You’ve been given life without parole in solitary confinement for your crimes.
Your lawyer has managed to get you one major concession: you have access to a computer and a single offline game of your choice.
You will not be able to access anything on this computer except for this one game. The provided hardware will be sufficient to run the game well. It will not be connected to the internet, ever.
You will not have access to the hardware itself. Your interface will consist of a screen built in to the wall behind bulletproof glass, a small concrete table built in to the wall, and a wireless keyboard and mouse. The mouse and keyboard will be replaced with a fully charged set daily.
You might be able to choose a new game in 20-25 years, maybe, but no promises.
What game do you choose?
In other words, what one game do you think could entertain you essentially forever?
Personally I’m thinking something open-ended and creative, like Cities: Skylines or Planet Coaster would be best, although the former relies a lot on the extensive modding community to keep it fresh, and while that is also true for the latter, you can build your own game assets using just the main game.
Maybe something like Kenshi which is literally designed so you can do whatever you want and go forever. Super grindy which is a plus in this scenario. It has endless replay value.
I’ve been playing it since I was a teenager, it’s still challenging (I mostly only play level 9) and it’s what I do while listening to podcasts. As much as I loved Half Life and its various sequels, I haven’t had a computer able to run modern games in years. And even if I did, I object to the subscription model that now seems to dominate games and TV / movies and I don’t wish to participate.
So it’s Dino Eggs for me. I occasionally look around to see if there are other players because I’d like to organize a tournament of some kind. I’ll be surprised if anyone can top my scores, but every time somebody thinks something like that it turns out there’s a 10-year old on YouTube…
Not familiar with that game myself. Looks interesting. Having grown up in the 80s I’m into the old games. Even though I’ve done absolutely everything you can possibly do in it ten times over already, I just played Wastelandagain recently.
If those “ultimate board game compilation” games count as just 1 game I’d choose one of those, find one with a good collection of games and strong AI. If not I guess just a really good chess program.
Tetris was my first thought as well. That might be the game I’ve spent the most time on on my life. Checking steam and I apparently have over 1k hours in civ4. That’s not a terrible choice either.
I’d lean strongly towards Minecraft for sheer amount of possibilities. Exploration, endless building opportunities, people have even managed to make working computers within the game itself.
Of course, I don’t know if I could figure that out but, hey, I have the rest of my life to spend on it and little else.
No Man’s Sky would be my second choice for, again, sheer expansiveness.
I’m not trying to get around the OPs questions, so I will change my answer if this doesn’t fit but I have to agree with @Jophiel in that I would want modded minecraft.
Having said that, then, do we get all versions of said game? Do I get CurseForge and can play all of the different versions under 1.X? Or is it one specific version of a specific game?
If not that, then a game with RNG to it so that it isn’t the same playthrough every time. Even as good as BG3 is, there is still a specific quest path that would get old.
I guess my second choice would be as @What_Exit said, a game where I can potentially make my own mods. Maybe Sacred 2 Gold for that? I could create my own world and then play in it.
You get a guy who will keep the game and hardware updated so it will run. That said, he doesn’t work for you. Since you can’t access the internet, you can’t download mods. As far as you’re concerned, the screen comes on and the main game is already running. You can get to the game menu but you can’t exit to the OS; exiting the game will simple turn everything off. Whatever you want to do, you have to do it in-game.
I still play Windows Solitaire a couple of times a week. Something like that would suit me. Most other games I play are finite in scope and will bore me eventually.
Civ5. I’ve played it ever since it was released in 2010. Steam says I’ve played for more than 9000 hours. I would wish to have installed all my current mods (at least a dozen), though. Plus all the DLC. The mods and DLC help to keep up my interest.