
Wuthering Waves is Hella good. Technically it’s an open world gacha game, but I played through all the storyline (the developers will be forever updating the story a la Genshin Impact), and I never spent a dime on it.
Also, I have spent money on Cooking Diary. However, I went about 3 months of daily play before I did, and it was more about me being impatient/telling myself “You got 3 months of daily play, you can drop the devs $4.99”. I’ve played that game just about daily since Memorial Day 2023, and I’ve dropped $5.00 quarterly. There are regularly moments of infinite lives that exceed an hour or two, that it genuinely isn’t necessary. I spend the money more as a “thanks for not making this ducking game contingent on microtransactions, making it good, and maintaining/update it.”
Ugh, I cannot say enough good things about that game! Top notch story!
I went into it completely blind, but even if you’ve seen some game play, there are so many choices and endings that you’ll end up surprised no matter what! Everyone that I’ve gushed about it to gushed back if they’ve played it already!
Suuuuper late to the game, but a few weeks ago my husband talked me into playing Detroit: Become Human (I shy away from Sci Fi games so I knew nothing about it/was hesitant to play).
Holy shit. That may have been some of the best fucking writing I’ve ever seen in a game.
It also got me really turned on to those butterfly effect/QTE games! I finished Little Hope by the Dark Pictures Anthology in one night (last Friday), and I’m in the middle of Man of Medan right now. The writing isn’t as good, but they’re still Hella fun and quirky!
If anyone else has any reccs for the Butterfly effect/QTE style games, I’m mad obsessed enough and will most definitely play it!
Fields of Mistria.
Saw it recc’d here on the indiegames community as a new version of Stardew Valley. I figured it would be fun as I’m a fan of cozy games, but I didn’t realize how fun it was going to be.
It’s still in early access and Ive got 100s of hours logged and I’m eagerly awaiting the next update. The characters and idle dialogue is fantastic, and it solves a lot of the things that frustrate me about SDV (as a SDV lover of course).