I’d like to get back into playing video games, but I don’t want to have to sign up for an online service like Steam or Ubisoft Connect.
I love technical sandbox games like Scrap Mechanic, especially if they have a “creative mode” that allows me to just make stuff.
If you’re worried about DRM then look at GOG.com - they sell DRM free games, and you can download the installers direct from their website if you don’t want to use their client and want permanent backups. The installers are not online either. I have a large library of classics and new games from them.
I came across GOG just the other day. Looks great!
Starsector is amazing, even though buying it on the website made me wonder if the storefront was made in the 90s.
Second this. Amazing game that I’ve been following since it was called Starfarer. Highly recommend.
Minecraft
Beyond all reason. Pretty sure it’s open source too. Or partly? I looked it up a while ago and can’t remember the details.
Chess, now and then. Was a fairly active player many years ago, though never became good.
Pirate em. Then you don’t gotta sign up for anything
I like the way you think!
I personally play it through steam but I’ve had an account there for a decade now so that doesn’t bother me. But Factorio allows you to buy directly from their website if you prefer. This also bypasses steams cut I would assume (correct me if that’s wrong please) and you get a steam key with the purchase in case you do ever make a steam account.
You do need to make an account on their website to do that so apologies if that disqualifies it for you. Wube is a rare shining example of a god tier company though, finding a bug is literally a meme in the Factorio community cause of how thoroughly polished the game is. They even fix bugs that exclusively affect mods and not the base game.
I bought Factorio back in the early Beta days, because it was one of the only fun puzzle/simulation games that had a native Linux build available directly on their website. They even had a Linux build of the demo. Factorio is the game I’ve got best value for money over the years.
I only got into it 3ish years ago, originally pirating it cause I was broke at the time, but I bought it as soon as I could with my first paycheque from my current job. Absolute god tier game with god tier devs. I would’ve pre-ordered (heresy, I know) Space Age if they let me, but I bought it day one. I’ve already got 617 hours on the steam version, and I probably put about 5-600 hours into the pirated version before I could afford it.
Love me some Factorio and Wube. 2nd favorite game of all time behind Super Metroid.
I think itch.io might allow game purchases without any account, depending in the game, but even getting drm-free games is almost always going to require some kind of account somewhere. There’s always the “high seas”, but that’s not something everyone is comfortable with.
GOG is probably your best option for completely DRM free games, and fwiw, a lot of Steam games don’t require you to use Steam to launch them. A fairly thorough list is kept here: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
It’s available for android, ios, and free on itch(dot)io if you want it free, but Mindustry. Maybe not as free and creative as Scrap Mechanic (still have absolutely NO clue where to even find it for purchase), but it at least has a mode where you can build your own levels if you get bored of the official levels.
For more creative ventures, you could, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, go with minecraft (or luanti with a bunch of different mods/games from the content store if you’re looking for something free).
Edit: don’t know what I was thinking. Found Scrap Mechanic on Steam almost immediately. Must have been thinking another game or something else.
I enjoy all the games I bought from GOG (3?)—in case you are wondering they are DRM free so you can keep using them forever (in theory).
But honestly I don’t get people who have a big hang-up about digital stores. Regardless of ownership/ license-ship—these are all pieces of software designed to run on specific software and WILL eventually be unplayable regardless of how they were acquired.
Unless you’re going back to platforms from the 90s or early 2000s, everything needs updates from the internet / downloads to work so even if you have a physical copy of a lot of games on a console, they’re gonna stop working eventually.
Just pay the marginal fee and enjoy. Its a low amount of money to pay for hours of entertainment in like 99% of the cases.
Probably a bit of an extreme example, but the “X” series would be a great sci-fi option. X4 Foundations and it’s associated DLCs is too much content to fully grasp honestly. I played 50 hours of that game and only understood a miniscule amount of the scale and stuff you could do in it. They built it as sandbox as possible from the ground up so pretty much anything you could think of doing in space you can. All the while the universe is evolving around you whether you influence it or not.
Numpty Physics (solve puzzles by drawing lines, physics Sim)
Powder Toy (falling sand game)
Box Stacker (add Tetris pieces to solve physics puzzles)
And I’ve been getting into the Glitch mini-game in luanti(minetest)
kpatience (freecell)
sgt-puzzles
globalization 2 (an old, barely maintained RTS)
picmi
Doom - bought the wads from steam, but play them on gzdoom
Mario kart
Pokemon HG, FR
Gary Grigsby’s War in the Pacific Admiral’s Edition
