I'm not saying story is a bad thing. It's not, but it seems like a lot of devs focus so heavily on coming up with an engaging story and good visuals that they forget to actually make the game fun to play.
I think about some of the games I've played over the years, and a lot of my favorites either had fairly limited or even downright absurd plots that basically boil down to an excuse to make the gameplay loop happen.
Just a random musing.
Big studios are definetly too focussed on graphics, woke characters and woke storytelling. ( Along with shit optimisation. )
But there are green pastures outside of big studios, with recent games that are very focussed on gameplay.
Currently having alot of fun on The Last Spell ( the DLC is not worth it though ). With a handful of heroes, defend a town center from hordes of abominations drawn to what you are defending at the center of it. Tons of equipment and abilities. Tons of fun.
It's extremely focussed on gameplay, the story just exists to not get in the way of a fun time.
If you don't want non-White heroes, you can costumize the character in 3 clicks.
Advice : tick boundless mode unless you want to have a very high challenge after the first 2 maps. You earned those progression bonuses, use them.
Tweak the key binding to your liking, then the game is so much fun. The metaprogresion is very well done. It runs on almost any computer.
If you want a colony building / survival game... with beavers, how about Timberborn.
The ''story'' is basically non-existent. It's gameplay. It's just cute enough to look at.
Quickly set-up wood harvesting, food picking, then crops. Some houses are a bonus at start, but quickly necessary if you want the beavers to make babies for the future. Don't spread-out too much at first, or walking times will drag early progression down. Increase work hours too ; they have no well-being stations to visit at first and will just get bored before sleep.
Use your brain to find where to dam the river so your crops and beavers don't die of thirst during the drought. For a challenge, you can pick hard mode, or put costum setting for something even more challenging. ( It is possible to survive 100+ days droughts if you curve the cycles difficulty progression reasonably. )
Bewave, the water dosen't just flow, it passively evaporates. And sometimes there is a Badtide season. How will you manage to keep the flow of toxic waste from getting into your reservoir?
Your colony will collapse if you don't secure enough water on normal ( you can usually recover ) or hard ( you're unlikely to recover ) modes.
Since it's on GoG, you get the full install file. Once you have the game you don't need Internet again to install it from, say, a USB key. It runs on anything if you put the graphics on low.
I highly recomment you get the 0.6 experimental mode version since it introduces new water physics allowing for acqueducts, overhang platforms, impermeable tiles, and sluices, thus adressing the biggest limitations of the game. ( On GoG you access experimental mode through GoG Galaxy launcher. If you don't want the launcher, the 0.6 version should soon come out of experimental and be on GoG for the usual install download. )
Both games are also easy to find on the High Seas. If you like them and can afford it, buying a copy rewards the devs and tell the market that there is money to make with these types of games.
thanks, I'll certainly look into those.