Pretty sure quality is it’s own mod that you can run independently of space age, but I could totally be wrong there.

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Yeah, probably. There is a village building/ upgrading component, but it doesn’t have much of an impact on gameplay. It does get pretty tedious, especially if you’re well versed in strategy. I mostly just figured I’d throw it out as a more casual one-shot to pick up on the cheap.

Infested Planet

RTS. Kind of reminds me of the ground comabt from Star Wars Empire at War crossed with Starship Troopers. Command a squad of space marines tasked with battling an overwhelming alien horde. Pretty fun campaign (if a bit of a predictable story), plus an endless mode. Not exceedingly difficult, but definitely challenging enough to make you think tactically and keep you on your strategic toes. Somewhat limited replayability makes the sticker price hard to recommend (unless your bread and butter is RTS), but it regularly goes on sale for less than $5, which it is absolutely worth!

Ara Fell

The whole things just a massive labor of love from a relatively small indy studio. At one point it was an RPG Maker game that was delightfully well polished in terms of story, art, and environment. After the devs got tired to rpg maker limitations, they ported the whole thing to Unity and re-released it as a free Enhanced Edition update. Childhood me played the shit out of GBA Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and it very much scratches that JRPG itch.

Sproggiwood

Rouge like turn based dungeon crawler. Certainly not new by any means, but still a pretty decent little dungeon crawler. The art is cute and the game is pretty simple to pick up, which makes it perfect for more casual play. That said if you’re a completionist, it can get a bit repetitive, but nothing too hair-pulling. Probably not worth the full sticker price, but historic sales have knocked it down to $1.49, which is a nice balance between cheap and fun (took me about 28 hours to 100%).

Alina of the Arena

Hex based rouge like deck builder. If we’re taking indy gems, this one’s probably a nice Amethyst. Not quite the most polished (the game kind of just throws you in without much of a tutorial and the story’s pretty bare bones), but overall a solid B. If Slay the Spire and Into the Breach are your jams it’ll be right up your alley.

Throwing in Tactical Breach Wizards, because it just came out and has very similar trun based tactics vibes, but with more sarcastic/ absurd humor that you’d expect from Heat Signature or Gun Point (on account of being from the same developer).

Scratch that, there’s an entry further down: https://lemmy.world/comment/11991845

Picked this one up on a whim from a summer sale discovery queue and it’s been such a delightful surprise! I’ll second scratching the RPG and tactics itch, just wish I had more free time in my life right now because the game is turn based crack for me.

Bonus points for being a Unity game which makes it technically moddable (even if the developer has no plans of adding official support for it).

Aww man I’m sorry to hear that. I can’t say I’ve ever had that experience, but hopefully it’s been the exception and not the norm for you.

I kind of quit Overwatch after they sucked the soul out of it and called it a sequel. It’s not entirely a replacement, but as a fun shooter to play with friends/ family, I’ve mostly moved to playing Deep Rock Galactic. In some ways it scratches the itch: various classes/ roles, weapons, abilities, cooperation and teamwork to accomplish objectives, clicking heads and making things die, and purely cosmetic skins. It doesn’t quite have the satisfaction of a good back and forth grudge match (on account of being a PvE game), but the community is super chill, the game design about as far from predatory as you can get (while there are a handful of exclusive fomo items, it’s mostly just annual anniversary hats, or gifts to commemorate steam award nominations and such, there’s no collection interface to mock you or rub it in for not having them), and the devs are just all around great. Bonus points for being able to spin up or join missions pretty much whenever.