it's the steam winter sales, what game did you enjoy playing and want to share?

Against the Storm
It's a pretty fun ~~rougelike~~ rougelite city builder in a world where it always rains and every few decades a malevolent eldritch storm destroys most of the civilization.
- Yes, this is what I came in to recommend.
  It's a bit pedantic, but I'd call it a rougelite since it has meta-progression. Still they found a way to make a no combat rougelite city builder an amazing game!
  
  Also not to be pedantic, but it's roguelite. Not rouge.
- This is a great game, especially if you're the type who thinks the beginning hours of a civ game (before you get bogged down in micromanagement and unit orders) are the best hours. It basically gives you that kind of early-game experience over and over, with plenty of variation. It's so much better paced than most comparable games as a result. I'm surprised it doesn't get more buzz.
  
  About the city-builder early game experience - you pretty much nailed my feelings about the game.
  I think the weakness of the game is that one needs to experience other strategy games (I played very little of city builders, but a lot of grand strategies and 4X) and have some level of self reflection or meta thinking to be immediately attracted to this concept (without trying out the game first).
  Most people who didn't notice that micromanaging already won late game is the bad, tedious part, would be reluctant to accept the inevitable destruction of their cities.
  I think that there's an untapped potential in increased complexity of the central City. What I mean is that if there was some metagame city building it would attract a bit more players.

I know this game has gotten a lot of attention but Sea of Stars was my favorite game of the year, the story and art was charming and well done, and the gameplay was great and about the perfect length IMO. Its only been out 4 months and I'm already itching to do a replay
- Reminds me I need to get around to playing more. Got to the like first real city and then got busy with a lot of things but it’s cool for sure.
- The start is painfully slow though
  
  Fair enough, I think it helped that I'd been awaiting the game for so long that I was willing to forgive a slow start
  
  I didn't get far in it because the characters seemed very bland to me, and the story setup generic, but perhaps that could improve over time? I know some games leverage their length to pull off slow character development well, even if the basic character templates are straightforwardly tropey. But this one didn't grab me enough at the beginning to justify investing my time in it, personally.
  I'm glad it exists for the people who do like it, though!

Dyson Sphere Program just got a pretty substantial update adding combat mechanics. If you like other production/logistics games like factorio/mindustry/satisfactory I highly recommend it. The amount of control they give you over sorting/distribution/etc combined with the ability to create blueprints can make for some rapid scalability to your manufacturing operation, and the same mechanics can be leveraged to now wage a competent and scalable offence against the new enemy.
- Definitely second Dyson Sphere Program! I'm not at all interested in the combat (it's optional), but now that they have that completed they'll be updating other features too. I'm hundreds of hours in and still come back to it.
- Bought the game when it came to Steam a couple of years back and put 100 or so hours and uninstalled it feeling that it needs way more content.
  Re-installed last week just because without reading the latest update news and boy oh boy was I genuinely surprised to see the combat and new QoS stuff been added. Highly recommend to anyone that has enjoyed Factories and/satisfactory. The build is somewhere in between both.

Spirit of the North
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213700/Spirit_of_the_North/
An indie adventure/exploration/puzzle game. There is no combat in this game. You explore, solve puzzles, and take in the vibes of a story told without any dialogue at all. It's all in the visuals, music, and mood. This is Abzu with foxes.
The gameplay is fairly simple, but also pretty forgiving - there are very few places where you need fast reactions or precise timing, and if you fall off a platform you only have to redo the last few jumps, not the entire level. It's the kind of puzzle game where you have plenty of time to think things through and even more time to just enjoy the journey. Definitely a game for the casual gamer who wants to look at pretty landscapes, listen to beautiful music, and bark at things.
If you stick exclusively to following the story, it's maybe 2-3 hours long, and getting 100% completion on all achievements, collectibles, and alternate skins took me 16 hours. So it's not a huge game - which means the best time to buy it is when it's heavily discounted, like right now.
I love this game so much. I like a lot of games, but it's rare that I absolutely adore one. In fact, I might just go and play it again tomorrow.
- No problem! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! :)
  The sequel is being released sometime next year, too. It may be the one game where I break my usual rule of not buying a new game at launch.

