he/him
i think they are great when they are able to provide variety in terms of gameplay, challenge etc, as opposed to just being different layouts. My first thought is roguelikes and roguelites - Some of my favorite games are Binding of Isaac and Spelunky, which do it really well, and I still play the original roguelikes like Angband sometimes.
You could try the “Steam library filters” site someone created here: https://www.lorenzostanco.com/lab/steam/
This lets you include or exclude tags, plus a bunch of other filter and sorting options.
A couple that I like:
80 Days - it’s not free but I think it’s worth it. It’s a sort of steampunk version of Around the World in 80 Days where you have to plan your routes, and buy and sell things in different cities to make money. The main gameplay is sort of choose-your-own-adventure events that happen during travel and in different cities.
Card Thief - I just started playing this recently. It does technically have a microtransaction but it’s more like, they let you play for free if you don’t mind waiting for chests to unlock, or you can buy the game to bypass this. The main gameplay is sneaking through dungeons represented by a 3x3 grid of cards randomly drawn from the deck; collecting treasures and avoiding getting caught.
Seems like it’s not showing up correctly when federating to other instances. Or maybe a version issue.
Final Fantasy, if i remember correctly - the time loop is broken so basically none of the bad stuff ever happened.