Ask HN: Which games are you playing in free time?

Not a lot right now, but I've put a huge amount of hours in Minecraft the past couple of years :)

I used to play Rimworld, then I realized I dislike sandbox games for the same reason I hate MMOs, MUDs and the 'roguelike' T.O.M.E. Huge time wasters. Rimworld is barely even a survival game. I mean it doesn't even display how many days your food will last!

I generally like my games short and tight:

Online FPS games come in 20 minute chunks.

Catacomb Kids is a splendid Early Access roguelike platformer, similar to Spelunky but much harder and terrain is generally indestructible. The amount of item and dungeon feature interactions is crazy, and the game is notable for having smart humanoids as its most dangerous enemies. They chase, keep distance if you have a longer weapon, run away and bring reinforcements when badly wounded, or escape to the next level. It may look like a brutally hard arcade game at first, but your success chance dramatically improves with planning ahead.

I also play many board games. Board games are funny because good games are played for decades, unlike Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Heroes of Might and Magic II, or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. They are also extremely modding friendly, and it's trivial to write a patch (it's called "house rules" and it's widely used). Board games have the sense of community like in old FPS games that had multiplayer based on dedicated servers. You don't get people randomly disconnecting. Also, one copy of a game is enough for several people. Board games also have the advantage that they are more about mechanics. I mean Quake and Unreal Tournament is basically the same game. Heroes of Might and Magic III would be called an expansion pack to HOMM2 if it was a board game. People play the games that are most fun, not ones that look best or have best action figures.

These two are my favorites as well, both deep and infinitely replayable

I am currently working on my own game Photon Rush - which makes me play it alot.

It is in test phase but you can try it: http://www.gametroleum.com/news/invitation-to-photon-rush-te...