Asklemmy

Hmm.

• Usually open world. I like occasional other types, but a world with an explorable world map is more likely to keep my attention.
• Has to at least start more green than city. Cityscapes/Sci-fi settings bore me visually. This applies to real life too.
• Bright. If I need to play at night with lights off to see where the heck I’m going, I don’t like it.
• Usually some creature in the world to catch my interest. Like (inklings/octolings/salmonids in Splatoon).
• A good story is nice but not at all needed. I like environmental storytelling and aimless wandering.
• No “game complete”. I want to keep my save file forever.

Not hard rules of course, I have exceptions.

Like Metroid sounds perfect for me in some ways, but because it’s so dim and sci-fi, I can’t stay interested. Splatoon has amazingly dark lore that’s only visible past it’s bright happy exterior that I LOVE. Stardew Valley/Minecraft/Animal Crossing are in my alley.

I tend to play a lot of problem solving games over just pure skill/luck, i also prefer ones with great sound/music

i'd say i choose the almost all games i play based off of one or more of these questions:

• is there automation in the game? (i.e factorio)
• is the game largely mechanics-driven?
• how much room is there for skill expression?
• does the speedrun look fun?

other than those, i pretty much only play co-op party games with friends and ~1 rpg every couple years. right now i'm playing fortune's run, an imm sim i've been looking forward to since the last steam next fest - very fun so far.

I don’t game much but the games I gravitate toward are ones where I’m the only character (& maybe with an antagonist narrator) and I have to escape a certain place. This includes Portal, Portal 2, The Stanley Parable, and Superliminal.

Even though the most recent game I’ve bought, Detroit: Become Human, has many characters and interactions between them, I liked the storytelling, cinematic aspect. Plus both Detroit and The Stanley Parable have multiple possible endings depending on the decisions made during the game.

makes sense, Nintendo makes consistently fantastic games. even their less than good ones are often times better than most other companies. I cannot describe my process for picking games other than watching gameplay videos and seeing if it looks fun to me.

I am someone who likes to solve problems, so strategy / management games tend to be my preferred. For instance I recently did a run of Factorio with no belts.

I also like trying new things even if failure is an option, in fact failure should be expected if you’re trying hard enough. So KSP is another one of my favorites.

Hey OP based on your description, I think you'd love Kena, Bridge of Spirits. It's very colorful and cutesy with Pixar style graphics and dark souls style combat and difficulty (it's seriously tough as nails in some parts).

Good story, good graphics, good audio, has to run at 60fps with a decent resolution on PS5.