Games

dwarf fortress?

Mindustry is basically Factorio with more focus on tower defense.

Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2.

Leaning more into the management style of games, might be worth checking out Two Points Hospital (spiritual sequel to Theme Hospital), and the more recently released Rwo Points Museum?

I would like to recommend Dave the Diver, Inscryption and Curious Expedition (first one). All of them are superb indie games. It might not be the genres you're asking for but I would still highly recommend them if you want to try something new.

Have you considered Rimworld or 4x games? Stellaris, in particular, might be up your alley.

If you like something more complex, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is pretty good.

Stellaris is a great realtime 4x strategy game. They have a lot of paid DLC, but you can pick and choose which modules you want. Some are purely cosmetic options while others make gameplay changes, and they go on sale pretty often. Worst comes to worst, you can usually find the DLC on key sites as well for pretty cheap. Paradox also started a subscription based service that gives you access to the DLCs, maybe you can subscribe for a month and try out which DLCs you like.

Project Zomboid is an incredibly hard resource management survival game. It is also very detailed, meaning you need to maintain everything about your character from their hydration, to their weight and fitness. Its a slow burner type game, but when the action picks up, it gets tense. Its also a "forever" game, in that theoretically, if your character never dies, the game never ends. The map is huge, big enough to feel different pretty much every time you play. Its also multiplayer, which is pretty fun.

Farming Simulator can be a fun, chill game to play. Its not as resource management intensive as a game like Project Zomboid, but it can be a good game to relax with.

Ragnarok Online is an older (2003) MMORPG that I recently discovered, and while I am not much of an MMO Enjoyer (I hate the "Disneyland" or theme park feeling most have where I have to wait in line at NPCs and bosses), Ragnarok Online's player population is consistently low enough to not feel like that while also being high enough to feel like the game is not dead. Just don't play on the official servers from the Steam client. Use a client that connects to private servers, the economy is really bad in the official servers.

King Arthur: Knights Tale is a pretty fun Strategy RPG. I haven't been able to play that much of it, but what I have been able to play was pretty fun. Check it out, it might be interesting to you if you liked Divinity and games with combat like XCOM or Fire Emblem.

Always gonna recommend Project Zomboid. Yeah it may look like the Sims (which oddly is where TIS got their art influence from), but it's pretty darn unforgiving. Hell, I lost my last character without realizing how, chalking it up to some strange drug interaction (aka don't drink and take sleeping pills, kids). Resource management, while not a direct focal point for PZ, is still important as you are watching every aspect of your character's health and wellbeing.

The latest beta build 42 has incorporated some new mechanics and a nicer lighting system so things feel proper spooky when slinking around in the darkness. And don't even get me started on the modding community. Infinite possibilities and a constant influx of new content, some which gets so popular it's adding into the base gameplay. Look up Week One if you want more than just a zed simulator.

I also second Stardew if you are also looking to scratch that cozy gaming itch.

Try a different genre than you usually play.

Tetris Effect Connected

A Short Hike

Cult of the Lamb

What Remains of Edith Finch?

Stardew valley. Sea of stars. Kingdom come 2. The anno series. Metaphor re fantazio. The Case of the golden idol. Baldur's Gate 1 &2 enhanced. Planescape torment. Against the storm. Star wars Galactic battlegrounds (it's basically start wars age of empires 2, same engine). Civilization 5 or 6 (I prefer 5 but plenty of people prefer 6, and seems like no one prefers 7). Command and conquer (except 4). Crusader Kings. Europa universalis.

• Tropico 6 is on sale 65% off on GOG right now.

• Yakuza Kiwami is a remaster of the original and is a beautiful and hilarious rpg

• Subnautica is kinda a perfect mix of both RPG and management games

If you liked BG3 and Divinity 2, I'm obligated to mention the Pathfinder games: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. The graphics are a touch simple, but the writing is great and the detailed character building scratches an itch for me. As far as I'm concerned, Owlcat is currently the only real competition Larian has.

STARSECTOR

https://fractalsoftworks.com/

Edit: oh someone already said that

BALATRO

Endless Sky. Open source and crowd developed. Its story lines, assets, and general size have only increased with age. Active Discord server as well (but it's only single player, for now anyway).

Os there a specific genre of games you are looking for?

Hmm, how about mindustry (its open source and free outside of steam)? It's like factorio with tower defense. Note: after playing for few hours you might get access to many more stuff in game which might feel overwhelming

Some further suggestions I haven't seen mentioned in all these comments yet, surprisingly:

• Foundation
• Manor Lords
• 0 A.D. (FOSS and impossible to get ripped off, AoE clone)
• shapez / shapez 2 (the first one is only $2)

And maybe a little more casual, but still similar vein as city management:

• Mini Metro
• Mini Motorways

Out of all of these, I think I've played Mini Motorways three times as much as the rest, combined. I dunno why, I just love it.

