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[Kagus]

Well Dungeon Keeper got mentioned, so I might as well bring up Dwelvers.

Heavily inspired by Dungeon Keeper 2, it went a different direction from the perhaps more faithful spiritual succession of War for the Overworld. Dwelvers is more about supporting a deeper (hah), more fleshed-out society of creatures in the dark recesses of the underworld.

The low rating on Steam is a holdover from a very bumpy early development period, and the original publishing company being the same people behind the ill-fated Towns. It can take a little bit to get into it (finding the proper "order of initial construction" and all that), but the more complex environments and creature needs are worth playing around with, in my opinion. And the lone dev is a sweetheart who just wants to do right by his fans, despite a great many challenges.


There's also a considerably more complicated trap system mechanic with lots of hydraulic pumps and gizmos, but I never really got into that much... Smashing people with forged/stolen weapons works quite well on its own.

[sambojin]

Galimulator (mobile/PC) is a galaxy simulator in the vein of Stellaris, etc,  but you can just let it run. Or take control of an empire as their emperor. Or just faff around with the empires doing their thing as a god-above-all. Or just send horrible monsters at them all and see what happens. Part screen saver, part game, but kinda cool for all that. Think Settlers 1: space edition, but not having to worry about buildings or roads. There's a game there, it's pretty slow to play, but it's kind of charming in a "my knights are stupid, but I'm still going to use them" kind of way. Except it's got galactic level shenanigans going on and heaps more civs per game.


Pathos: the Nethack Codex (mobile/PC). What if you took Nethack and made it fun and easy to play, with a pretty good UI/graphics set, and with a full help system so you didn't have to constantly look up spoilers or have a photographic memory, yet still made it challenging? Then you added crafting so you can play it how you want with various characters? And you added widely differentiated races and classes, while retaining plenty of the original flavour? Got rid of some of the "you must know this to prevail" tactics, but kept the quirky coolness and made it accessible? Then you added online multi-player? Then you added single-player multi-character play, because screw knowing people, you just don't want to be paralyzed forever by one slip-up when a second character *could* have helped you out, but you only have AI friends? This is that. It's the most enjoyable, relaxing, "fun" Nethack experience you can have, and so is very worthwhile checking out. Oh, and it's only permadeath if you want it to be, so don't worry too much.
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(on crafting: you have to scrap an item made of the same stuff the thingy you want to make is made of, iron/wood/plastic/meat/vegetable/etc, and you have to "know" about that item due to character class/seen it/picked it up, etc, but it's a realllyyyy simple crafting system to play however you want. Take that broken chest. Find a crafting table (IE, Minetown). Scrap it. Make twin crossbows on a high Dex character. Make crossbow bolts. Laugh. You can play the "basic" character you want, due to less item limitations. You've always got a chance. It's beautiful )
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Madden '95-98 (emulator, snes/genesis). Honestly, a really fun, kind of easy sport game to play. You feel better than you are once you work out a few things.


Any good golf game, ever. Are they twitch based reflexes? Ummm, kinda. Sorta. But in a "can you tap a mouse button or a controller button a few times at the right time?" kind of way. Not really my thing, but I still have a few on my phone, just in case I get desert isle'd and have a USB solar panel recharger for some reason. Tweet, tweet, trees, surrounds, lakes, clubhouse drinks, pretending I'm rich, etc.....

[sambojin]

Oh, and Master of Magic (dosbox, works alright on mobile under magicdosbox).

It is so VERY good. The base game is good. The mod-hacks are good. Even random anime witch "the spells are different and so is character art" mod is good. So very Civ-like, but so very different. Yes, you'll press "end turn" lots of times.

But there's something brewing......

You can play it in plenty of ways. And mostly, it's just you against the world. With magic and armies and stuff. Easier than Master of Orion 2, with even more broken builds and stuff to do, but very satisfying all the same. Relaxing in a "OK, where did my day go?" sort of way, but easier/dumber/cooler in many ways than Alpha Centauri/SMAC original. Where every civ-magic-like always falls short. None of them are as good as MoM.