Do you have any favorite genres/types of games? I'm asking about this because my own rule is "it is always better to discover some hidden gem you will love from the first sight than just playing 'normal' overall top game" so my suggestion could be more suited to your internal needs.

Hotline Miami

One of my favorite games ever along with its sequel. Being the first in the saga it's an easy choice but also because in my opinion it's more forgiving to new players than the second game. The levels are much smaller and it's more melee combat oriented than the second game which is more focused on guns. The atmosphere is great and the music immerses you into the action. The scoring system also encourages replay of the levels and trying to land a bigger combo is always fun.

80 Days won Time Magazine's Game of the Year in 2014 for good reason. Based loosely on the Jules Verne novel, but set in a weird steampunk world that constantly subverts expectations, the game has brilliant writing, crazy amounts of choice, and a tonne of replayability. It's a choice-based interactive narrative crossed with resource-management strategy (manage time, money, Phileas Fogg's health and mood). Completing the challenge is not too difficult - but the real fun comes from deliberately making "bad" choices just to see how the story will spin out. Discover a subterranean world, launch into orbit, dance with Death, solve a murder-mystery at sea...

You should definitely play HuniePop!

Once you get into how the puzzles work, it creates a wonderful synergy of the charming style of the game and the fun mechanic of the puzzles. Highly recommended!

Thanks for the giveaway, Doc!

Instead of going for one of my favorites (and they are all VERY time consuming xD), I've taken the approach where you'd play something that is good but doesn't take much time to complete.

If you're up for some adventuring which won't pressure you with solving tough puzzles but instead submerge (see what I did there ;)) you into a strong atmosphere with a present but not overwhelming horror note, go for SOMA and you're covered for about about 10h of good (depending on your taste & current mood, maybe even great) gaming experience.

Thanks for the giveaway.

Awesome library, you should play Loop Hero, i played because of a gift from you this summer. I enjoyed it a lot, it´s simple and doing loops is not repetitive because always are new things to do or try. I beat the game and i would like a expansion or dlc with a new level.

Well, I see that you have zero hours on "Slay the Spire", whereas I have 538 hours on it.

Something has to be done about this discrepancy.

This game is one of those rare masterpieces that is so well designed and balanced that all things click together perfectly. The more you play it, the more you see its splendid design.

I began playing the game back in February 2020 (shortly after you gifted it to me). I played for a week or so, got the standard ending with each of the four characters, but the true ending with none. I then decided that I was more or less done with it and uninstalled it. However, since then, after every couple of other games I had completed, I found myself reinstalling the game and continuing to play it. After a while, I stopped uninstalling it. This has become the first game ever that I left installed on my HDD, planning to return to it from time to time (normally I play one game at a time, uninstalling it when done).

In case you're not familiar with the game, it's a turn-based deck-building dungeon-crawling roguelike game with no story and little metagame (you don't carry anything from run to run, but as you play you do unlock more (and better) cards and relics that will appear in future runs). A standard playthrough takes 1-2 hours and you can stop and save at any point --- which I love, as I usually play in 5-to-30-minute sessions. A successful playthrough would take you through ~55 rooms (you choose your route from 150-200 randomised rooms set along randomised paths), involving:
(a) card battles with regular or elite enemies (through which you get gold (for shops), cards (to build your deck), potions (one time use), and relics (major ongoing benefits))
(b) "choose your own adventure" events, each with 2-3 options for you to choose from, some good, some bad (the outcome of each choice is clearly spelled out beforehand)
(c) shops to buy cards/potions/relics (with the gold you have amassed)
(d) chests (with relics in them)
(e) 3 or 4 bosses (one at the end of each act; 3 for the standard ending, 4 for the true ending)

Although the basic scheme is the same on every run, and you'll quickly become familiar with all the 50-60 enemy/elite/boss types, the large variety of cards (370 different ones = 75 per player character + 70 general ones), relics (178) and potions (42) --- as well as, of course, the four different player characters, each with significantly different decks and mechanics --- make every run unique. A single relic or a couple of cards can change your strategy from end to end. After more than 500 hours I still regularly come up with new tactics.

Once you get the hang of it (and unlock the better cards and relics), it becomes not terribly hard to get the standard ending (say ~40% of runs), but getting the true ending is quite another matter (say ~15% of runs).

