So this isn’t directly related to patientgaming but my hardware and personal tastes kind of filter me to playing games no newer than five years old.
I’m looking for some recommendations for games that can be completed within ten hours. I’ve realized recently that this is the sweet spot how much I enjoy playing a game before I get bored of it. I’m open to all types of games. Thanks in advance!
Portal?
Awesome game, it was one of the first I ever played on my friends’ Xbox
You’ve probably played it then but Portal 2 is pretty short too.
Superliminal is the best similar to portal without being portal game I have played, big recommend
I was a little disappointed with Superliminal. Really short and I didn’t think the puzzles got very interesting. I was excited about the concept, but it really didn’t live up to my expectations. Glad you liked it, though! I think it was maybe just a little overhyped for me.
If you’re looking for other games in this style… The Turing Test was decent and short, and Lightmatter is pretty unknown and decent. They’re not as polished as Portal, obviously, but they’re both relatively short puzzle games. I think the puzzles in Turing Test were pretty straightforward. The Lightmatter puzzles were a bit more interesting, I think.
Awesome! I’ll check those out
They’re nice. I wouldn’t be surprised if you liked Superliminal more because I think it’s a more unique concept than either. It’s been a while since I played either, but I think Lightmatter was a more unique concept for puzzles than Turing Test, but Turing Test had some reasonably interesting stuff going on story wise (not amazing, but I have a bit of a soft spot for the kind of Chinese Room philosophy stuff). Either way, they’re worth a look, I think! Sometimes you just want something to scratch the first person puzzle itch and there aren’t thaaaat many games in the category!
Outer wilds. It can be longer for some but finishing it in a single sitting or two it hits best. A deep emotional experience that you can only ever truly experience truly the first time. So avoid spoilers at all costs.
Also Firewatch
Was gonna say Outer Wilds as well. It’s such an amazing experience and kind of made me rethink what video games can be as art and just… an experience. Can be finished really quick though for me it took a good chunk of time.
I’ll also reiterate, don’t look up spoilers. The game is so much about exploration and discovery that going in blind is best.
It truly is something special. Every time it’s on sale I end up buying a key and giving it to somebody I know just so they can experience it.
Sometimes I feel a bit silly with how much and how often I recommend this game, but it truly is something special.
I got the soundtrack on vinyl just recently and listening to it is like microdosing the game.
That and Ellis doing recaps of YouTubers and Twitch Streamers let’s plays
Those Eelis videos gives me life. I went and watched the entire About Oliver play through after seeing the highlights.
Two fantastic recommendations
A Short Hike is a great little platformer you can finish in a couple hours.
Super Mario RPG is a classic and can be squeezed into 10 hours if you rush, but probably closer to 12~15.
I second „A Short Hike,“ it‘s a wonderful little game.
A Short Hike is fantastic!
Thanks for the recommendation. That looks great. Just bought it there on sale for under 4 euro.
Mirror’s Edge - a perfect way to spend 5 hours
This has been on my list for a decade haha. I just might have to pick it up
It’s a comfort game for me, always come back to it every year or two.
Same. Single run, hard mode, no red highlights A well spent afternoon
The original was a great game.
Journey is a game that has stuck with me for the past ten years. It took me an hour and a half to complete.
Journey is such an amazing that experience.
It’s short but it stuck with me too.
I still regularly listen to the soundtrack. Such a good game.
It is one of those games that I visit just to chill.
Another good one is Valley.
Ordered-ish by recommendation:
- SUPERHOT (it’s the most innovative shooter I’ve played in years)
- Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
- Sayonara Wild Hearts
- Carrion
- Planet of Lana
- Jusant
- The Artful Escape
- The Gunk
Wait hellblade is under 10 hours? I really gotta knock that out soon
I beat it in two sittings. If I’d started earlier in the day, it could have been one. Highly recommend headphones for it
My playthrough lasted 8.5 hours and was well worth experiencing.
Super Hot was so much fun.
Sayonara Wild Hearts was beautiful and a blast as well.
+2 to SUPERHOT, SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I’ve played in years!
