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.
My recommendations are:
- Metal Gear Solid 5
- Hollow Knight
- Ori and the blind forest
- Death standing
And if you’re interested Grand strategy games are a time sink like ck2 or Stellaris
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!
I didn’t receive notifications for these—thank you for the suggestions. There have been complaints about the newer edition of Outer Worlds. Which version is fine to just get and start playing, if I decide to get it?
Of course! And it’s actually Outer Wilds I’m referring to; I haven’t played Outer Worlds yet so I can’t comment on it. They have very similar names unfortunately so it’s easy to mix them up.
Ah yes, I misread it
Hope you enjoy! Feel free to poke me to talk about any of them if you so desire :)
Citizen Sleeper was phenomenal. I really liked how it handled branching choices and the limitations of time.
It really did so much right. Strong recommend for Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer books if you enjoyed the writing in sleeper.
My experience is that while the tendency for physical reaction numbs a bit, the actual feeling pf enjoyment does not go away.
I haven’t looked at any of these before so this is particularly helpful.
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
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.
I have Hollow Knoght already and was considering starting it recently. Stardew Valley too I have had an eye on. I will take a look at the last.
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 $35 and won’t get any lower).
Prey was very addictive to me. I think I beat it rather fast though, because I just couldn’t stop playing.
What are good starting points for the Deus ex series? I’ve got the original on Steam, but haven’t really gotten into it yet, feels very intimidating every time I start. Should I just push through or are there other entry points?
Btw, I loved dishonored 1 but somehow stopped playing, thanks for reminding me to get back to it :).
I completely understand that! It throws you into a mission right from the start, with no easing in. And from the very beginning you can see that the game allows you to choose - do you kill? Do you sneak around? Do you shoot the leader? Do you let him go? What are the consequences of your actions? It’s not all clear from the start.
I played the original Deus Ex around 10 years ago. Once you accept the aged visual side of it, the world, characters and plot can easily immerse you till the end. I’d say play the original (maybe with some modern visual mods), then skip to Human Revolution, then Mankind Divided.
I didn’t bother with Invisible War and The Fall. I tried them for a moment, but the bugs and clunkiness put me off.
There’s also Deus Ex Go, a mobile game that’s actually a really good puzzle with fantastic music.
I have Dishonored 1 and 2. Will look at Death of the Outsider. I’ve started playing Thief series (not the remake) which I want to play a fair bit before playing Dishonored. Prey and Deus Ex Human Revolution weren’t ever in my consideration before so I’ll check those.
The Witness is something I’ll look at.
Skyrim. I have 200 hours in and didn’t even complete all side quests. I bought it on a sale for 8$.
Will be a while to get there. I’ve done a few runs of Arena and am playing Daggerfall sometimes.
I played Morrowind multiple times in past, mostly aimlessly, only recently I decided to give it another go and actually focus on main questline. This way I beat Morrowind + Tribunal + Bloodmoon (TES III GOTY edition in Steam) in 96.4 hours. I don’t remember the price but IIRC I got it on sale very cheap. All those hours were very rich and enjoyable. I played with few dozens of visuals improving mods though, used this guide: https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Morrowind_graphics_guide
I tend to play without expansions and mods the first time. The second time, with expansions. Later, with any mod I specifically want.
The exception was Daggerfall because Arena was pretty bad with a few bugs. However with Daggerfall Unity I didn’t install additional mods. I did look for additional bug fix mods, didn’t find any. That makes sense since if an external modder makes fixes, the Daggerfall Unity maintainers would make those fixes too eventually. I need to look again though.
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)
Settlers2 with the Return to Roots together with RCT2 (OpenRCT) as well as Supreme Commander are still racking up hours of my free time
- Vampire Survivors
- Dwarf Fortress
That said, I find it very hard to understand exactly what you are asking for, the post is rambly with a middle section about books that I couldn’t really understand even after 3 rereads.
I think what you are asking for is:
- It must be possible to legally acquire the game for 10 usd or less, even if only for a limited time (via discounts or other special offers)
- the game must not have any parts that become more frustrating as you play the game (which is how you seem to define 100% enjoyability)
- must be playable for 100 hours, or be replayable for that amount of time while being 100% enjoyable throughout
I’ve not played vampire survivors or survivor likes. I could try it to see myself. Dwarf Fortress too I have had an eye on but it shows many situations which would be obviously frustrating (I enjoy some permanent death games which label themselves as roguelike/roguelite, without frustrating elements). I’d had a look at the ASCII version of Dwarf Fortress a while ago, I find those visuals more appealing in comparison to the steam version. I’ll add these to the list of games to play.
‘Nexus: The Jupiter Incident’ fit that description for me. I replayed it so many times trying new spaceships loadouts and strategies.
‘Kerbal Space Program’, do I need to say more ?
