I ask this before (somewhere?) but most suggest paid games for some reason, im not sure why.
are there some free games from itch or steam to play when one has freetime to do things? and someday i might start recording gamplay videos, maybe it really depends on how life goes.
Warframe is free to play and nothing is locked behind money. it’s got a really steep learning curve but pushing past it is well worth it.
Warframe is a great recommendation, and my strongest recommendation for anyone trying it is to not give up on it until you’ve completed the star chart and the quest called “The New War.”
The early game was the earliest developed, and the very addictive late gameplay loop takes a while to settle into.
The above is probably 40+ hours of gameplay, which is a lot to ask before throwing in the towel, but as someone with probably 2,000+ hours in it off and on over the years, and who has probably only put in about $60 across that time mostly just to support the devs, it’s great value if you have the time.
Protip: Don’t spend platinum on anything other than slots for Warframes and weapons until you get at least that far in the game. You really don’t need to spend the premium currency on almost anything other than those things as a convenience.
Warframe’s my example of free to play done well, can’t wait to jump back in when it goes cross save
The Free-to-Play is done well when you reach a point where you just leave multiple completed weapons/warframes in the foundry. Until that point, it’s kinda of a miserable experience waiting for them to finish.
I mean, just get the free game every week on the epic game store. That should cover all your free games gaming needs
i totaly forgot about the epic games store, its been so long, thank you for reminding me about it.
I have an alarm set every week just for grabbing the free Epic game.
You could play the hit 2007 class-based shooter Team Fortress 2
will do!
Path of Exile
OpenTTD. May need some learning but it’s really fun and addictive if you’re into tycoons
In the same realm, OpenRCT2 and a lot of other games that were remade https://osgameclones.com/
Also https://play0ad.com/
If you like music, there are a bunch of good free rhythm games:
- Osu
- Stepmania/DDR - Main modern versions are Project Outfox and ITGmania
- IIDX/BMS - Beatoraja, heres a good English guide to it
- Neat thing about BMS is that all of the music is made or licensed/allowed for it. The community is strictly against charting copyrighted songs, partially due to them requiring keysounding.
- Sound Voltex - Untitled SDVX Clone
- Guitar Hero - Clone Hero
Note that some of these require or are improved by an additional controller, so they’re not entirely free but once you have what you need you’re set.
Trackmania 2020, you can do the seasonal campaign, ranked and royal for free, and it’s a fun as hell game with a great community. There’s more if you pay, but theres many hours of game play for free and it isn’t time limited at all.
Does require ubisoft connect, but that’s also free.
Old School Runescape is still a pretty chill free MMO to play. Granted, you have like maybe 5% of the content available to you, but you could still get a majority of your skills up to 99 and do a a decent amount of questing.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a great roguelike.
Tried this because of your comment. It’s really fun!
Been playing a lot of mahjong in the past four years. Mahjong Soul is totally free if you ignore the gacha element. And if you really hate the anime aesthetic, there’s Tenhou.
I feel a lot more motivated to sneak in a game or two every now and then because I know if Mahjong Soul ever goes down, my skills are fully transferable to other mahjong clients, and also offline.
GG to all my waifu jpegs if that happens though.
Since you mention having free time, Dwarf Fortress, it’s going to take a while to learn the game, but it’s really rewarding when you have a whole fort running like clockwork with all your lil’ dwarves running around, doing their tasks… Until something snowballs into chaos. You could also try roguelikes, there’s an array of great, free ones like DCSS, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, DoomRL, Brogue, Tales of Maj’Eyal, Infra Arcana… The list goes on.
Battle for Wesnoth is a nice and polished turn based strategy game. You need to get used to the sometimes annoying rng hit system, but it can get addicting trying to protect a favourite unit, give them the last hits so they can level up and then faceroll the map.
GOG has a bunch of free games that you can get. My personal favorite is Tyrian though.
Board Game Arena would be my recommendation. Amazing platform that keeps adding games (typically a new game is added every Wednesday). You can play real-time or turn-based, I almost exclusively play turn-based these days since it allows me to check the website whenever I have a few minutes of free time and play through my turns.
Mindustry is definitely must try if you like factory and tower defense elements. It’s free on itchi io and its available on f droid as well. The steam version is paid but it’s just a way to support the dev so you’re not missing out on any game feature. Has cross platform multiplayer as well with a lot of public servers you can jump in once you understand how to play the game.
