Star Valor does look great. If you’re on Mac or Linux you can play Endless Sky or Naev, which are both free. Or outside Steam try Starsector, which might be the best 2D space game on the market, or The Ur-Quan Masters; a continuation of Star Control 2 and also free.
The Ascent is a longer game and leans harder into RPG elements than Ruiner ever does. For me, Ruiner ran better and like @Catastrophic235@midwest.social says, the music is incredible. Blows The Ascent’s soundtrack out of the water. Ruiner might have slightly tighter controls too, but I’d have to replay to confirm since I played it with a mouse/keyboard while I played The Ascent with a controller.
Have you played A House of Many Doors? It’s very similar to the Sunless games, although not as polished.
Have you played Colony Ship, by the same devs as Age of Decadence? I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while and looks to be real close to its 1.0 release, but I’ve not heard or read a lot about it.
I just picked up Mainframe Defenders on GOG last week! Excited to try it out.
And yeah, I kind of wondered if you might know those titles while I wrote them out. Steam is surprisingly good at recommending traditional roguelikes once you own a few. There’s stuff like Door in the Woods, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, or the slightly different Wayward that are also on Steam but after a while your best bet to find new stuff is to search on RogueBasin or r/roguelikes on Reddit.
To be honest I only just stumbled across it when writing up my original response. Made a quick check on https://steampeek.hu/ to see if there was any game I didn’t know about or was forgetting and it popped up.
All three of those games are fantastic! You might want to check these out too:
- Rift Wizard is all about being an overpowered mage. Kind of like Noita, but more traditionally Rogue.
- Golden Krone Hotel is easier and more approachable than most traditional roguelikes, but I love the sunlight mechanic it plays with.
- Dawn of the Mexica is a mythical Aztec adventure. Wonderfully thematic and got me studying real-world Aztec history and mythology.
- Cogmind has robots building themselves from the parts of other robots. Nice shift from the usual fantasy the genre sticks to.
- UnReal World is one I’ve not actually played, but it looks super appealing if you’re into hardcore roguelikes. Soulash is another that looks neat but I haven’t picked it up yet.
And of course the big ones like ToME, Caves of Qud, and C:DDA are all amazing. But you can get ToME and C:DDA from their original sites for free.
Hope you enjoy Northern Journey!
Oh wow, I missed it early on! The Eternal Cylinder is good, but some occasionally clunky gameplay alongside the very unique alien designs might turn some people away. It crashed twice on me and once you figure out all the systems of play it can feel simple (although there’s a lot of complexity under the hood), so I could see some people giving up on it due to frustration or boredom - especially if the aliens or story don’t hook them.
I loved the environments and alien concept (plus the fun stress of the cylinders approaching) which kept me hooked. Plus it’s much more mechanically involved than Spore was. Spent about 13 hours with the game and left satisfied. If I had to numerically rate it, it’s maybe around 8/10?
Just in case you weren’t aware, The Oregon Trail is on Steam as a remake now, but I haven’t read much about it. I like the colorful style they chose for it though. There’s also the still unreleased Journey Express which looks very similar. Anyway, here’s some other stuff:
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Organ Trail is the closest to Oregon Trail I think you can get on Steam. Players control a group in the zombie apocalypse instead of journeying to the western frontier.
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Death Road to Canada captures the same sort of travel with small events interspersed that Oregon Trail had, but plays quite a bit differently…
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Super Amazing Wagon Adventure is an Oregon Trail-themed shooter.
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The Flame in the Flood is about traveling by raft but more about survival in the modern gaming sense than Oregon Trail was.
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FTL is super well known, but pretty comparable. You could also try Trigon Space Story.
APICO maybe? It’s got some crafting, but is mostly pretty chill, concentrating on breeding bees.
Dorfromantik is relatively mindless. You place tiles and create landscapes. There’s nice music too. There’s a sort of strategy to it, but it’s pretty light. Unlocking new tiles is the main grind. If you wanted a bit more thought involved, just about any turn-based strategy like Civilization 6 should do.
If you want to keep to JRPGs but at a calmer pace than FF7R, False Skies might be up your alley. ARPGs like Chronicon are also low on the intense/concentration scale (although like most ARPGs, you shouldn’t expect much of a story).
But more than any of those, I think Dave the Diver is your best bet. Ocean theme, doesn’t require great concentration (besides the odd minigame), and has a bunch to be taken in at your own pace.
That’s a tough question. There’s a handful of 3D space combat games like Everspace, Starlink, or Manticore: Galaxy on Fire. There’s also bullet hell games like Galacide and AstroWings: Space War. But none of those are quite like the more open top down games above. Your best bet to find something might be to ask on a larger Nintendo forum. I hope you find something!