But even when you manage to win the the act IV boss with each of the four player characters, there's still a whole lot left to do, if you wish (and I did). There are 21 difficulty levels per character, that is 84 difficulty levels in total to best --- which I eventually did (by mid 2021).

This is --- by far --- my favourite roguelike ever. It's very rare for me to enjoy a storyless game, certainly not to this extent, but this one is just perfect, in my opinion.

Two hints in case you decide to play it:
- Besides the cards themselves, the most important element for a successful run is having lots of good relics, and since the primary method of getting relics is fighting elite enemies, you really want to fight as many of those as you safely (or unsafely) can. It took me a while to figure this out. Initially, I tended to bypass elite enemies if I could, as this made the actual run easier, but led me to face the final boss rather ill equipped.
- At any point in a battle (or event) you can restart it by choosing "Save and Quit", since the save is made only a the beginning of the battle, not on every turn. If you restart a battle in this way, you will not get different cards in a different order --- the game, barring your own actions, will play in exactly the same way, so it's not as if you're "playing" the RNG. But this "trick" allows you to avoid losing an entire run just because you made some silly mistake (like forgetting that you had a potion that would have helped you immensely on a specific occasion). Late in a run you have so many cards and so many relics, with literally tens of interactions among them, that it's easy to forget or miscalculate some effect --- and that's why this feature (which I'm sure the designers intended players to use) is there.

P.S. I even got my wife, who normally doesn't play video games, hooked on it for a couple of months.

P.P.S. Thank you for your continued generosity.

i think you should play Puzzle Agent.

Mini game for Mini Giveaway. it is only 2 hours just grap a tea and enjoy. Puzzles are generally easy but the game is fun and have weird art style

Thank you for giveaway and i am in for it.

Thanks, as always, for the generosity!

Soooo many games without any registered play time which I can wholeheartedly recommend. "Aquaria", "My Brother Rabbit", "Papers, Please", "Banished", "Waking Mars", "Trine", "Master of Magic", "Gabriel Knight", "World of Goo", ...

But as others also noted already, you really seem to like story-heavy games to sink your teeth in for many hours, and in that vein, there's one beyond all others which I feel is truly a fitting recommendation for the incomparable Doc, and that's Sunless Sea. A game of deep atmosphere, with a unique setting, and so many unforeseen stories. The terror can be real, but it also allows for contemplative, almost peaceful gameplay as you navigate through the dark from port to port, slowly getting to know the world and all it has to offer. You captain will die, especially early on, but if you don't take too many risks, and really get to know your ship, your crew and the various ports, you'll witness wonders that'll stay with you far beyond the bounds of the game.

I'll second that. It's a great game, which I have already played through three times (once on normal, twice on impossible; each 100+ hours) and I expect I will be returning to it in the future.

Hello, Doc!
Sadly, I don't know your tastes. But I'm pretty sure that if you play Beyond Good and Evil you have a good chance to satisfy them. This game has it all - great story, neat visuals and atmosphere, several types of fun gameplay (3d-platformer and stealth mostly). I don't know if there is a game that absolutely everyone must play, but this is the closest I know.

I would recommend Ultima Underworld.

It's a great first-person RPG, it has a really fun map to explore with interesting areas and NPCs, riddles, quests, factions, etc. It has aged remarkably well (in the sense that it is still very playable today). It's overall an excellent game.

Damn, I wish I played my collection as much as you! (btw I'm currently waiting for Gog to fix Galaxy on Win7)
I don't know your tastes and I can only recommend few games, but I'll choose.. Enter the Gungeon.

It's quite a difficult bullet hell roguelike, but if you have patience (expecially with bosses) it's really worthy.
Your character has few hitpoints and you'll die a lot, but luckily you can unlock better items for future runs.
At first I thought I would have never made it.. but it's doable ; )
Know, however, that it took me like 200 runs to finally complete it.

I also love the game's creative and funny design. And the devs somehow even managed to squeeze a bit of interesting world building to it.

Can you play SpellForce 3 without having played previous games, without missing much? I tried SpellForce 1 three times, always to abandon it.

I suggest wh40k Mechanicus, it is a tactical game within wh40k with necrons and very good music.