i have over 1100 hrs on it and i still come back for more. i havent even bought the dlc's yet, but been playing since alpha 14

At first the loop also made me feel like I had to hurry a lot. But the more I played the more I found calm in it. You can get to anywhere pretty quickly, and you find plenty of shortcuts if you look for them. And what you don't have time for in this loop, you have time for in the next. Slow down, enjoy the journey.

For me it was when I was in another planet, doing some kind of progress, and then boom. When I spent most of my time just getting to, and landing on, the planet, just to get "blipped" again 5 minutes into solving a puzzle, was frustrating. And, to me, it seemed like it happened at random. Trying to stay with the "playing blind" idea, I didn't look into the actual timing of the booms. It was a constant dread when I was doing something, thinking it may pop at any time.

No break for me but I've been doing "old dog, new tricks" by picking up some SMW Kaizo. I'm four exits out of seven in [Shell's Retriever](https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=section&a=details&id=18729) so far. I think I'm doing fair for only being a couple weeks into playing romhacks and for last playing SMW in the 90s. I don't think I'll ever get around to "Baron of Shell" or any other crazy hard hacks but it has been fun working on a few of the "easy" ones. I'll probably get back to Factorio after I finish Retriever. Possibly not until after the sequel, Shell's Redeemer, but I've previewed it and it looks substantially tougher.

In order of most played recently to least played recently: GTAV Dark Souls Remastered WWE 2k25

I've been playing mega bonk. It's very addicting and fun

official classic or a private server?

EU5 has been my sole game for over a month now. It needs some work, and I don't love paradox, and I think think the game is too much of a cookie-clicker reskin... but it's scratching that grand strategy itch. I've also been on turtle-wow (private vanilla+) which has really been recapturing the spirit of 2004-08 wow for 7(?) years now.

Once I got my head around the autopilot and the landing camera, the game became much easier. There are definitely still a few things I think I cheesed in unintended ways though.

Same, it's a nice expansion on the vampire survivors formula

Dude the DLCs add sooooo much

i know, i just havent seen them on sale at a good time for me (bought some other stuff this sale) but i do use mods to switch it up and i will certainly buy them at some point!

Got expedition 33 running on the steam deck (with some amount of tweaking to make it run smooth - valve should not be marking that game as verified) and it has absorbed every moment of free time I have. Fully understand the hype now. Apart from that, Outer Wilds had been sitting in my library since the summer sale untouched and I've finally gotten into it, and Dispatch was really fun and beautifully animated.

I've been repeatedly dying in Silksong the whole break

Shooting shapes in [Sektori](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2105620/Sektori/), a stunningly good arcade twin-stick, bashing dragon toes and playing bells in [Guild Wars 2](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1284210/Guild_Wars_2/), a fun ARPG-MMO where we recently added a few more dress-up dolls to our roster just because we play a lot and like a few more ways to play, and third, mowing down hallways full of bugs in [Combat Complex](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1899300/Combat_Complex/), a top-down shooter ARPG that's weak on the ARPG aspects but the shooter side manages to feel like a great arcade twin-stick, plus some neat enemy-enemy friendly-fire mechanics. Much more the first two than the third, as CC is good but it's in early access and they recently changed and botched the progression, so playing right now at my level/floor is basically worthless, and I just have to hope they eventually do something to fix it. Sektori, though, is seriously good.

totally valid I used my days to take a break from dying in Silksong

Revisiting Sekiro. I thought my skills would have waned over time but I picked it up after years of not playing, and I've still got it. 3 attempts max on each boss, most were first try. I just defeated the ::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Corrupt Monk. No sign of slowing down! :::

I play on the official anniversary classic servers. The average player age is 30+ and its amazing.

I have been spending a bit of time enjoying the Nords in Race Room Racing Experience, the game is a lot of fun and really enjoying their new ranked races. I have also spent some time in Le Mans Ultimate, but have had a bad time since the last update, which had been turning me off it. Turns out the update broke something so it no longer matched the driver for wheel rotation, and manually setting the has fixed everything. Bring on the 6hrs of Monza this weekend. The Finals has been my go to multiplayer game and is amazing fun. Love the 3v3v3v3 capture and hold with all the destruction. I also picked up Escape from Duckov in the sale, that has been a lot of fun and has been very satisfying to chill out with after racing or a few rounds of the finals.

Hades (finally got out after 22 runs), Silent Hill 2 Remake (I didn't remember there was a boss literally shaped like child rape), and some Expedition 33 (love it, but it's a JRPG to a fault, including cursed platforming sections).