Dyson Sphere Program is a great factory game. Check it out.

Obligatory FromSoft lineup suggestion.

Dyson Sphere Program is great, never played satisfactory but I hear they are similar.

Have you tried persona 5? Great jrpg I think the new clair obscur expedition 33 looks really good for single player too

Ksp2 was severely botched by Take2.. but if you're into the genre you might want to check out Juno.

In addition you might want to keep an eye out for KSA which is currently in early stages of development. As there's no official website yet, I try to keep on top of any dev updates and nuggets of information so I can update the lemmy community.

This thread is actually huge, so apologies if this has already been recommended, but take a look at Against the Storm. It's an indie city-builder with a bit of a rogue-like spin. You can usually get it on fairly deep sales, and the rogue-like elements combined with some meta-progression gives it a real play length, even though a single city-building session is a ~45-60 minute experience.

Based on your enjoyment of management and strategy, Paradox's grand strategy games might be something you enjoy. Same publisher as Cities Skylines. There are four main series of them, each with their own mechanics but enough broad-scale similarities that knowing one helps with the others. They are:

• Crusader Kings, set in medieval Europe, North Africa, and about half of Asia. This one is the most roleplay-heavy, as you play as a succession of characters within a feudal dynasty rather than a country
• Europa Universalis, set from the European Renaissance up to the end of the Napoleonic wars. The whole world is playable, and exploration is a big mechanic
• Victoria, which covers the world through the rise of industrialism. This one is the most simulation-heavy, focusing gameplay around economic development and the diplomatic manoeuvring of great powers
• Hearts of Iron, which is the Second World War game. This is the one to go for if you want to play the military side of things

What distinguishes them from strategy games like Civ and Age of Empires is the greatly-reduced abstraction. There's no expectation of every starting point or playable country being balanced; if you start as Belgium in Hearts of Iron, you're going to have to do something clever to not get steamrolled by Germany. There's also no win condition beyond what you set for yourself. When I start a game of Crusader Kings, I'm not trying to win the game, I'm saying to myself "let's see if I can unite all of Britain and Ireland under a Gaelic ruler"

All Paradox games have quite a lot of DLC, but the base games are solid (often now including several of the earlier DLCs for free, in the case of older games) and they go on steep sales pretty often. If there's not a specific time period or mechanic that sways you towards one of the games, I recommend Crusader Kings 3 for the best new player experience

I'll go with some classics if you haven't tried them yet. Planescape: torment is a really engaging crpg if you don't mind old graphics and dig lots of lore and dialogue. Morrowind if you prefer first person for another old school rpg with lots of stuff to discover in a weird surreal environment. Dwarf fortress sounds like another older one you might be into too.

I liked ksp2

If you're saying that you liked the (unfinished, abandoned, poorly-rated) Kerbal Space Program 2, you might play the original, which is better-regarded.

On the "factory" side, maybe some colony simulators? Someone else mentioned Rimworld. That's got a bit of DLC, but I think that even the base game has pretty good value for money. Oxygen Not Included is another colony sim that focuses more on the building/automation/physics side; I think that you'll get a lot of hours out of that.

Dwarf Fortress is another colony sim, has a freely-available classic version or a commercial graphical build on Steam. Steep learning curve, but lots of mechanics to explore.

I like Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, though it has a pretty punishing learning curve. Open-world roguelike. It touches on both the RPG (well, not much by way of plot, but in terms of building a character) and the factory (build buildings, faction camps with NPCs, and vehicles) side. You aren't going to run out of gameplay complexity to explore any time soon on that. Open source and freely-available, though there's also a commercial build on Steam.

I have not played Elin, the successor to Elona, but it might be worth a look too if you are looking for a game with both a sandbox aspect and RPG aspect.

Even when the prompt is better (at all?) articulated, threads like these are a waste of time. People who respond barely read the prompt and OPs generally don't even know what they are asking for. So obviously you should play a little cult classic indie game called Hollow Knight.

My suggestion is to instead put some time in to find an influencer/reviewer you like. Even if you don't have a similar taste in games, a good reviewer will say WHY they do and don't like something and you can make informed decisions from there.

If you don't mind Early access games, try "Escape the mad empire". It's a nice RPG with tactical pause and some nice looting in it.

Escape the mad empire

Stardew if you want a comfy game to play Timberborn for colony sim