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Roguelike games are generally pretty good for this as they will have shorter run durations with some kind of metaprogression. Slay The Spire is the first one that came to my mind.
Also games that have some smaller unit of progression which can be measured independently of the larger game, like Darkest Dungeon, which takes ages to finish, but each individual delve into the dungeon is relatively short and straightforward.
Hijacking this comment for recommending my two favorite rouge lites Noita and Balatro. Both have the possibility to save and quit at any time.
And Balatro doesn't take so long for a run like StS.
noita
Yes but what really is progress?
I've found a lot of Roguelikes that I've played force you to rebuild your arsenal every game and repeatedly progress through to the same boss that can annihilate you if you didn't get lucky on your finds or get your timing off.
One of my favorite Rogue-lites is Rogue Legacy since it doesn't do that. People complain that it's brutal. But I find it so much more frustrating to mop up hordes for an hour and get wrecked by one tough opponent to restart from square one.
Thats my favorite thing about roguelites and why Rogue Legacy is literally my least favorite one.
In roguelites with stat progression, there's often little need to actually improve at the game. It's just mindless grinding until your stats are high enough.
Enter the Gungeon does it best IMO. New weapons and items get added to the loot table, but you never unlock anything that just straight up makes you stronger.
Hades is a good one. It's hard to get "unlucky" instead you're forced to play a different build if you don't get the powers you want.
Completely different answer to what you're asking, but I've found that the Steam Deck helps a lot with this because you can pause the game at any time, sleep the device, and then come back and be back in the game on that screen in 3 seconds. That helped me clear a lot of games because I could squeeze a game session in any 10/15min window of time I had.
Yup, can confirm. I'll often start out assuming I'll have 1-2 hours, but about 10-15 min in, I need to handle stuff (kid is sick, wife needs IT help, etc). It's fantastic. :)
Can also confirm, my only gaming time is my 25 minute ride in public transit. This makes 50 minutes of gaming time where I used to have none.
I would say Outer Wilds is very good. You have the ability to beat the game as soon as you start, but you don't have the knowledge to beat it.
Without spoiling it as it's a very spoiler sensitive game, you can spend as long as you want gathering all of the knowledge to beat the game, you aren't punished for taking your time. And all the knowledge you collect is stored in the games computer as long as you save so you can play for 22 minutes if you want, or multiple hours.
I beat the game over the course of a few weeks playing for various amounts of time. Recently played the DLC too and that went the same.
I really need to get over the early learning curve and get into this game.
I've tried a few times and don't know why it doesn't engage me.
Give it another try tonight.
You have to want to explore and you have to pay attention. The gameplay is casual but the progression is not
I loved Outer Wilds but I'm surprised to see it get called out in this thread. I still recommend it but once you get like halfway through it's very easy to spend an entire session making 0 progress and feeling like you "wasted" your night.
There is NO handholding which I personally like in games but I wouldn't say it respects your time...though I definitely wouldn't say it doesn't respect your time either
If you think you're getting lost or don't know what to do, it's okay to follow another lead. Sometimes the solution will come back to you. The signal scope is your friend when finding a new lead, and the ship log is your best friend for tracking it and figuring out what to do next.
I hope you enjoy it, it's a game you can only experience once.
And it's SUCH a good game. I got through it with the DLC and cried at the end.
You just convinced me to buy it since it's on sale on Playstation.
Roguelikes, such as Hades. A single run won't take you longer than 30mins (and often far, far less than that – you'll die, a lot).
Every run is progress. And if you feel like you're not progressing fast enough, you can turn on "God Mode" (the protagonist is a god) and gain 2% damage reduction after each death, to make subsequent runs a little easier (no penalty in doing so, either).
Totally different genre, but I liked how Celeste approached this.
If you struggle to complete it there are tons of accessibility options to make the game more approachable.
And the content necessary to finish the games story is not too much, while giving challenging -well- challenges to anyone who wants to spend more time with the game.
And you clear the game screen by screen making it possible to only play it a short bit at a time.
It's almost a bonus that the story and soundtrack are fucking beautiful.
Recently Spider-Man 2. I platinumed that game in 26 hours I think. The story is good, combat is fun, there's collectables and side missions but each is part of its own side story. They give you plenty of info to find almost all of the secrets too
Helldivers 2 is online coop and all missions take anywhere between 5-40 minutes. But the objectives are clearly laid out beforehand and players get to choose what optionals they do, if any. So it's not too hard to plan your day or evening around this.
Rocket League. Games are quick, you can play one or many in a session. I don’t know if epic has ruined it yet, but last I played the good old core game was still there.
This one is misleading though. It's a bit like, "Who would ever want a second hit of meth!? Just try it this once! Only takes 5 minutes!"
Hellcard is an isometric dungeon looter that lets you customize how long the dungeon should be, time-wise. So, of you've got, say, 15 minutes, bam! 15-minute dungeon run.
I'm not sure how precise it is, but the devs really went out of their way for the feature!
Sea of Stars is broken up into nice little chunks between save points. Also has 'relics' which can modify the game to be more your speed.
I thought Final Fantasy XVI was really great with pacing. There's a bunch of side missions. But just use a guide when doing monster searches (like I did because I respect my time too much), it doesn't string you along too much (for an RPG).
I mentioned elsewhere, Rogue Legacy. The first one paces really well and is very straightforward. It's pretty brutal, which is great for quick make or break runs instead of letting you grind easy mobs like a lot of Rogues.
Id love to play FF16, but the bastards made it PS exclusive
What's your console? It should be coming out on PC this year sometime.
Armored Core 6. Missions are pretty short, attempts on them can be abandoned without losing anything but your progress in that attempt, and there is absolutely no slack time--start to end it's densely packed with new content.
Dirt Rally (1 not 2. Fuck you EA) Noita Gunfire Reborn Doorkickers Brigador Super Hexagon Dungeon Warfare Cultist Simulator Creeper World Post Void Devil Daggers
Not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I've been enjoying Idling to rule the gods. (Steam/Android cross save)
It's an idle game that could take years to "beat", has a pet collection/dungeon game that's pretty fun.
You can progress only checking in a couple times a day for a few minutes, some challenges (for progression/QOL upgrades) require more activity, but overall has a nice feeling of day to day improvement.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was unexpectedly great in this respect.
You can save/load virtually any time, and almost every single thing you do adds an icon to the map that you can use for fast travel. I'm really loving it!
I realized I only have the patience for (relatively) short singleplayer games (I just hate grinding in general in video games).
Some of my favorites are:
NieR:Automata (around 40-60 hours of playtime. This one might seem ironic, as it does have some repetition, but it has no grinding and always something interesting new. It also has by far the best story of any game I've ever played)
The Beginners Guide (~4 hours of gameplay. It is super unique and has a cool take on psychology, which I haven't seen in any other game or movie. But you need to play it all the way to the end for it to make sense)
Noita (hard rouge like, and the only one I really enjoy. It's also very unique in its genre and you can always save and quit.)
Balatro (technically also a rouge lite, but with playing poker hands. It has short rounds and is a casual game, if you only have a few minutes ans don't know what to play)
Nier Automata isn't my favorite story. I'm still confused about some parts of it. But it's one of the most intriguing stories I've ever played.
The gameplay and understated humor are some of my favorite though. The combat is the absolute perfect mix of complexity to stay interesting and yet simple enough to not be overwhelming. And the chip upgrade system is one of my favorite upgrade systems.
i think bethesda games do it well but you gotta make sure you dont stop playing in the middle of a dungeon because then you will forget what the hell you were doing. but going at it like 1 dungeon or quest at a time is rather nice, its how ive played it for the last couple years