate you if you didn’t get lucky on your finds or get your timing off.
One of my favorite Rogue-lites is Rogue Legacy since it doesn’t do that. People complain that it’s brutal. But I find it so much more frustrating to mop up hordes for an hour and get wrecked by one tough opponent to restart from square one.
Thats my favorite thing about roguelites and why Rogue Legacy is literally my least favorite one.
In roguelites with stat progression, there’s often little need to actually improve at the game. It’s just mindless grinding until your stats are high enough.
Enter the Gungeon does it best IMO. New weapons and items get added to the loot table, but you never unlock anything that just straight up makes you stronger.
One complaint I’ve heard about Rogue Legacy is how the cost of stat progression increases. To the point that, for some, they find it difficult to make enough during a run to get upgrades.
The problem is that they tried to rely on increasing their stats to get better. Instead they should have tried the more difficult challenges and just gotten better.
I realized after starting a new game just how much better I was than the first time I played.
Hades is a good one. It’s hard to get “unlucky” instead you’re forced to play a different build if you don’t get the powers you want.