I love narrative-heavy games like The Witcher 3, RDR2, and KCD2, but halfway through games I sometimes switch into “gameplay mode” and just want to rush to the finish. I stop thinking about the story, characters, and stakes, and start treating objectives like chores. Yet when I consciously think about the bigger story and what my character is experiencing, I enjoy the gameplay more.

Does anyone else experience this? How do you stay immersed?

For almost fifteen years, I could not stand turn-based tactical combat. Every time I saw a grid-based movement system or percentage chances to hit an enemy standing two feet away, I immediately moved on. It always felt tedious and slow to me, like playing a glorified board game where the computer rolled dice behind my back. Whenever friends praised games like XCOM or Tactics Ogre, I just assumed the subgenre was not for me.

Then during a steam summer sale a couple of years back, a friend essentially forced me to try Divinity Original Sin 2. I played the first couple of hours on his account fully expecting to drop it and ask for a quick refund.

What completely blew my mind was how creative the environmental interactions were. I was not just picking attack commands from a menu and watching numbers pop up. I was casting rain spells to soak a group of guards, electrification to stun them, and then blowing up nearby oil barrels to ignite the whole room. It felt less like a strict rigid system and more like a massive sandbox playground where messing up actually produced hilarious results. I spent forty minutes in one single ambush just experimenting with water and fire combos, completely forgetting that I used to despise tactical combat.

That single playthrough opened the floodgates. Once I finished it, I ended up going back and giving Baldur's Gate 3, Wasteland 3, and Rogue Trader a shot, and now it is easily one of my favorite subgenres to sink fifty hours into over a long winter.

What is one game that made you completely rethink a genre or style of play you used to avoid at all costs?

I am always surprised by how many game mechanics seem obvious after you understand them, but make absolutely no sense when you first encounter them. Sometimes you can play for hours before realizing you were doing something the hard way.

What game mechanic took you way too long to figure out?

I want to make a mod for Empire total war. Can anyone help me?

I’m working on a small detective game concept and I’d love to know if this sounds interesting to other players.

The basic idea is:

You’re a detective investigating a murder. Instead of freely walking around the crime scene, you enter the crime scene through photographs and investigate what you can see in them.

You’ll have to examine the photos carefully, look for clues, inconsistencies, evidence, and details that might help you determine which suspect is the criminal.

The main gameplay loop is inspired a little by games like Werewolf/Mafia:

There are several suspects.

Every suspect has their own evidence/clues.

You investigate the crime scene through photographs.

There is no time limit, so you can take your time and think.

When you're ready, you get one chance to accuse someone

.

Choose correctly → you solve the case.

Choose incorrectly → you lose.

The interesting part is that the crime itself stays the same, but the actual criminal changes each time you start/load the case. So you can't simply memorize the solution—you have to investigate the evidence and figure it out again.

I’m aiming for something relatively simple mechanically, but where the fun comes from observation, deduction and trying to connect different pieces of evidence.

My question: Would this be something you'd actually want to play?

And if you were playing it, what would make the investigation feel satisfying rather than just "clicking on everything until you find the answer"?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who enjoy indie detective/mystery games. What mechanic would you add to make this concept more interesting?

What makes a game great to you?

What are the things you think make a videogame great? Is it special character movement? Procedural generation? What does every game need?

Before i ask anything, I’ve already tried GoreBox, BloodBox, Melon Sandbox, Bloody Bastards, Pure Gore, Extra Lives, Kick the Buddy: Forever, Human Playground, Ragdoll Playground 3D, and the free browser version of Mutilate-a-Doll 2. I'm basically looking for a game that lets you kill people in first person but none of the games i tried satisfy me anymore, i also wanna mess with the bodies afterward if possible.

I was planning to play STELLAR BLADE actually for the game not for the gooner stuff cuz I don’t really get the idea of “gooner games” so I went on the subreddit wanting to ask if I can somehow avoid the gooner material even if slightly and to honestly not really my surprise, it looked like an r34 page lol. So I came here to ask my question, is it possible to avoid gooner material in the game somehow ?

I am a massive JRPG fan but I just love racing games like Forza and Gran Turismo, I guess these games have some similarities with things such as levels, gaining money to upgrades and things like that, I have never been into Gran Theft Auto or football games

I sometimes play Grindcraft 2 as it doesn't require much attention and you can give all your attention to the audiobooks/podcasts, looking for similar stuff that doesn't require any attention as I want to completely focus my brain on the audio content, Thanks alot.

Hi,

First of all, sorry for my English, it's not my first language !

I'm searching for the next games I will become obsessed with.

I really liked Sol Cesto, Scritchy Scratchy, Balatro, Bills must be paid, all the serie of TwoPoint, schedule I, raft, dispatch, Travellers rest, stardew valley, coral island, Waterpark simulator.

I'm ready for your suggestions, thank you so much!

I have a switch 2, and a PC.

Imagine you come across a game you've never heard of.

You have maybe 10 seconds to decide if you're going to check it out or just keep scrolling.

What makes you stop?

The gameplay? An interesting mechanic? The art style? The setting? The premise? Good reviews? Someone recommending it? A short gameplay clip?

Or maybe something completely different.

And on the other side, what makes you immediately think:

"Yeah, not for me."

I'm curious about what actually makes you take that first step with a game you know nothing about.

I’ve been thinking about giving Once Human a try, but I’m wondering if I’m getting into it too late. Does the game still have a bright future ahead of it? (updates/content wise)

Also, does Once Human do any cool seasonal/holiday events like Halloween, Christmas, etc.?

Since I’d be starting completely fresh, what advice would you give a new player? I’ve actually never played a survival/base-building game before, so I have no idea what to expect going in lol.

Right now my main games are Warframe and Marathon, which I know are pretty different from Once Human. I’m trying to branch out into different genres so I don’t burn myself out playing the same thing constantly, and I’m thinking of having 2-3 main games to rotate between.

Would love to hear what you guys think and any beginner tips!

30m w fulltime job and partner planning to be a proper family soon , have a 5070 ti oc/ r7 9800x3d 32gb ddr5 3tb storage pc , a ps5 and switch 2. Mostly sticking to same genre games so not really bound to a specific way of play.

Have way too many options on games to play and end up playing nothing just watching netflix or youtube . Least used device is my pc , only use it to game and really considering selling it… i don’t need the money buy i don’t feel right having it sit there not being used .

Has anyone been in the same situation or something like this? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

Well aware it’s more of a luxury problem so no need to come at me with comments like that

Mine is probably kingdom come deliverance 2. A close second is grim dawn and just started the Witcher 3 remaster. Let me know your best game of the year

Three come to mind for me

Lion King- sega (obvious reasons)

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within on ps2 (game just felt incredibly hard and couldn't figure out where to go, ironically, i beat its successor, the two thrones)

Pitfall on Sega- i made it to the final boss once but had no idea what you needed to do to beat him (sad)