Is Jusant really that short? I think the demo took me 2 hours
Took me five hours start to finish. Not rushing but not trying very hard to find secrets either.
Perfect game pass game that one.
I always check https://howlongtobeat.com/ before starting a new game
I also tend to prefer games that are short.
Here are a couple of my PC recommandations, in no specific order :
Somerville
Jusant
Planet of Lana
Limbo + Inside
Little Nightmares 1 + 2
Cocoon
Solar Ash
Tunic
Cult If The Lamb
Have A Nice Death
Death’s Door
Stray
Trek To Yomi
Tunic, ten hours?! I must be terrible at it hahaha
Fuck sake it took me nearly ten hours just to learn how to read in Tunic
TrueAchievements says 15-20 hrs. It took me 25 to get them all. HLTB agrees with this time for completionist.
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Have you tried The Longing?
Stray is a good short game. It’s on console and PC both. Beautiful game.
The Stanley Parable
I also love short-ish games, so hopefully one of these strikes your fancy. You didn’t specify a preferred genre or other games you liked, so I’m going to just throw some out there:
Adventure/Puzzle
- Stacking - fun adventure puzzle game based on matryoshka dolls
- Little Nightmares - fantastic puzzle game stuff great atmosphere and horror elements; similar to INSIDE and Limbo
- Abzû - underwater exploration with light puzzle mechanics
- Ys 1 and 2 - pretty old, but it’s my favorite Ys game; Ys Origin is a bit newer, but also a bit longer (~11 hours per playthrough, need 3 for full story, but each plays differently)
Puzzle
- Manifold Garden - puzzle game where you manipulate gravity
- Hexlogic - sudoku-like
- SUPERHOT - shooter that plays like a puzzle game
- Magrunner - just ignore the story, the puzzles are pretty good
- Portal - the OG puzzle game, must play if you haven’t; second is about twice as long
ARPG/Souls-like
- Death’s Door - just started, but it’s looking good
- Ittle Dew - Zelda-like with lots of satire about the genre
- Furi - boss rush only
- Titan Souls - boss rush, but both you and the boss has 1HP
Narrative heavy
- Telltale Batman or The Walking Dead - narrative heavy game with walking simulator sections; choices matter (but not a ton); great if you want a decent interactive story
- What Remains of Edith Finch - explore your old home to learn everyone’s secrets
- Oxenfree - explore Island to uncover its secrets; replay value for alternate endings
Metroidvania
- Headlander - Metroidvania where you play as a disembodied head that can attach to other bodies
- Ori and the Blind Forest
Point and Click
- Darkside Detective - point and click with a great sense of humor
- Broken Age - you’re a virgin about to be sacrificed, and you’re not sold on the idea
- Deponia - earth is completely wrecked, and you want off; quite funny
AAA/high production value
- Ryse: Son of Rome - not amazing, but a pretty satisfyingly average experience
- Call of Juarez: Gunslinger - shooter a bit after the US civil war
I have more, just let me know what you like and I can try to give more recs.
What Remains of Edith Finch - explore your old home to learn everyone’s secrets
I love that game.
Me too! I also highly recommend:
Gone Home - explore your old home to learn everyone’s secrets
Gone Home was good, yes!
I feel like it generates way more of a spooky atmosphere, too. I honestly thought I was playing a horror game for the first half, before I finally realized it wasn’t going to jump scare me and I could relax.
In a similar vein, The Suicide Of Rachel Foster is a decent experience. It’s not nearly as good, to be clear, but it’s worth playing imo. It’s much creepier, however.
Dear Esther was similar, but less of a game and more of an audio visual experience. Some I haven’t played yet:
- Before Your Eyes
- Vanishing of Ethan Carter
I just finished Deaths Door and it was a very enjoyable game to play on the go or in bed (steamdeck). Took me about 17 hours to finish it.