And lastly, ‘A Plague Tale Requiem’. It went as low as 2€ and that game broke me on a psychological level because of the story, characters and poetry. I was unable to leave it or think about anything else for months. It’s even worse if you play the first game before.
Edit: No, the last game that got me hooked for hundreds of hours is modded Cyberpunk 2077, but I don’t know if it can be found for 10 bucks.
Kerbal Space Program’, do I need to say more ?
I love KSP, but no way, it’s full of challenges that require deliberate planning, patience, persistence and more. e.g. Your first Mun landing, or making a vehicle that can successfully return from Eve. Those are not adrenaline-fueled non-stop thrills, but rather careful exercises in engineering and discipline occasionally punctuated with excitement.
No, the last game that got me hooked for hundreds of hours is modded Cyberpunk 2077, but I don’t know if it can be found for 10 bucks.
Nope, historical low is still like $25.
It is fine, I wasn’t looking for adrenaline rush thrills and more something which comes from being extremely well made. Kerbal Space Program seems like it might be close to what I’m looking for, if there are no bugs and the guardians of frustration—timers, limited resources against unlimited challenges coupled with heavy setbacks, bugs, or a combination of any of them and some other things.
KSP has what players call “the Kraken” where the game engine sometimes bugs out and causes your vehicle to spin out of control and/or explode for no apparent reason. It happens more with really big vessels and complex missions. But yeah it’s not bug-free and you’ll want to quicksave often so you don’t lose hours of work.
Alright. I’ll check the first 3 at least. I haven’t played A Plague Tale: Innocence though. I was fairly interested in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident previously.
I do not want games which “nearly do this” in your opinion
Do not want replies like “there’s no such thing” because there are. I know of one game which nearly does this completely
🤭
But seriously, here’s my recommendations.
Doom Eternal, commonly on sale for under $10. I only play the single player campaign. I’ve played through this game well over a dozen times and I love every minute of it. I can’t get enough of it.
Cave Noire, for Game Boy, only released in Japan. It’s a turn based, randomly generated roguelite, played in bite sized dungeon challenges. I never knew a turn based game could get my heart pumping so hard! Every time I finish a stage it feels so good and is so fun I need to stop and tell someone about it. 🙂
If you like the cheesy story, Saints Row the Third is wacky awesome fun. It’s not 100 hours so you’d have to replay it, but you could do that co-op with a couple of friends. There’s nothing quite like bailing out of your fighter jet wearing a hotdog costume and then blowing up half a city block with your rocket launcher on the way down.
Vampire Survivors is a good candidate too, regularly introducing new characters and weapon combos and weird secrets for pretty non-stop dopamine. Maybe you could get 100 hours with the expansions but that seems like a stretch.
Honorable mention to Forza Horizon 4, it’s everything Burnout Paradise wished it could be and had a smile on my face nearly the entire time. Although there were a few spots where I set the difficulty too high and/or didn’t tune up my car and lost races, so that was less fun, but kind of my own fault. Well over 100 hours on this one, but the base game has only come down to $12 and won’t be sold after today!
Was always wary of getting into the Saints Row series because I always like to start with part 1, no matter how different it is and if it was a different set of people making it. But doing this on PC is not as simple as meeting a steam purchase and I already have had plenty to play, so I was reluctant to get into yet another series with more than 2 installments. I’ll see what I feel like later. I’m fairly used to configuring games to work, but I take a lot of time with it.
I’ve already decided to check vampire survivors…
I’m extremely wary of what the state of Forza horizon 4 will be if servers go down—I usually, almost entirely rather, avoid live service and anything with needless dependencies for that reason. It seems the FH4 servers will still be on for years, but even then it is possible that when servers are taken offline, it’ll be before I play it… or play it adequately.
Example: I wanted to start Divinity Original Sin 1 in late 2021. I instead started it in 2024, and have done about a quarter of it only before leaving it alone for a bit. This happens a lot depending on what I’m occupied with in general—and doing all of the classic Divinity games, and not really liking most of them aside from Beyond Divinity which I found decent and Act 1 only of Divinity 2 (the action game) very good, also played a part in that. While there’s no matter of playing the earlier entries, I am going to get a lot busier soon so it seems to be a problem.
For SR3, just do it, it’s a really well-made game and runs great and you don’t need any prior knowledge except to know that it’s kind of a GTA parody. I don’t think SR1 was even ported to PC, and SR2 is pretty buggy and unstable on modern machines (though fun aside from that). SR4 supposed to be pretty great (same engine as 3 I think) but I haven’t played it.
FH4 has a healthy playerbase and I’m pretty confident it’ll still be worth playing over the next year. However beyond that as the community slowly dwindles it will eventually become less fun with fewer people doing Forzathons or seasonal co-ops or using the auctions, even if the servers are still running.
I bought Hollow Knight for €7,50 long while ago and it was such an amazing game. Loved every second of it. The characters, story, world-building, it’s all immensely well done and you can notice it’s done with their hearts-content.
