Do you have a game you play over and over, when nothing else fits your mood? That game that is infinitely re-playable, somewhat the same every time and somewhat new and interesting?

For me it’s the games in the Orcs Must Die series. But mostly OMD 3. I play the mode called Scramble, where you have to beat 5 rounds of orcs, and they get harder and harder as you progress. There are random things to make it harder (nerfs) and you can choose 1 thing per round to make it easier (buffs). I’ve probably played that something like 300 times now since I beat the main game + DLCs a long while ago. I go into a special mental state while playing, since I know it all so well, and just zone out for about an hour each time.

Patient gamers, what’s your “I will keep playing this game for the rest of my life” fallback?

  • zaphodb2002@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    3 days ago

    Stellaris with the Star Trek: New Horizons mod. Currently doing a Borg run, at war with the Dominion right now, but of course, resistance is futile.

  • yamper@lemmy.world
    374·
    4 days ago

    this is a smartass answer but if no video game is catching your attention, don’t play a video game. do anything else. pick up a new hobby or revisit an old one.

    • Dutczar@sopuli.xyz
      1·
      2 days ago

      I started reading casually, currently Harry Potter to see what the fuss was about.

      And I guess TV shows and anime too for years, but I usually only watch these while eating.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      13·
      4 days ago

      Yup. I like reading and working on coding projects.

      That said, sometimes I get a hankering to play a game, but none of the dozens I have installed look interesting, so I’ll go play one of my favorites (EU4, C:S, Mount & Blade, etc).

    • Zess@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 days ago

      I got a laugh from my Steam recap because I couldn’t find anything to play this summer so I got really into ice cream making. Then Satisfactory came out.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
      2·
      4 days ago

      This is what I also do. I have plenty of old favourites, but if I’m really not in the mood, I don’t try to push it.

  • Daemon Silverstein@thelemmy.clubEnglish
    6·
    3 days ago

    I was trying Terraria, which has a lot of creativity possibilities. I was trying to earthwork/terraform a small world (i.e. trying to make it level from ocean to ocean), while simultaneously “voidforming” another small world (i.e. digging out every single “removable” block before Hardmode, which obviously excluded Lihzard temple blocks, Dungeon blocks and Crimson/Corruption altars; for lava, I was using the infinite bucket trick to replicate honey in order to consume lava from the Underworld; I don’t plan on reaching Hardmode for such world). I was taking blocks from the second world (the world to be voidformed) and “smuggling” them into the first world (the world to be terraformed) in order to compensate for the need for additional blocks (e.g. sand, ice, mud, etc) when biomes were generated below ocean level.

    Turns out that I was doing this not exactly for fun and enjoyment, but something to “try to keep myself busy and away from bad thoughts”, and that was not really a good goal for myself. By now, it has been weeks since I last played.

      • Arkive@lemmy.zip
        3·
        3 days ago

        Yeah Gargoyles! My first ascension was Gargoyle Earth Elementist, but I think EE has been nerfed since that ascension.

        • stormdelay@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          3 days ago

          I never really clicked with EE, when I felt like magic I was usually doing something like Deep elf conjurer, or sometime High Elve (rip them) and go for a sword and sorcery style I really enjoyed

      • whelk@lemm.ee
        1·
        3 days ago

        Gargoyle Fighter Gang! My first and only escape (3 rune) was a gargoyle fighter dedicated to The Shining One. I relied completely on shield for defense and apparently that was weird as I got a lot of shocked comments on my lack of evade

        • stormdelay@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          3 days ago

          It’s been a minute since I was last plugged into the dcss community, but that seems very standard for me. My best run was also a TSO fighter gargoyle, but something like 8 or 9 runes which was neat. Golden dragon armour, kite shield, and the awesome blessed whip courtesy of TSO is my end game objective

  • lath@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 days ago

    I play the “What’s that black dot on the wall and is it moving?” game.

    Very fun until one actually starts moving.

  • Narauko@lemmy.world
    5·
    3 days ago

    The Warhammer tide games, either Vermintide 2 or Darktide. Best melee combat in a video game, relatively short rounds, and super satisfying to just genocide some heretic/xeno hordes for the Emperor/Sigmar.

    You just alerted me to the existence of Orcs Must Die 3, and I am going to check it out after absolutely loving the first 2.

    • stringere@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      3 days ago

      I’ll have to check those out. I played Vermintide when it first came out and wasn’t very impressed. I’ll give it another go.

    • perishthethought@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      My son plays some Warhammer games. I should check it out.

      Good news about OMD, there’s a new game due next month, Deathtrap. I’m super stoked.

  • DasSkelett@discuss.tchncs.de
    2·
    3 days ago

    Creeper World 4, the daily map usually has a good duration. Takes your thoughts off everything else pretty well, yet is not too demanding. And you can vary your play style yourself a bit / set your own limitations, depending on how much of a challenge you want right now or how much time you want to spend.

  • cRazi_man@lemm.ee
    43·
    5 days ago

    Rogue-lites are basically made to be infinitely re-playable and if I find one I like then I keep going back to it. Enter the Gungeon is a game I’ve played for years. Then there was a while this spot was taken by Slay the Spire and Balatro in turn. Now I’m back to Enter the Gungeon.

      • cRazi_man@lemm.ee
        16·
        4 days ago

        A warning before you jump in: it’s crazy difficult. It took me about 70 hours of gameplay to be able to finish a play through…but after that it became pretty repeatable once I had learnt how to do it. This is pretty standard, but the failed runs are all fun and the gameplay is excellent and hilarious. I can give some generic starter tips if you want, things I wished I knew before having to learn the hard way (equally learning the hard way is the way rogue-lites are intended to work, so up to you).

        The enemies are bullets that are holding guns and shooting bullets at you. You can unlock a gun that looks like a bullet, that shoots bullets that look like guns, that shoot their own bullets. Everything in the game is a pun.

      • stringere@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        3 days ago

        I also like the lack of pressure to finish a round if you have to be drug away by life. I know they’ll likely be able to finish without me or someone will pop in after me to help.