This is a very strict bar with a limiting price requirement. As for the title of the post, I fully mean giving the enjoyable feeling 100% of the time. Put forth the niche games which do this, because I do not know of any popular AAA or popular/fairly big developer indie which does this. The game must be playable for 100 hours at least, or must be replayable with the same enjoyability if it is shorter. This includes older games which have dropped their regular price.
I do not want games which “nearly do this” in your opinion (because I have plenty of those already), but which do this in your opinion. I’m looking for these for a specific reason. Do not want replies like “there’s no such thing” because there are. I know of one game which nearly does this completely, while many others which do this in a major degree. And then there are the relatively unknown games which few have ever heard about but are well made, even if drowned in negative reviews (Driftland: The Magic Revival, for example, is a very decent single player real-time-with-pause strategy with bad reviews because it doesn’t follow popular norms, and the makers chose to also market the multiplayer which removes the important pause. It is more enjoyable than many popular time-tested AAAs from the 2010s I have played). I’ve played some games which most people haven’t heard about that are really well made.
I’m going to start writing a book series (it will be completely free to download and read, and share) which will follow this method. It is not easy to make such a book such that I’ve not read more than a very small number of long-ish books which nearly manage it, and that has frustrated me so I’m attempting to do it myself. To go the 100% enjoyable route, I need to know more things which naturally put people in this state. I do such things by experiencing them myself, and once they get there I know this is something which would fit in such a work. Some of the things I’ve decided on already are—
- Not-good guys shown to be going exclusively after bad guys
- Persons making use of technical knowledge and the knowledge of reality in general, making use of them towards a specific end like resolution of problems by their own hand. In a practical manner.
- Making individuals, who do some or another deed(s) which is intended to harm others, feel loss and pain (not by engaging in cruelty to do so) and generally denying them what they want so they feel pain due to it.
I’m looking to expand on this by knowing more things which give me the feeling.
Any genre and type of game will do, as long as you’ve played it substantially and the enjoyment comes from only playing the game itself—and not things like talking about it or sharing what happened in it with others. The feeling comes even if you play it alone and have no one to talk to about it.
A game which has 100% enjoyability has no parts which get more frustrating the more you play the game, or replay the game. It doesn’t matter if the game has very old graphics (early 1980’s as well) or no animation. It doesn’t matter if it does not fulfill modern sensibilities like full voice acting. Putting aside all concerns of what a game should be, looking at what a game is—is that 100% enjoyable. I would both like to enjoy such a game as well as possibly learn from it.
Games from any source will do. Thank you if you’ve read this long post till the end.
I have a lot of games which were enjoyable 100% of the time, but none which I played for over 100 hours. I’d be absolutely exhausted if I was in “oh neat haha wow!” mode for that long, personally, my dopamine receptors would be fucking fried.
Good luck with your search, and below I have some which fit your criteria outside of the 100 hour requirement.
List
A Short Hike
Beacon Pines
Heart of the Woods
Citizen Sleeper
I would also add the following to your list (also outside the 100 hour req, but still 100% enjoyable):
Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip
Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds may be obvious to anyone who has played it, but it would be a shame to leave it unmentioned as it is my favorite game of all time and seemingly universally loved. And Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip is just stupidly entertaining - impossible to stop once you start playing.
Outer Wilds is an absolute banger, I don’t know how I forgot to mention it.
BTW if you enjoyed OW, play Tunic!
Thanks for the suggestion! Ill add it to my wishlist 😊 I also added the games I hadn’t played from your list so thanks for that as well!
Citizen Sleeper was phenomenal. I really liked how it handled branching choices and the limitations of time.
The 100 hour mark is a tough one to hit - even some of the best games I’ve played aren’t that long or replayable, and the ones that are usually cost more than $10. Still, here are some to check out if you want. I’ll list the price on Steam in Canadian dollars and my current total play time.