A few hidden gems I've played:
Dungeons of the Endless: https://store.steampowered.com/app/249050/Dungeon_of_the_ENDLESS/
Solasta Crown of the Magister: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096530/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister/
Tower of Time: https://store.steampowered.com/app/617480/Tower_of_Time/
Detroit: Become Human: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1222140/Detroit_Become_Human/
The Dark Pictures Anthology - Man of Medan: https://store.steampowered.com/app/939850/The_Dark_Pictures_Anthology_Man_of_Medan/
I hope you like them all as much as I did.
- Dungeons of the endless is beutiful. A unique roguelike thats more strategic than action based, but gives your choices real weight. You will have to lose people and you will make mistakes to complete the missions, but every one of them leaves you with a sense of impact.
  I get the same vibes from it as FTL, the sense of weighty choices. A great buy at $2.50
  There is a new "action focused" sequel to dungeon of the endless whose name i forget because its an entirely forgetable game. It fully eliminates meaningful gameplay in trade for mediocre combat. It can be skipped entirely.
  
  I think Dungeons of the Endless also has one of the best soundtracks in recent years. I like to have it on shuffle when I'm doing yoga.
- I've definitely been eyeing Solasta since BG3. Is it combat heavy enough that it could be a podcast game? It's unclear how story focused the base game is, and I get the sense that player made content is the draw.
  
  There's plenty of combat. If you've played BG3 I imagine you'll enjoy it.
  The caveat is that it's made by an indie studio, so the cutscenes aren't AAA, but I think the game is amazing regardless, and that includes the expansion packs.
- I've been eyeing Solasta for a while, but I'm curious, does the base game have enough meat to it, or is this a case where the base game is a bit lacking and really starts to shine in the dlc? I've read some reviews to this effect and would like to hear another opinion before I purchase it.
  
  I loved all of it, personally. Is there anything in particular you're looking for that I can comment on, in terms of RPG's?
  My only two complaints with Solasta was that I felt the random encounters with traveling got annoyingly frequent and the cutscenes are definitely indie, but I enjoyed the game as a whole so much I stopped caring about either.
  But I can confirm that the DLC's have a ton of meat too.
- +1 for Solasta. I was playing it on Xbox with friends and loved it. There's also the option for user made adventures I believe, which opens up so many possibilities.

I tend to play co-op with a friend and enjoyed playing V-Rising on a private server. We built up our vampire lair and roamed the lands collecting resources and expanding the lair. The bosses are challenging, and the map is varied. It is also fun to play with friends as the game accommodates this very well.

🤓 The Talos Principle 2 is taking up my tiny slices of gaming time. Tons of puzzles to solve, a really engaging story to unfold and the music is just beautiful. If you played the first edition (from 2009) it's totally like that and more. I'm, only halg-way through it but yeah, it's great and I can't wait to see what comes next.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/835960/The_Talos_Principle_2/
- Loved this game! Got completely consumed by it.
  If I had been the one to decide what features this sequel should have, I never would have considered including a playable New Jerusalem or having NPC companions or any of the new stuff. And if you had asked me what I thought about those features before the game came out, I would have said it sounds like they don't understand what people liked about the first game.
  But this game surprised me in numerous ways and I honestly loved every hour of my playthrough.

Eco. It's incredibly fun.
The premise is that the planet starts about (with default settings) thirty days away from beibg destroyed by a meteor. You and the other couple dozen or hundred people on the server have the obvious goal of stopping that meteor. But nobody actually makes you do it and since you all start with stone tools and wheelbarrows, none of you even have the means to do it in the beginning.
The idea is that you band together with other like-minded players and form a settlement and each of you specializes into a different set of professions (for example, I am a shipwright and logger mainly but also have a small pottery workshop going). In time, you find new ressources or ways to utilise already discovered ressources to eventually build cars, boats, larger settlements and stuff. While that is happening, you can (and probably want to) set some rules for what is allowed and forbidden in your settlements radius (you widen that radius by increasing culture, mostly via decorative items). The rules you set (and players actually have to vote for and come to agreements with) almost always follow a simple "If x then y (else z)" programming logic and can be incredibly creative. Once voted for, those rules are law and can't be broken by the subset of people affected by that rule. Seriously, one town on my current server basically gutted themselves accidentally by miswording a law. They intended a specific player to be forbidden of doing anything in their town but the wording was "If {name} is resident then prevent ". But since, yes, that player on the server was a resident of something (another town or their own homestead, doesn't matter), so condition true, every citizen in town was banned from doing anything meaningful, since it wasn't worded as "prevent {name} from doing xyz".
- This is fascinating and I would have never heard about it without you. Thanks!
  
  You're welcome! I've played 46 hours of it in the ten days since I bought it and I haven't played more basically only because we're on vacation now and I have to work to afford living lol.

