I’m going back and forth between home and another city for a few months helping out an aging parent.
What I’m looking for is a new game to play in my downtime – here are my requirements in this situation:
MacOS only – I’ll only have my laptop with me and I don’t have the patience/desire to mess around with parallels/wine/etc. It’s a MacBook with an M3 Pro chip.
Probably not a mouse-driven game. I won’t always have a reliable surface besides my lap. So things like first-person shooters or adventure games are out.
Screen real estate must be good for a 14-inch laptop – and my aging eyes.
Let me expand on #3. I have Stellaris with me and want to dive into it…but for my experience the UI is way too busy for a laptop. I have this issue with other Paradox games – for me they don’t work on a small screen. Plus usually a steep learning curve before I’m comfortable with the logic of the game.
What I currently have on my laptop is:
Darkest Dungeon 2 - which is a bit of a dissapointment to me after DD 1.
Out of the Park 25 - Just picked that up on sale. I buy a new version of this every few years. I enjoy it and is usually a good lap top game.
Disco Elysium - I might dive into this one. It’s very text driven, it appears, but does seem pretty rich and deep.
As for preferences to what I like to play – I don’t really have any. The games I love usually have some unidentifiable combination of game play and richness that grabs me, and often I don’t know what that will be. New, old, graphic style – none of that is a good predictor on what I’d like.
Disco Elysium is my vote! Try 30-60 minutes with a custom character. The game is good at introducing you to its RPG system; it’s deep enough without a learning curve.
You don’t have to limit yourself to Mac games as your M2 can run some iPad apps. I don’t do much gaming but like Words with Friends, crossword puzzles, backgammon, and some card games.
Desperados III is real-time strategy correct? I imagine it would be hard to play without a mouse.
But, like I forgot I could use iPad apps, I also forgot I can use a controller on some Mac games. that might work for Desperados.
I’ve been playing this guy’s puzzle games for about 30 years now. No dexterity required. No time element. Light on resources. All available in free trial versions. Everett Kaser Software
you did not say “no emulators”… so I am going to point to emulators. it’s the best gaming experience on the m series macs at this point on the timeline if you want to avoid crossover (where you can play Red Dead Redemption, etc).
I was not thinking of emulators, mostly because I’ve never really been interested in them.
I think of emulators as something used for playing older console games which probably aren’t available anywhere else? I never really played consoles (my first one was/is an Xbox from a few years ago), so I don’t have an awareness/interest in the games offered.
Is that accurate? Maybe I should look into that more.
Wikipedia describes it as real time tactics which seems like a disservice. I spend most of the time pretty relaxed, or even paused in the showdown mode preparing instructions for the characters. It’s far more like Portal than anything real-time strategy.
Took me a while to be convinced of it, but now I’ve fully finished it and am making my way through the bonus content (rare for me to fully finish a game), and I play it with either the trackpad or a trackball. If you can game on a trackball you know it isn’t a hectic game you need to be on top of at any moment
It won GOTY on the App Store, and it is absolutely funny and enjoyable to play. It’s called “Thank Goodness You’re Here!” I appreciate a game that can make me laugh and still be fun, this ticks all those boxes.
I loved Goose Game from Panic so I’ve just added this to my Steam cart! And looking at the trailers, it’s got Matt Berry in, so that’s instantly moved it to the purchase list!
