Patient Gamers

Another playthrough of BG3.

Stellaris with the Star Trek: New Horizons mod. Currently doing a Borg run, at war with the Dominion right now, but of course, resistance is futile.

Dead Cells. I've been stuck on 3BC for years, but someday I'll beat it! Someday...

I play the "What's that black dot on the wall and is it moving?" game.

Very fun until one actually starts moving.

I was trying Terraria, which has a lot of creativity possibilities. I was trying to earthwork/terraform a small world (i.e. trying to make it level from ocean to ocean), while simultaneously "voidforming" another small world (i.e. digging out every single "removable" block before Hardmode, which obviously excluded Lihzard temple blocks, Dungeon blocks and Crimson/Corruption altars; for lava, I was using the infinite bucket trick to replicate honey in order to consume lava from the Underworld; I don't plan on reaching Hardmode for such world). I was taking blocks from the second world (the world to be voidformed) and "smuggling" them into the first world (the world to be terraformed) in order to compensate for the need for additional blocks (e.g. sand, ice, mud, etc) when biomes were generated below ocean level.

Turns out that I was doing this not exactly for fun and enjoyment, but something to "try to keep myself busy and away from bad thoughts", and that was not really a good goal for myself. By now, it has been weeks since I last played.

this is a smartass answer but if no video game is catching your attention, don't play a video game. do anything else. pick up a new hobby or revisit an old one.

Creeper World 4, the daily map usually has a good duration. Takes your thoughts off everything else pretty well, yet is not too demanding. And you can vary your play style yourself a bit / set your own limitations, depending on how much of a challenge you want right now or how much time you want to spend.

Crawl: Stone Soup. Classic rogue like. You can play it in the browser so it's very fast to get going. Minotaur Berserker is a nice semi brainless flow.

https://crawl.develz.org/

The Warhammer tide games, either Vermintide 2 or Darktide. Best melee combat in a video game, relatively short rounds, and super satisfying to just genocide some heretic/xeno hordes for the Emperor/Sigmar.

You just alerted me to the existence of Orcs Must Die 3, and I am going to check it out after absolutely loving the first 2.

Helldivers 2 is great for short to medium sessions.

Risk of Rain 2. And if that doesn't work, Risk of Rain 2.

Rogue-lites are basically made to be infinitely re-playable and if I find one I like then I keep going back to it. Enter the Gungeon is a game I've played for years. Then there was a while this spot was taken by Slay the Spire and Balatro in turn. Now I'm back to Enter the Gungeon.

Slay the spire. Quick 30-45 minute run is just enough to kill time.

I'll play a multiplayer shooter or civilization 6

Modded Minecraft for sure. But there are a handful of games I keep going back to and common theme for those games that I can listen to a podcast or audiobook while I'm playing them, like Rimworld, No Man's Sky, Stardew Valley, Skyrim.

For me it is loading up Xonotic to strafe jump around and blast bots. The movement in Xonotic is hypnotic, and while I usually play in short bursts I don't think I will ever get bored of returning over and over again to learn the nuances and creative opportunities of combat and movement in Xonotic. All it takes is the first strafe jump to put a stupid smile on my face.

https://xonotic.org/

Also I love open world driving games and Motortown is my jam. I do urgent taxi jobs and just let my mind relax as I drive like a complete madman. The tire grip and burnout mechanics along with the vehicle handling in general is the best I have tried in any game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369670/Motor_Town_Behind_The_Wheel/

Factorio, Minecraft, Stardew Valley. Also solitaire on my phone (PySolFC).

Balatro is my current go-to game. Not sure if it is patient gamer material since it came out relatively recently but it is cheap and on all platforms. Poker themed maths game.

Civilization V.

Balatro

Crypt of the Necrodancer.

Really fun roguelike game where you and enemies have to move to the beat of that floor's song. I think part of the reason I still play it a lot is that it's amenable to very short sessions. I've played enough that runs go fast and I either clear or die within 10 minutes.

Over 1200 hours now almost a decade after release, and a huge chunk of that is probably sessions of under 30 mins in length.

FTL.

Burnout 3

Rimworld

I just keep coming back.

I did that a lot with Subnautica but I think I've worn it out. I would make up challenge runs for myself to spice it up and I've run out of those. It was my "I want to play a video game right now" game. I kinda wish I had fewer objections to Subnautica 2, because there's things I like about that game and things I don't and the don'ts slightly outweigh the things that do.

The Long Dark. Something about wandering an icy wasteland scavenging, hunting, fishing, works for me.

StarCraft. The original. My brain and body is hardwired to play that game. "SCV ready" triggers something. I have a fantasy of retiring in an old folks home and me and a few of my fellow geriatrics fire that shit up and play LAN games until the DNR kicks in.

HL2, Portal 2, Far Cry (1), Commander Keen, Supreme Commander, Raptor: Call of the Shadows. Halo MCC but particularly 2.

For me its titanfall 2. Simply because its quite casual and the rounds don't take too long. Just hop on and if you get absolutely obliderated the next round will be better.

X-Com (1993)+Mods, Jagged Alliance 2, Master of Orion 2, Starsector, Avorion and lately Balatro and Peglin for mindless fun.

Dark Souls. If there's nothing else I want to play, I'm always up for another run through Lordran with a build I've never tried before.

OpenTTD.

Europa Universalis IV. There are tons of countries to play, lots of variation each time, and so many options for self challenges (e.g. accomplish goal by year).

The only thing that would get me to stop playing is if EUV is good, and then only a few years and DLC in. Even then, I could see myself coming back to it.

For years that game was Warframe for me. Just turn of my brain and run missions I know inside and out while watching twitch from the corner of eye on a second monitor. At some point I wanted to have more time to play other games so I stopped and didn't find a new cozy game

Probably Fortnite. It's not just one battle royale game anymore. If I feel like racing, I can play Rocket Racing. If I feel like building, I can play Lego Fortnite. Festival if I want a Guitar Hero experience, Ballistic if I want a Counter-Strike experience, and so on. It's all tied to Epic's servers though, so it's not for life.