I finished Laika : Aged through blood. An indie metroidvania / 2d bike shooter / bullet time.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1796220/Laika_Aged_Through_Blood/
It's the story of a mother in a post-apocalyptic environment having to care for her daughter and village while doing the war outside.
Everything, art, music, is a masterpiece. The music is just extremely good.
Outside of special zones, there are 20 you have to find, and it cycles between them. All 20 are voiced, with words or humming.
The story is good, and is extremely anti-war.
The gameplay feels amazing. It can be hard at first, but I quickly learned how to control the bike and and to do backflips and frontflips at the right time to reload guns and the pary.
The main character laika is one-shot, but the game isn't very punishing. The respawn points aren't too far away from each other, and they are optional. When you die, you loose a pouch with the currency, and can get it back.
There are some little issues with the game tho. The ending seems to be a bit rushed. The ending boss isn't that difficult, and there were some cuts it seems.
But overall these little issues aren't that bad, and the game is still amazing for an indie.
- Tried this on a Next Fest and it was super cool, definitely something different and interesting if you’re into side scrollers.
- That actually looks like a lot of fun, thanks for sharing!

risk of rain 2, game is sooo good just pickes up the dlc survivors of the void and it adds so much new stuff, def recommend if you like third person shooters and rougelites, it's quite hard tooo which makes wining all that more satisfying as well as endless mode as an option

- Does Roboquest have LAN? Searches in the forums lead to dead links for answers.
  
  I don't know if it has a LAN specific option. but If you are both playing on Steam or Epic, it supports multiplayer/crossplay between the two platforms. Though you don't access it directly from the home screen. Play through the beginning tutorial section till you reach your home base, then one of the buildings you can interact with is the multiplayer menu.

I haven't seen anything new and exciting on sale. Some stuff I already have is on sale, though. BG3 is great. Pillars of Eternity is also great.
I've been playing Guild Wars 2 a lot. It's on sale. New expansion came out recently. It's the only MMO that doesn't piss me off. Feels like an actual video game.
- Anyone who's waiting on BG3 to be cheaper or GOTY edition or whatever, try Divinity: Original Sin 2. It's amazing, and the definitive edition is only $13.50 USD right now. No need to have played the first one - I never did and D:OS2 is probably one of my favourite games of all time now.
- How is the server population in GW2? I used to play that a lot and really enjoyed the WvW action too.
  
  Seems very good. It's wvw reset night right now. There's a 16 person queue to get into the eternal battlegrounds map, and <10 on the other ones. Non reset nights the wvw maps are usually active with the occasional queue. I do a fair amount of wvw. The other night we had a wild _{40 v}40 v~40 fight in the garrison. Great stuff.
  For PvE stuff, there's almost always people doing the meta events. I never had trouble getting a group for fractals or strikes. Raids I see sometimes in the LFG tool, but I only do them with a training guild I joined.
  Also, with PvE they added megaservers a while ago so it doesn't matter what "server" you're on. For WvW, they're supposedly implementing guild-based matches instead, but that's been in the works for a while.

The wife and I have really enjoyed playing Ravenswatch.
It's an early-access rougelite that plays a bit like a Diablo/League (sans toxicity because it's co-op, not competitive)
Farm efficiently and level your hero within the time limit and fight a boss at the end.
It's a great time and 20% off on the sale
- You should try Halls of Torment for a Diablo-looking rogue-like. I adored it!

Can anyone recommend a hunting or fishing game? I've been into watching outdoors videos and activities, but never been on any of those activities and pretty much can only do it virtually right now lol.
- For fishing, Dave the Diver and Dredge are awesome.
- Bassin's Black Bass with Hank Parker for the SNES. The best fishing game ever made.
- This is only slightly facetious
- Only slightly facetious: Cruelty Squad
- Rdr2 has some hunting in very beautiful outdoors.
  
  Yes finished that one and I love it!

Lately I've been playing Spark the Electric Jester 3, Freedom Planet 2, Sonic Superstars, Vampire Survivors, and Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. I think all of these are on sale!
I'm a platformer gal, especially fast-paced Sonicy ones, so Spark the Electric Jester, Freedom Planet, and of course Sonic Superstars are right up my alley. Sonic Superstars really isn't a $60 game but I'd say it's $36 sale price is all right. Freedom Planet 2 absolutely nails fluid 2D level design with insane levels of polish. And Spark 3 may be one of the finest 3D platformers ever made, with a tight control system and a incredibly high skill ceiling.
Vampire Survivors, however, is not a platformer. It's a bite-sized RPG where your control of your character is exclusively directional and what upgrades to their skillset they get. It is incredibly addictive and while each session can last a maximum(ish) of 30 minutes I find myself wanting just one more try all the time. If you're not sure about it, the mobile version is free with ads, but it's really best played on PC.
And I don't think I have words for FFVIIR. Say what you want about Square Enix (such as "fuck those guys"), they make a solid JRPG, and this enhanced remake of the first… like, quarter of the first disc of Final Fantasy VII? is excellently done and takes enough liberties with the storyline to feel fresh without feeling so different that it's unrecognizable. (and the fact that they took liberties is actually a story point in and of itself but I'll just leave it at that)
- If you liked vampire survivors and retro graphics you might want to check out Halls of Torment. It looks like old school Diablo but it's a vampire survivors like game.
  
