Looking for some video game suggestions based off some specific parameters
Sorry to be picky, but it's hard for me to find games I enjoy - and part of that is I don't really know where to look.
I'm a fan of games with no/skippable story, no/limited exploration, no/limited unlocks, no/limited power ups - but high in strategy and/or skill based games that are pretty simple while still giving depth to it (aka something that can be picked up and put down without issue, eg picking right back off where you were after not playing for months). Online is okay but no login bonus/requirements and something that can be played at ones own pace.
I think what I'm looking for and what I'm NOT looking for would be easiest by giving examples:
One of the big things that makes me asks this is that I find collectible card games (eg Hearthstone, MTG, Marvel Snap) to really fit the mold that I'm looking for, but the toxic skinner box of their economy to not be worth having in ones life. I don't want "daily quests" to be something I worry about.
I found Slay The Spire to be okay, and have mostly been jamming Balatro as of late...but it's very annoying that basically all card games I can find now are basically Slay The Spire knockoffs. Going back to the "no/limited unlocks" and "no/limited power ups", that rouge-lite aspect to them really ruins the games to me - I get that there's the macro strategy about picking the power ups and what not, but it personally ruins the actual gameplay aspect to me and just feels too much "am I going to high roll or low roll?". Runetera's Path of Champions also fits this mold that, to me, was ruined by the power ups. I've heard good things about Monster Train, but the fact it gets compared to Slay The Spire has led me to skipping it.
To give an example of card games I enjoyed, Marvel's Midnight Suns I thought was quite fun. It was nice that you could completely ignore the story and RPG aspects of the game to solely focus on the card combat. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has interested me since I've heard good things about Gwent, but since it's a Witcher game I don't know if that means it's mostly a story-based game and the gameplay is just a means to server the story. I've been enjoying the duet expansion of Wingspan and see that it has a video game counterpart, so that might be interesting to try out for single player (but I also don't want to get burnt out on the game to be able to continue to play the board game)
Autobattlers (which I basically consider deck builders) like Hearthstone's Battlegrounds I enjoy, outside of the fact that by being an online multiplayer game you have to give 100% focus on the game. I also quite dislike the constantly changing cards and what not with just how much information there is to the game (it's a big reason I haven't picked up other autobattlers like the League of Legends one). Are there any good offline autobattler-type games?
Going off card games for strategy games...I do enjoy simulation games like Civilization to an extent, but the "one more turn" aspect of them really hurts - very rarely do I want to go back to a campaign I've already started and have to re-figure out what my plans were. Something that is either a lot quicker of a loop or a lot easier to drop back in would be interesting to me though.
Tetris is probably one of the easiest games that fit the mold I'm looking for - strategy game that has very simple game play but a lot of depth to it. Shoutout to the old tetrisfriends.com website, though playing on it so much kind of burned me out from the game (definitely used to get the Tetris effect lol)
X-Com 2 has been of interest to me since I enjoyed the game studio's Midnight Suns as mentioned above, but it's been hard to get into the start of the game and it's not exactly the easiest to play on a Steam Deck. I do think I'd enjoy it though.
Going more skill-based group, Cuphead and Furi are two of my favorite games I've played in the last decade. I've definitely been leaning more strategy games though as I've gotten older, but still down for anything that is pure straight awesome gameplay without any other fluff like those two.
This post is probably getting long enough lol. But thank you for any suggestions/pointing in directions for me to look
I don’t have much experience with deck builders outside of StS and Balatro, so I’ll lean more skill.
Since you didn’t mention it in the post, I’d say give Hollow Knight a try. It fits alongside cuphead and Furi. Very little dialog, pure skill. While there are ability unlocks, it’s emergent gameplay rather than power scaling like you get in rogue-likes. Add to that great artwork and sound track. I haven’t played the second one yet, but the first one is great. The only knock is that there is a fair bit of exploration. I usually avoid metroidvanias for this reason as well, but somehow I don’t mind it in Hollow Knight.
