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Comment by esrauch | Hacker News Reader

The weird thing is that I actually don't care even a little bit about graphics and really want a scaled down experience (partially as a parent it's not possible to spend hundreds of hours on a game anymore... or even 20).

But it's somehow bizarrely hard to find in Indie, they all want to be these sprawling finicky massive things where you have to read a novel length wiki to find out that "four sticks can make a log", or are brutally difficult, or both (Darkest Dungeon comes to mind).

There's some counter examples but theyre weirdly hard to find.

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You should play a short hike, especially if you have a steam deck.

Other great or lovely short games :

Firewatch

Steamworld dig 2 isn't as short but you can play it in 10 min chunks and it's cheerful and fun

Backbone (now called tails noir I think) is weird but worthwhile. It starts as cheerful beautiful detective mystery and ends as dark beautiful existential story.

Hades is also great for 10 minute bursts.

Amanita design games - botanicula machinarium samorost

“A Short Hike” was the perfect indie game for me. A funny and beautiful world to explore for an hour, and then you’re done and feel a sense of completion like watching an episode of a TV series.

Yes, I loved that, too. More abstract, also short, no pressure: Proteus.

I recently came across Shadow Complex, which is a 2.5D Metroidvania type experience. It was fun, scratched the right gaming itch, and was the right size, if that makes sense. It didn't try to be anything it wasn't, but it did what it was well. Worth checking out if you haven't tried it yet.

Shadow Complex is a classic at this point—I played through it at release while sick in bed with H1N1 in 2009. it's like the perfect medium-sized game—it goes above and beyond to do cool stuff, without ever overstaying its welcome in any regard. just enough neat cool things you haven't seen before—like pushing the right stick up contextually aiming your gun into the Z-plane to shoot guys in the background. I wish people set out to make more medium-sized games like that, though I'm sure the budget was much higher than we think it is.

I hadn't realized it came out so long ago! It's gameplay is evergreen.

Thinking of medium sized games, I think the original Orcs Must Die! would qualify as well. It was a tight, solid experience. There aren't too many 3d tower defense type games that I'd put on a must-play list, but OMD is at the top.

Dredge if you like fishing and don't mind Lovecraftian horrors.

I also hear good things about Dave the Diver.

Check out itch.io. Lots of short and fun indie games.

You can play top-notch games like "It takes two" or "Unravel Two" with you kids though. Very easy to get into, two players at the same time, co-op. Both masterworks and I consider them AAA.

Battlebit Remastered

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