Well-reviewed games you can 100% in less than 10hrs:
- Portal
- The Henry Stickmin Collection
- OneShot
- Stray
- Grimm’s Hollow
- Any of The Room games
- Pineapple on Pizza
- There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
- Doki Doki Literature Club
- TOEM
- Finding Paradise
- The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
- CULTIC
- Gorogoa
- The Case of the Golden Idol
Well-reviewed games you can probably beat in around 10hrs, but not quite 100%:
- Portal 2
- Vampire Survivors
- Pizza Tower
- Katana ZERO
- A Hat in Time
- Resident Evil 2
- Hotline Miami
- The Wolf Among Us
- Undertale
- Papers, Please
- Baba Is You
- DUSK
- POSTAL 2
- Outlast
Edit: formatting is pain
Edit 2: I missed the part about low-end hardware, but it sounds like the only ones of these you may not be able to run are Stray and Resident Evil 2
Upvoting for OneShot
Antichamber - old revolutionary puzzle game, confusing at times
Baba is you - a great puzzle game
Outer wilds - experience that is one in a lifetime, go in blind
Return of obra dinn - you are a detectiveHow can you finish Outer Wilds in less than 10 hours, it’s 10 hours that I’m wandering around and I still don’t get what to do!
To finish under 10 hours you need to get lucky and cut out some lore from the playthrough. Usuall playthrough is a bit longer.
I could get you to explain what have you discovered already but as it is now Lemmy devs have a negative position to implement proper spoiler support. Just open ship log (journal?)(I don’t remember the name) and follow the question marks.
In no particular order:
Metal Gear Rising Revengence
Psychonauts 1
Bladed Fury
Ori and the Blind Forest
Titanfall 2
OneShot
Undertale
Unpacking
Portal/Portal 2
Bastion/Transistor
Any member of the Shadowrun RPG trilogy
Little Inferno
Planetarian
If it hasn’t been mentioned, I think it’s newer than 5 years but Return of the Obra Dinn and Curse of the Golden Idol are great short games that you can pick up and put down as you like.
Obra dinn is art
I wish I could give myself a concussion so I can play it again afresh.
It’s Xmas. I can doink your noggin with a mallet if you like.
Obra Dinn is an absolute banger of a game and soundtrack and I’d love to be able to forget and re play it.
Games of about 10hs from before 2019?
- King of Dragon Pass: Tribe management game/text adventure with illustrations. Felt it was interesting in both mechanics and vibes
- Plants vs Zombies: Addictive comedy-themed tower defense
- Alundra: PS1’s Zelda
- Gris: Atmospheric 2D puzzle platformer
- Celeste: Rewarding 2D platformer with nice music
- The Lion’s Song: Graphic aventure light on gameplay and heavy on story and atmosphere. 4 chapters about early 20th century Austrian artists and scientists with themes like art, gender, identity, memory, society, etc.
- Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You: You play as a government employee tasked with finding people deemed as terrorists by the gov by scouring their social networks. There’s different ways to play it
- Papers, Please: Similar to above but as a border control agent
- The Banner Saga: Tactical RPG bases on viking mythology
- Rebuild: Gangs of Deadville: Management of a group/colony of customizable survivors in a zombie apocalypse. Web game
These are more recent but they should require very low specs:
- Roadwarden: Very well written and immersive text adventure with RPG elements. Low fantasy world, you’re assigned as a roadwarden by a far away nation to a dangerous and sparsely populated wildland.
- Landnama: Viking tribes settling Iceland. Plays like a well designed board game in video game form. Real time with pause.
- Citizen Sleeper: Incredible cyberpunk text-heavy adventure with RPG elements and a narrative focused on being humane in a not so humane world with a not quite humane body
Is it still possible to get any versions of Plants vs Zombies that aren’t riddled with micro transactions? I feel like the non-updated version of the original became hard to find anymore a few years ago. Though maybe that was just on mobile.
Project Eclise for PvZ2. I’m sure there’s something similar for 1.
Oh, didn’t know. I played it with zero microtransactions. I’m sure there’s a certain way though
Return of the Obra Dinn. The 2nd game from the maker of Papers, Please. You’re trying to solve the murders or disappearances of 60 people on a ship, using a watch that can view their moment of death. Insanely unique game, and it’s hard to replicate that feeling of all the pieces of the puzzle falling into place that this game fosters.
