I'm a 40ish year old dude and I prefer 2d over 3d usually and wanted to recommend a couple of games;
Brigador (Syndicate with mechs, moddable)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/274500/Brigador_UpArmored_Edition/
Starsector (2d Elite with 4X properties, lots of mods available, overhauls etc)
Bonus game; Distant Worlds Universe, a great 4X game (good mod set)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/261470/Distant_Worlds_Universe/
Additional: Wayward Terran Frontier
https://store.steampowered.com/app/392080/Wayward_Terran_Frontier_Zero_Falls/
Greetings comrades. I'm currently on the road with my face mask searching for a bread line with wifi that isn't actively burning to the ground or experiencing rolling blackouts. I found a nice place that allowed me to stay for a while even though my presence increases their risk of death from the common cold by as much as 0.004% and I thought, why not lets talk some more about development progress and hopefully I don't get cancelled before I can finish this patch.
Factorio recently left early access and released a 1.0 version.
I've had that for ages, still haven't gotten into it.
Rimworld.
Countless hours of fun trying to survive from temper tantrums due to not having a dining table, man hunting packs of Yorkshire terriers and a pyromaniac mentally breaking and setting your wooden house on fire.
Also, lots and lots of mods, that add all kinds of things. Genetic Rim is fun. Beaverwolves, anyone?
RimJobWorld.
2 raids and a manhunter pack.
No problem, pick off the straglers once they have finished raping each other to death.
Rimworld may be prettier (and have better controls...), but never forget that Dwarf Fortress is free.
Still too expensive. They went all in on BLM and donated to various riot bailout orgs.
The writing was on the wall when sexual orientations were added and were so far skewed that it essentially completely broke animal breeding: https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=7651.
It's too bad... I spent good long hours on DF2012.
I mean, a new variable breaking a bunch of stuff is par the course for DF development.
They turned all the livestock gay, so they stopped breeding and all died out?
That's rather oversimplifying (as usual for DF), but yep.
(To elaborate a bit more... on average 75% of creatures were interested in the opposite sex, and both had to be interested to breed, and on top of that some creatures were sterile, and on top of that some creatures were uninterested in marriage (which was a prereq for breeding). Oh, and it was bugged such that setting it to 100% anything would cause it to silently revert to the default orientation settings.)
Ewwww, I wasn't aware of that.
Shamelessly plugging Cross Code! http://www.cross-code.com/en/home
The top down 2D platforming kind of warps my brain a little, but the controls are tight and the combat is fun, and the game really rewards high skill play. A+ soundtrack as well.
Starsector is awesome. It's like Mount And Blade in space.
Know what game I wish could make some sort of miracle comeback?
Ultima Online.
Damn that game was good. Like ridiculously good. But then, like most games, it went a bit dumb when they tried to cater to the more casual people.
Prison architect
Ah a man of culture I see.
Solo Nobre Must Fall
Ya it's great, I just wish it had a bit more structure, like a world map or something.