Another game that I bought on sale, that was below the €10 were the Ori games. The story was incredibly good (especially of the first game), got me teared up at the end lol. and liked the platforming too. Preferred the combat of the second game though.
Quantum Break is another one I bought on sale below €10; The story was decent but got me thinking ‘‘imagine people found an actual way to do this’’.
The second Ori game’s story is so good and absolutely had me and my wife bawling during it
Sounds interesting. Hollow knight I have already.
Epic gave Celeste to me for free & oh boy it’s one of the best games I have ever played. Also got Ocmo on ios for free & it’s an incredible game.
I’ve never pointed and laughed. I thought that only happened in cartoons.
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.
Regarding this point, I think one of the most safe and efficient tricks to do this is to keep introducing novelty. If you have a game that has a fairly limited number of distinctive unique things that are introduced quickly and afterwards are simply repeated in different combinations it will less likely have such effect. For example a sandbox that introduces everything in 10h and then 90h you just play around with it will probably not have this effect, it can even become a chore. But a story-driven game which constantly introduces novelty on plot level but also sometimes introduces some new mechanics and content, have big chances to have this effect. In reality it’s more complicated, and there are many dimensions to this like challenge/frustration for example. There are games that use frustration as a tool to some extent to make winning certain fights feel exceptionally rewarding (soulslikes is the most popular example). But if you make it too challenging/frustrating there is a risk that player gives up and leaves in state of frustration which makes it a big failure. This particular thing is high-risk/reward type stuff.
I like this detailed answer. Firstly frustration and risk/reward is the opposite of what I’m looking for, the nature is a bit different from what I’m looking to experience. The things I need are not achievement but completeness of concept. To that end even relatively tough action games with the quality of life features to reduce frustration might fit the requirement, as long as the gameplay concepts are “fully thought out”—not only is enough thought given to what you’ve put in, but the nature of each addition and how it relates to the persons playing them, what it makes them feel… along with the relation with other mechanics to make sure how they go together. Games which use frustration also use this to some extent—but frustration is the opposite of what I’m looking into. The stuff I work it makes the user feel as comfortable as possible—with thought put in to remove all frustration, while simultaneously delivering depth of concept. These two are not incompatible, but requires a lot of thought and effort to deliver. Eventually it goes into the psychological of what people like, why people like them, and what specific feeling causes you to like such a thing. Eventually you go into questions like is such a thing natural—is it something people will like without having a particular mindset, political stance, education… or will it only be enjoyable with any or some of these things and are looking for aligned art.
Then, after understanding these, it comes to making something that anyone can enjoy, as long as they’re not coming into it expecting affirmation for the things they believe in. That latter part is up to the user and it is not up to the maker to determine whether a person should like it or not—the emphasis of the maker is on not messing up the process itself, and then to let people react naturally to your work. Of course, the world has an element of malice for the sake of it, but dealing with it in an adequate manner and not be aggressive in general, especially against people who merely want to use your work and know more about it, is important. That is a place many modern makers are failing in. But that is not related to the process of making something itself.
The most important element in this process is making something which isn’t malicious—cause harm to anyone for any sort of gain, even to affirm your own thoughts—while, at the same time, pushing the levels of depth in your work till it reaches a natural state of full enjoyment. This is part of the learning process which must be completed before work is started on anything. This last part is what I’m finishing up on. At the moment, usually the deeper you go into art, the more you see things which are inclined with enjoying instances of cruelty—or so it seems many times, but it is not always the case. Understanding to the end the reasons of many things, the things I’m trying to experience, is key to delivering an even deeper work which is not embarrassed of anything, but does not take pleasure in cruelty. The reason for this is not to attract mainstream crowds—which is always going to be hit or miss—but to ensure anyone… mainstream, those who aren’t what is called ‘normal’ (I personally fit into the latter) enjoy the work completely while not feeling the slightest bit unpleasant. The showing of villainy can still be delivered while doing so, by placing importance on structure—whether you show the cruelty for most of the time, and show its resolution for a short amount… or whether you describe what the situation is and then allocate a lot of time to the detailed described resolution of a problem and how it affects the people around.
All these things are, again, to be learnt before starting anything. Understanding the things that people enjoy is most important when structuring your work well—even when you already have made a fully developed idea for a story. These are the things I’m focusing on. I cannot really explain it in detail other than saying pride and achievement are on the opposite side of these things and, as elements, do not really go into the work I want to do. I’m intimately aware of the natures of pride and achievement—mostly the negative aspect, which I’m not going to get into here because I do not consider it my problem to worry how people think, and these explanations are likely to cause debate, no matter how well intentioned either or both sides are. On the other hand, my understanding in the basic nature of enjoyment of a bit limited, and that is what I’m trying to implement when I start my work so I’m trying to change my limited understanding at the moment. Such a thing is possible by experiencing oneself—from any place, such as books, movies, games, people taking action… from anywhere.