Celeste would be a good addition as well. Amazing platformer with a high skill ceiling.
Play Picross :D
In all seriousness, you wrote mostly about card-based games. It's unclear to me whether Roguelites have too much progression for you and you like Slay the Spire in spite of those mechanics, or if it irritates you that card-based roguelites are too similar to Slay the Spire but you'd be willing to try other roguelites?
I think you would have enjoyed old, unfortunately obscure Spectromancer. It's a computer card-like multiplayer game designed by Richard Garfield in which players start with a fully available spread of 20 cards (no unknown deck), 4 from each of 4 basic elements/mana types plus a special "element" of your choice. The players can't have repeated cards, and no two cards have the same mana cost, so your own hand tells you something about the opponent's. Moreover, there are a number of automatic constraints on hand composition that ensure that most of the time both players have a fighting chance. I had a lot of fun playing it back in the day, since it has a more level playing field than basically any CCG... The servers still seem to be up so if you wanted I'd be willing to play a few matches (though it's been several years), but unfortunately I don't think you would find a large enough player pool to justify getting into the game anymore...
Something Tetris-adjacent would be Lumines Arise
Made by the same makers of Tetris Effect. Very pretty game with a good soundtrack that I cannot play or I will never be able to sleep.
Of course, Lumines Arise isn't out until a couple months from now, but the series' prior title Lumines Remastered is pretty cheap and available now. I've played it on Steam Deck without issue.
The demo is out though as I understand it, so they can try it out and see if they like it.
If there was a demo, it was limited-time and is already over, as both of these google results are a 404 and a redirect to the Steam home page respectively, and the top one says "This limited time Demo[...]"
Unlucky, I saw the original announcement back in the state of play and I would've liked to play that demo but their marketing just didn't reach me so I didn't know about it.
Ah dang, I misunderstood how the demo was set up!
If you like X-Com and Balatro, may I introduce you to Fights in Tight Spaces? Turn based strategy deck building game where each level/room is a puzzle to solve by beating the crap out of a variety of enemies with special moves. Just started playing it a couple days ago (75% off on Steam) and it's enjoyable.
I could be wrong, but would 'arcade-y' appropriately describe the sort of game you're looking for right now?
A couple years ago I did some work with the Spitfire developers on their game Capes. The launch was fumbled a bit so it didn't get the best reviews out of the gate for who the publisher was trying to pitch it to but it is a pretty good turn based game with no random factors or meta gaming, just challenging missions. It has a lot of dialog and cutscenes but most of it is skipable and isn't that important for the mission objectives which are generally just stay alive and kill the baddies.
Since you mentioned Midnight Suns and Xcom you might like it. CristopherOdd also did a pretty good letsplay series for it.
Based off this, I would suggest checking out Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War
It's a 4X, but since it's Warhammer it's all about combat really. The maps are smaller and faster than Civ, but I often just start over and don't really care about it. Although it's easy to pick back up, as you're really just always building more stuff to help you murder everything. Easy to pick back up. Story is there, but easily skippable, not important and can be ignored. Often goes on sale and plenty of fun without buying any of the DLC. I don't know if I will ever get tired of playing the Necrons.
You haven’t mentioned a single FPS, but if you liked Cuphead and Furi, I would imagine that “boomer shooter” style FPSes might work well for you, even if you choose to go for a lower difficulty per the points you mentioned in your post. They obviously don’t play like any of the other games you’ve mentioned, but they offer a high skill ceiling and often have little to no required exploration or story. There are often secrets hidden in the levels, but they’re never necessary to find, and outside of that, it’s just solid core gameplay loops and some fast paced strategic decisions, I.e. entering a room and deciding how to tackle the enemies you see in the moment.
Some of my (somewhat) recent favorites in the genre include DUSK, Amid Evil, and the newer DOOM games (though the original entries from the 90s are great too if you haven’t played them, as well as games like Quake and Quake 2).