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.
some of the best cheap games I’ve played Portal, Stardew, Ori
Tough question.
Of all the games I have played, only few have 100 hours playtime, and all of them are over $10 except for
- Dwarf Fortress. However, I would have to lie if I said that it is constantly fun. There are gameplay mechanics that are boring, like the labour management (though that got vastly improved in version 50.x).
I do have one game suggestion though that is consistently fun all the time, and costs less than $10 - however I have less than 100 hours on it, because I never looked into the user-generated levels:
- TIS-100. It’s a puzzle/programming game by Zachtronics (so it’s in the Zach-like genre by definition), and it is amazing. Also, as said, there are user-generated levels, so even after you finish the main campaign, there’s a vast selection of puzzles to solve.
- Baba is You would go in a similar direction, but misses the $10 price point (by a tiny bit).
Cool. I could still get Baba is You at some point, and I’ve never played a Zachtronics game before.
I do know one game which 95% meets all conditions put—Heroes of Might and Magic 3’s base game without mods so far. The game has a ‘fan’ trap where they tell just about everyone that a popular mod is either the definitive or best way to play. I played that first. I later played without mods, it was many times more complex and somehow better balanced. I felt abusive because the mod, at that particular time, had a first time load screen which claimed the original makers did not know what they’re doing—and merely stating anytime that you prefer it without mods would incite open hostility from many, even when no reference was made to the horrible methods used. The game itself, however, fully utilises having practical knowledge and using it to strategise which method you’ll use against your enemies (for example counter attack, drain their armies and resources, or simply charge at them with full freedom of how to go there and to adapt) and giving you freedom with hundreds of possible strategies to play with, and the game involves the simulation of choosing any side who range between the most evil to the lesser evils all fighting each other as similarly minded factions (and doesn’t really play into the harm of civilians in the game itself). There is something really enjoyable about it even if some maps could last 10 hours at a moderate pace, and even longer if you simulate a show of force with complete map domination and capture (which can be useful when you can carry over the hero levels to the next map, which is stated beforehand).
I’m playing this currently. I’m also looking into the enjoyability of wholesome sexual content, and the enjoyability of the comedic evasion of characters from people who want to do sexual acts with them but which will only lead to trouble later. But these come later and not from games.
I did play a lot of of HoMaM back in the days - and also just recently installed VCMI on my PC, in order to re-play HoMaM 3. I didn’t start with that though - too many other games to play in my backlog… I never tried any mods - I don’t even know if the modding scene already existed back in the 90s, when I originally played it. I must confess that I prefer HoMaM 4 over HoMaM 3 - it feels a bit more complex.
There is one game series that is quite similar to Heroes of Might and Magic, that I personally love, and that gets the “fun all the times” and “100 hours play time” easily for me, but I didn’t mention it before because the current iterations are way above $10: Dominions. I haven’t bought Dominions 6 yet because of the size of my gaming backlog, but I have had a lot of fun with Dominions 4 and 5.
Yeah, I never looked into that series because I can’t afford it. Nevermind, since I have a backlog too…
And perhaps I’ll get heroes 4 while I’m at it. The review led me to avoid it at the time. I’ve played 1–3 so far (not playing the expansion of 2 fully because I didn’t like it and playing it regardless turned out to be painful), having never finished the base campaign of 3 let alone the expansions. I could play 4 soon after.
Nier Automata
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 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. 🙂
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
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
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.
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!
Hope you enjoy! Feel free to poke me to talk about any of them if you so desire :)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Vampire Survivors is $5, and I got like 90 hours out of it without buying any DLC.
One of the first ones I thought of as well. Lots of indie games that are lots of fun that I’ve gotten for less than $10. I’ll add Stardew Valley and Slay the Spire, but they might be more than $10.
- Vampire Survivors
- Dwarf Fortress
That said, I find it very hard to understand exactly what you are asking for, the post is rambly with a middle section about books that I couldn’t really understand even after 3 rereads.
I think what you are asking for is:
- It must be possible to legally acquire the game for 10 usd or less, even if only for a limited time (via discounts or other special offers)
- the game must not have any parts that become more frustrating as you play the game (which is how you seem to define 100% enjoyability)
- must be playable for 100 hours, or be replayable for that amount of time while being 100% enjoyable throughout
I’ve not played vampire survivors or survivor likes. I could try it to see myself. Dwarf Fortress too I have had an eye on but it shows many situations which would be obviously frustrating (I enjoy some permanent death games which label themselves as roguelike/roguelite, without frustrating elements). I’d had a look at the ASCII version of Dwarf Fortress a while ago, I find those visuals more appealing in comparison to the steam version. I’ll add these to the list of games to play.
Skyrim. I have 200 hours in and didn’t even complete all side quests. I bought it on a sale for 8$.
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.