- The Messenger - on sale for $5.19 - 35 hours
- Infinitode 2 - Free to play - 47 hours
- Ori and the Blind Forest - on sale for $6.24 - 23 hours
- Risk of Rain 2 - on sale for $9.56 - 81 hours (new to my library, less than 1 month)
- Undertale - on sale for $2.74 - 28 hours
Risk of Rain 2 is amazing, though one thing to hold on to is that the newest DLC had some issues (amazing that a game so old is still getting attention) that you might want to wait to get fixed (since it still affects the base game).
I’ve heard about that and through multiplayer have been able to experience it. Honestly I prefer the base game without either DLC. Even the Void DLC is too chaotic for my taste.
The void items are pretty good (and the lunar items are pretty bad), but i did enjoy the new DLC - I didn’t really experience many issues, but figured it would be worth explaining that it’s expected to get a lot of fixes in the coming months and might be worth waiting to see how fixed before buying.
Definitely a great coop game, along with Heroes of Hammerwatch
For me, it’s games in the immersive sim genre. The Dishonored series and Prey, both made by Arkane studios, I can replay over and over, enjoying every moment of them, exploring alternate paths I haven’t tried yet. Deus Ex is another one that fits, especially Deus Ex Human Revolution. These games often go well below $10 during sales - here are their historical lows:
- Dishonored: $2
- Dishonored 2: $3
- Dishonored DOTO: $6
- Prey: $3
- DXHR: $3
I also loved every second of The Witness - the puzzles are ingenious, hidden things are super enjoyable, and the community made a randomizer that generates new, harder puzzles to add more content to it. The Witness is at $9.99 now, its historical low.
I know a few people who love factory-building games, optimizing the production and even creating spreadsheets to calculate the perfect production rate. But the two major games in this category don’t fit your price criteria (Satisfactory is $15 right now, and Factorio $35 and won’t get any lower).
What are good starting points for the Deus ex series? I’ve got the original on Steam, but haven’t really gotten into it yet, feels very intimidating every time I start. Should I just push through or are there other entry points?
Btw, I loved dishonored 1 but somehow stopped playing, thanks for reminding me to get back to it :).
I completely understand that! It throws you into a mission right from the start, with no easing in. And from the very beginning you can see that the game allows you to choose - do you kill? Do you sneak around? Do you shoot the leader? Do you let him go? What are the consequences of your actions? It’s not all clear from the start.
I played the original Deus Ex around 10 years ago. Once you accept the aged visual side of it, the world, characters and plot can easily immerse you till the end. I’d say play the original (maybe with some modern visual mods), then skip to Human Revolution, then Mankind Divided.
I didn’t bother with Invisible War and The Fall. I tried them for a moment, but the bugs and clunkiness put me off.
There’s also Deus Ex Go, a mobile game that’s actually a really good puzzle with fantastic music.
I have Dishonored 1 and 2. Will look at Death of the Outsider. I’ve started playing Thief series (not the remake) which I want to play a fair bit before playing Dishonored. Prey and Deus Ex Human Revolution weren’t ever in my consideration before so I’ll check those.
The Witness is something I’ll look at.
I’ve managed to get a few deals over the years that sort of fit the bill.
Hollow Knight when it was on sale, for example. But I abandoned at 98% (it goes to 113%, right?). There are a decent number of other Metroidvania-style games that are frequently discounted and are wholly enjoyable (the Shantae series, Iconoclasts, etc.).
Stardew Valley I found new, in box, for PS4 with audio CD for €8.50 and bought it based on the description without any knowledge of what it was.
Many shmups are meant to be overplayed and remain enjoyable. Radiant Silvergun comes to mind, and there is a bit of a story to that one as well.
A number of the best games of all time are quite cheap:
Tetris (pretty much any version)
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (use OpenRCT2 to run it well on a modern PC)
Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2 (use The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod to add back in the stuff the devs had to cut for time, otherwise the ending is disappointing)
Balatro ($9.99 on mobile or $19.99 when bundled with Slay The Spire on Steam)
Slay The Spire
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (free and open source)
DOOM (the original, not the 2016 game, very cheap and there are literally millions of mods and community made maps)
