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[Retropunch]

I'm a Silent Hill fan, but I think Darkwood achieves the same level of tension AND actually fun action. Dead Space isn't scary on replay, I would say Silent Hill and Darkwood are though. All 3 games have a really well realized world with a good atmosphere.

Darkwood is great, but somehow I just can't find top down games scary. It's not so much the graphics (SH2 has terrible graphics by modern standards) it's just that from that angle I don't really feel at all immersed in the game, I'm just sort of overseeing everything rather than 'being there'.

Have to agree that Deadspace loses all scaryness on replay - I replayed it about 5 years later and whilst I had forgotten a lot about it, it had still lost all of its fear factor.

[TWO CATATA]

Oooh... SCP Containment Breach and Alien Isolation, why aren't there more games like that? Are there many?

A lot of games seem reluctant to ever put the player in darkness such that use of a light is needed, maybe it's too "user unfriendly"?

You can't just shoot the problems to remove them, which was what stopped Resident Evil being horror instead of a puzzle game (keep enough bullets to move through this room because you will need to backtrack X times etc...)

[Aoi]

So I'm looking for something that doesn't take too much thinking, isn't reflex-sensitive, can be played one-handed (keyboard or mouse, but not both), doesn't require audio, and isn't a visual novel. (The situation being something that can be enjoyed in a bout of insomnia while constantly drinking non-caffeinated tea.)

4X and RTS I'm mostly eliminating on the grounds that they tend to take too much thinking and keyboard shortcuts. VNs are out on the grounds that it's unlikely to be anything I'm unfamiliar with. Boardgames, maybe, but most of them I find kind of dreary solo... and the ones that aren't, take too much thought. Incrementals/Clickers are just... yeah.

So far, I've mostly just been playing The Last Federation, watching numbers go up and down and occasionally nudging things.

[Il Palazzo]

Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies are great for that. You spend most of the time leisurely and near-mindlessly cruising through dreary environs with keyboard only (might need rebinding controls). You switch to mouse in ports, which are just disguised choose your own adventure minigames. There's an occasional, low-octane, and mostly avoidable combat to wake you up.
Murders time rather handily.

Titan Quest and Grim Dawn are absolutely mindless Diablo clones that have enough bells and whistles to keep you occupied, and are easy enough not to require having to watch your health most of the time.

Slay the Spire, Race for the Galaxy, and Solar Settlers are card based strategy games with not-too-hard to learn rules and short individual playtimes that you're compelled to replay over and over.

[Kagus]

Take a peek at Iron Snout on Steam. I think there might be one whole audio cue in the game, and it's not a very important one anyways. Keyboard only, not many controls, pretty mindless fun that can be expanded upon by actually getting better at it and improving your moves. It's somewhat reflex sensitive though, but even I managed to do reasonably well with it, and I've got the reflexes of an epileptic jellyfish.

Also, it's free.

[feelotraveller]

You could try Qvadriga - http://www.matrixgames.com/products/514/details/Qvadriga also available on Steam for a couple of bucks more...

Play the whole game one-handed with the mouse, loses virtually nothing gameplay-wise from no sound (not too much to write home about on that front anyway), is turn-based so reflex nothing, not a virtual novel and is simple enough - your call if it is too simple but there is a bit to it.  Probably a bit different too!  Your cup of tea, I dunno, but there is a demo available from the above link.

I enjoy it when frazzled... that's a word... I think... maybe. 

[MCreeper]

Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies

If you are going to play this - don't be proud and make saves. Frequently and in diffirent slots. Because, if you don't, game will otherwise throw infinite amount of bullshit deaths that will destroy 20+ hours playtroughs at you. If you do, it will still throw bullshit deaths at you, but they will destroy no more than two hours of progress.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Best one i seen so far is Constant Companion in Sunless Sea. If you are submerging with less than 40 hp and more than 70 terror, and stay submerged longer than few seconds, you are suddenly dead. And don't say you haven't been warned - one of those obnoxious loading tips said something about fear-smelling monsters, aye? Again, this is in the game that is supposed to be played without saveloads, takes obscene amount of time to beat and haves near-zero diffirences between playtroughs.

