The price.

Bought a used '96 Mazda Protégé off a coworker for $700. Ran it into the ground. Scrapped it for $300 when I could finally afford a better car. Definitely got my money’s worth.

I got to learn what driving without power steering felt like after the compressor locked up and the drive belt shredded. Ended up replacing it with a smaller belt just for the power steering since I couldn’t afford to replace the A/C. Drove with the windows down for a few months. Good times.

Yes. I check the organ donor box when I renew my driver’s license. If I’m in an accident then I don’t need 'em anymore. Let someone else use 'em.

Thanks. That’s good to know. Cloudflare will be the next one I try if Quad9 gives me any problems.

I just started and I’m having fun with it so far! Playing a mage and just unlocked my first specialization. Went with the one that gives meteor.

I think I soft-locked my save while I was having disconnect issues. I can’t leave the area anymore at all. Contemplating starting over. I’m not too far in yet. GW2 and PoE are running fine now, but LE is crashing every time I try to exit the end of time zone without fail.

Quad9 seems perfect for me! I’ll give it a shot.

Thank you!

So far I’ve picked up:

• Dead Cells
• Signalis
• Owlboy
• Starship Titanic
• Balatro
• BORE BLASTERS
• Melvor Idle
• Night in the Woods
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition
• Dome Keeper
• Pentiment
• Blackshift
• Ouroboros

Having a blast with Balatro to the exclusion of all else.

You should be able to play Flushes, Straights, or Full Houses and win in the first Ante without any buffs. Does the -1 hand size from Gold Stake really hurt that much?

Abzu fell kinda flat for me after Journey, but The Pathless more than makes up for it. It seems to be set in the same world as both prior games and has several references to each, so playing the first two does make it more rewarding to play.

I definitely recommend it since you liked Journey. The movement and combat feels great. It’s refreshingly short and focused for an open world exploration game, so it respects your time, and it also has some excellent storytelling with plenty of nice emotional highs and lows. It’s a worthy successor.

Agreed. The art looks straight out of an anime, and Dust’s combat animations are really smooth and satisfying. I think the cutscenes looked really good, too, but it’s been long enough that I don’t remember.

You say that, but I never made a spreadsheet to optimize my Slay the Spire runs. Balatro is way harder and more random.

Still fun though. I’m 50 hours into Balatro and loving every minute of it. Just made a hand calc spreadsheet last night as I’m pushing into blue stakes and need to optimize every move to keep the numbers going up.

Outer Wilds certainly was. It was started as a college project and the devs stayed together to finish it after they graduated.

Journey I’m not so sure. I don’t think it’s indie? If it is indie, then I’d put The Pathless up for consideration. That game finished what Journey and Abzu started, and it has some of the best feeling overworld movement of any open world exploration game I’ve ever played. Flawless.

Dust is great, but it’s deeply flawed.

The art is phenomenal, but the writing is cringeworthy. I loved it as a teenager but I have a hard time taking it seriously now. I wish I never replayed it so I could have kept my nostalgia.

The combat mechanics are fun and feel amazing when played as intended, but they’re massively unbalanced. IIRC with two exceptions (enemies that require a parry to enter a vulnerable state) every single fight can be won flawlessly by spamming Dust Storm even on the highest difficulty.

It’s a remarkable game, all the more so since it was only one dev. I 100%'ed it, and it sits in a place of honor in my collection, but it’s not one I’ll ever return to.

Outer Wilds and Hollow Knight share the spotlight for greatest games of all time. Both are as close to perfect as it gets.

Bastion gets an honorable mention. Not sure if SuperGiant Games is considered indie anymore, especially now that Hades hit big, but I love their early work.

I find Subnautica has less replayability than other survival games since the map and questline is static. Once you know where everything is and you’ve seen all the plot beats there’s not much reason to play the game again unless you want to challenge yourself with a speedrun or, as you said, one of the harder difficulties.

I wouldn’t consider creative mode or sandbox mode to be a core part of the game. They’re great for fucking around or as an extended tutorial, but I see them more as external tools than as part of the game experience proper.

Bastion’s story doesn’t necessitate multiple plays. Sure, it’s fun to play through again and try different builds. I’ve also 100%'ed the game.

The important thing, I think, for OP’s question is that it can be finished in one play. It has a satisfying ending from which the player can set down the game and move on.

NG+ is optional since it’s not required to finish the game or appreciate the story. It’s there for the challenge.

Tunic is a solid 10-15 hour adventure game, and I highly recommend playing without spoilers as several experiences are information-locked like Outer Wilds. It’s an isometric adventure game heavily inspired by Zelda with some Souls influence bleeding into the lore, mechanics, and boss fights. Replayability is limited to speedrunning and challenge runs.

Bastion is a wonderful adventure game with a heavy focus on combat. It’s a precursor to Hades from the same developer, and shares the same mechanical DNA minus the rogue-lite elements that Hades introduced. The followup game, Transistor, is also worth checking out, though it didn’t quite hit the same highs for me as Bastion. Both are 10-20 hour adventures with limited replayability if you want to achievement hunt.

More games to check out:

Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2

Journey, Abzu, and The Pathless

Subnautica

Been alternating between replaying Elden Ring on my PC and the original Ratchet and Clank on my new (to me) PS2. Making good progress in both.

Currently working through the last level in R&C and I forgot how brutally unforgiving that game is with the limited health and scarce checkpoints.

I’m almost through the academy in ER. Fixing to fight whatshername with the giant baby and the kamehameha attack. Already beat that god-damn OP knight guarding the entrance to her boss room.

Uchigatana is available, but it’s easy to miss if you’re playing without spoilers. Great sword. I use it almost exclusively for a hybrid DEX/STR bleed build.

Merchants probably!