Factorio.
Rimworld
The Dwarf Fortress model. Losing is fun!
Idk… RimWorld feels less genuine when they anthropomorphize the RNG, so it feels like it’s doing shit to you on purpose (because it kinda is).
Fuck you, Randy! I bet you thought that destroying my colony with 137 manhunting Boomalopes was pretty fuckin’ funny, you sick son of a bitch.
Master of Magic. It’s basically the Civilization gameplay loop, but adds fantasy creatures, magic spells, hero units and loot. There’s a recent remake but it just doesn’t capture the same vibes as the original, at least for me.
Has been on my to-try list. The old one I mean, I don’t have the new.
X4. Come for the arcadey spaceflight simulator, stay for the galactic-scale empire building, leave for another save file once the Xenon start sending multiple I-class battleships against your Teladi allies but they cannot muster the strength to repel them and the entire gate network falls because you were too busy solving the Paranid Civil War.
arcadey
Only from the perspective of Orbiter and Elite Dangerous maybe.
I’ve been chasing the high from Elite Dangerous on my HOSAS setup for years. Thankfully, the recent updates have breathed some new life into the game.
Na na na na na na na na Katamari Damacy
… Might and Magic Book One: Secret of the Inner Sanctum… Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Restoration of Erathia (vanilla)… Invisible, Inc… Severed Steel… Solitairica… Griftlands… Hand of Fate
I don’t have a favourite unfortunately. No ranks. But I’ve played a lot more and these shine for gameplay first amd foremost. Some, like the first, are gameplay only (as was the requirement in the era, there was not much more to go by) whereas the others if you remove the flashy bits in ways which wouldn’t affect the gameplay, they’d play really good… just fine.
Lemmings. Always Lemmings. !lemmings@lemmings.world
Super Metroid
A game I played as a youth, but was bought and killed by Sony that has been resurrected by passionate devs
Infantry Online https://www.freeinfantry.com/
OMFG! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
not quite sure which one takes the top spot,
but its openttd, factorio, btd6 or dota2