[Kagus]

Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies

If you are going to play this - don't be proud and make saves. Frequently and in diffirent slots. Because, if you don't, game will otherwise throw infinite amount of bullshit deaths that will destroy 20+ hours playtroughs at you. If you do, it will still throw bullshit deaths at you, but they will destroy no more than two hours of progress.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Best one i seen so far is Constant Companion in Sunless Sea. If you are submerging with less than 40 hp and more than 70 terror, and stay submerged longer than few seconds, you are suddenly dead. And don't say you haven't been warned - one of those obnoxious loading tips said something about fear-smelling monsters, aye? Again, this is in the game that is supposed to be played without saveloads, takes obscene amount of time to beat and haves near-zero diffirences between playtroughs.

Yeah, this is pretty much the kind of thing that threw me off Sunless Sea, and I don't even have the Zubmariner expansion. The ridiculous grind of going through so many near-identical playthroughs and then having it all taken away because even when doing everything right in a quest line, the final action still has a 30% chance of irrevocably ruining everything and there's nothing you can do about it except start again and put in the 10-20 hours needed to get yourself back into a position to start that quest line again...

I mean, the writing is phenomenal, but not when you've experienced the early game writing 50 times and the late game writing 0 times.

[Il Palazzo]

I don't even remember if Sea had obligatory permadeath. Luckily, Skies does give you a choice, and one should definitely pick saves allowed.

[Kagus]

I don't even remember if Sea had obligatory permadeath. Luckily, Skies does give you a choice, and one should definitely pick saves allowed.

The ability to allow saves was added in a patch, so you can turn it on. It calls you a namby ponce and locks you out of at least the one achievement, though.

You can still do the super-permadeath quest line though, the one that takes about 30 hours on its own and requires dozens of previous successful playthroughs and then deletes all your meta progression so that you have to start the whole game from square 1.

You get a cool achievement for it, though! One of two it can give you. There's a 50% chance, picked at random at the final culmination.

[A Thing]

Did the permadeath one require multiple playthroughs? I remember getting through it in one shot, but I probably looked up a guide since the stuff that set it up I really wanted to see concluded.

You should probably do the super-permadeath one last if you do it. I did it first so I wouldn't lose too much, but it's so long I just felt exhausted of the game by the time I was done that I just stopped playing. (I had played about 20ish hours permadeath before the 30-40ish hour questline, which probably contributed to that also.) I also vaguely remember it being the 'true' ending to the game, but I don't know if that's really true since it was the only one ending I got.

Edit: actually I did the one about your father as well. I think I reloaded afterwards to do the permadeath ending.

[Mephisto]

I want the strangest simulator you can think of. I'd prefer if it is somewhat well received.

Things I'm currently in various states of playing:

Farming Simulator 19
Farmer's Dynasty
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
Thief Simulator
House Flipper
Whatever Truck Simulator

And probably others that I will edit in if I recall.

[Il Palazzo]

My Summer Car. It's a True Finn simulator, or so I'm told.

[Aoi]

Many thanks for the suggestions, sorry for being a bit slow as I was doing a bit of travelling and wanted to actually try some of them before responding...

I actually forgot about Sunless Seas; that fits the bill quite nicely... I've never actually made it more than halfway across the map before catastrophic failure though. Could never really get the hang of managing the economic side of things well enough such that I didn't have a basic resource shortage. My best game had a huge jumpstart where I accepted the smuggling job's downpayment, then managed to refuse the job at like a 3% success rate.

You must be way better than I am at StS, if it doesn't take too much thinking-- I can barely pass Ascension 3 when awake.. and haven't actually managed a win on all three since the 4th act was introduced. Solar Settlers is nifty. Despite looking quite superficially similar, the other races actually play differently enough that you have to employ different strategies or you may corner yourself with early game mistakes.

Still prodding at the rest!

[Mephisto]

My Summer Car. It's a True Finn simulator, or so I'm told.

I considered it. Seems fun but the new wiring system would probably drive me nuts. Then again, maybe that's the point.