Ask HN: What game have you replayed more times than any other? Not necessarily the “best” game ever — just the one you somehow keep going back to years later. |
Ask HN: What game have you replayed more times than any other? Not necessarily the “best” game ever — just the one you somehow keep going back to years later. |
Command and Conquer series skirmish
Cities Skylines
A true unicorn of a game. Got the 4 CD pack and ringed instruction manual at Staples in the late 1990's. I think it was $4. Quality across the board. The cd case had incredible fantasy artwork. The thick manual with color commentary from wizards. And the game itself was deep. Unmatched for the 90's.
I don't think of it as a game anymore. It's a masterpiece of art. Nothing will ever be quite like it again. Not nostalgia, just the fact of the matter.
Fallout 1,2 also. Not quite on BG2s level but I still play them. I got both 1,2 as a $10 pack in the late 90s or early 2000's. deep F'ing value.
- Donkey Kong Country 1&2 on SNES
- Yoshi's Island on SNES
- Picross 3D: Round 2 on 3DS
- Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on original Game Boy
- Proximity (old Flash game I made, but I've played hundreds of times, and it's the only game design of mine in which I've done that, out of several dozen)
Board Games:
- Legendary: A Marvel Deckbuilding Game
- Marvel Champions
- Lord of the Rings - The Card Game
- Aeon's End
- Ashes Reborn / Ashes Ascendancy (they rebooted it under a new name recently, but the other content is still compatible)
- Carcassonne
- Cribbage
Stardew Valley. The first play-through without spoilers and without knowing what I was getting into was magical. After that, the variety of things to do and different ways to play the game kept me coming back. You can just chill and take things slow, or min/max it, or try a speed run, or just focus on your farm.
Edit to add: GTA V. Love the characters and the open world. So much to do.
Lots and lots of hours on Contra and Life Force. It was pretty fun to run through those with a friend (and the Konami code).
Not played many games since then, though, because children and work.
- It's not necessarily one game, but they're all so similar that I'll count it: whatever the current Need for Speed game is (Unbound, Payback, etc.). The arcade-style racing handling is more satisfying to me than "realistic" racing, and customizing the cars is a lot of fun.
Why? - I managed to get Covid/Long Covid in 2020, and have subsequently been yeeted out of the workforce, and find myself with nothing but time on my hands, and little energy to actually do anything productive.
I've played thousands of hours of Factorio[2], I tend to play a rocket-rush game on an island, and stop when I've cleared the island of biters. The Space Age expansion made it interesting, but there's something about the grind that just killed the fun for me.
I keep playing Exponentile[3], which I think was from someone here on HN. (Yep, it's from MikeBellika, [3a])
Now I find myself playing Arrows Escape[4]
I love MineCraft[5], but I can't play it because it induces vertigo. The same was true of Doom[6], and pretty much all first person shooters from the distant past.
Oh... List minute update before the edit window closes. Railroad Tycoon 3 is still fun too.[6]
[1] https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
[3] https://www.bellika.dk/exponentile
[3a] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39897112
[5] https://www.minecraft.net/en-us
[6] https://store.steampowered.com/app/7610/Railroad_Tycoon_3/
Solitaire is probably right up there though lol.
Oh and Journey
If we’re going for hours played and the game with the most replay value for me, that’s probably Breath of the Wild. I never seem to get tired of it, as there are infinite ways to approach it.