  Thanks for the recommendation! Diablo II was one of my favorite games when I was a kid so this is way, way up my alley.

I just want to say that the steam sale art is gorgeous as always.
- They always pick fab artists for their sales honestly!
  
  I want a moving desktop background done in the style of these sales pictures. That would be so cool

Picked up Dave the Diver because everyone keeps saying it's amazing. Sure enough, it's addictive and definitely worth the $13. It hits the Stardew Valley type of gameplay loop and has been perfect on Steam Deck. I've got about 6 hours into it in 2 days.
I may still grab Marble It Up because I loved Marble Blast Ultra on the 360 back in the day.

Against The Storm.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1336490/Against_the_Storm/
It just came out of early access, but it's been in a better state than many released games for a long time. It's a fascinating roguelite city builder. You build up small settlements to a certain goal before moving on to the next one, earning you meta resources to give yourself more options on future settlements.
The best part is there are so many variables that go into the location and your goals that no two settlements feel alike, and 20+ difficulty levels so you can find just the right spot for you. The devs are very good at listening to the community and constantly updating the game.
It's also on sale for $20 right now! I can't recommend it enough. They've somehow found the perfect combination of chill without being boring.

Brok The Investigator
In this game you play as an alligator who is an investigator (they rolled with that pun) who throughout the game does various puzzles and gets into fights. It's not egregiously long and has multiple endings that change depending on your actions, all of which allow you to unlock the true ending, I guess. I have only gotten a single ending, so I don't know what all the endings are.
It has an easy, normal, and hard difficulty which change the fight difficulty. It says relaxed (easy) difficulty is for those who are just there for the story and puzzles, so I'd assume it might either make the fights ridiculously easy or skip them. No clue since I jumped in straight away on hardcore.
I personally found most of the characters besides one certain robot to be enjoyable. The characters are also fully voiced (English only as of now), but there are 10 other languages for the text. Everything said will pop up in a dialogue box you have to click through, so you can't miss any dialogue unless you purposefully skip through all of them. Even if you do, afterwards you can open the pause menu and find a transcript of all the dialogue, too.
The game also has a demo for the first chapter, so you can play that and see if it's a game you would actually buy. Currently it's $13.99 for the base game or $19.05 for the game alongside the official soundtrack and an artbook. If nothing else, I at least recommend looking up the soundtrack piece Brok and Graff, which is my personal favorite song in the whole entire game.

American/Euro Truck simulator are always on sale, and are rad

I've been playing Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and Automation/Beam.ng mostly but I've been severely addicted to the free demo for Half Sword. It's the most brutal, jankiest medieval combat simulator I've ever played and it's as frustrating as it is fun. I can't stop playing it.

Should I get RoboCop: Rogue City or Star Trek: Resurgence now while they’re on sale or wait to see if they go lower?
It’ll probably be 3-6 months before I get around to playing either
- Star Trek Resurgence won't be on Steam until next year so maybe RoboCop would be the better pick.
  
  Ohhh good call. I saw ads on Facebook saying it was on sale and didn’t realize it was on Epic not Steam. Yeah, screw Epic.

I just bought Mad games tycoon 2. Because I heard it was a better/improved game of game tycoon which I played a lot. And ofc, I also bought Baldurs gate 3! Honestly I was considering not buying bg3 and waiting for it not to be discounted, because I wanted to give more money to Larian studio haha

DayZ just had it's 10th anniversary! It is just a great game, complicated and unwieldy but man you can do pretty much anything.
Obviously there's the zombies, that's a given, but everyone I meet is playing a different game. PvP can be bonkers... or you can live as a woodland hermit; foraging mushrooms and fruit, hunting animals and fashioning outfits from their pelts. The possibilities are endless!
An active modding community and regular developer updates means it never gets stale. Fantastic platform, I think it's neat.

I don’t game much anymore, but I have been fascinates by city sims recently. Last year I got sucked into Tropico (again). This year it’s City Skylines (1) and all the DLC