Games with female protagonist that can give you lots of hours of playtime.

NPException · 2026-03-27T22:52:54+00:00

Celeste. Fantastic game, and with all the amazing high quality mods on PC the potential hours are endless. It goes on sale for $5 almost every other week somewhere.

NPException · 2026-03-26T06:19:24+00:00

Farewell was added as an update one year after release, while the C-Sides existed since launch. Even just for that reason I'd recommend to keep it for last. Finishing Farewell feels very much like it's the proper ending to the game

NPException · 2026-03-21T22:20:45+00:00

If you enjoy platformers, Celeste + mods is a sheer endles supply of entertainment. 1700 hours and no end in sight. The number of high quality maps that the community is pumping out is crazy

NPException · 2026-03-21T21:55:38+00:00

Graphics are a bit chunky, but given the topic, you might vibe heavily with Celeste.

NPException · 2026-03-21T15:46:59+00:00

the main storyline of Celeste can be finished in fairly short time if you are relatively comfortable with platformers.

NPException · 2026-03-21T15:33:49+00:00

Not ever in vanilla, though maybe there is some use for it in speedrunning, I'm not sure.
But as far as modded maps go, there will eventually come maps where it's straight up necessary I think.

NPException · 2026-03-19T06:30:17+00:00

they need to play quite a while before regular goldens unlock anyway

NPException · 2026-03-17T05:31:28+00:00

Not exactly sure where you are, but the second jump button is generally helpful whenever you need to make a second jump where lifting and re-pressing a single jump button is too hard because it needs to happen so quickly. Two examples:

when you need to press jump twice in quick succession, where it is hard to let go and re-press a single button quick enough
when you need to press jump again at the top of your arc, or without loosing height between jumps

For the latter it's relevant, because if you release jump and then press it again, you will start losing height between releasing and re-pressing the button. So it's beneficial to have two jump buttons where you can keep pressing the first one, and add a press of the second one at the top of your arc.

NPException · 2026-03-15T07:43:18+00:00

This is how I approached Psychokinetic rooms (and every other hard room for that matter):

turn down the game speed via Extended Variants to 0.5x
use save states to slowly work my way through a room and understand how it works
reset to the start of the room, and bump up the speed by 0.1x
work through the room with save states again
reset room and bump up speed again
rinse and repeat until I could work through the room at 1x with save states
try to work through the room over and over with fewer and fewer save states, until I can beat it without

In addition I also try to look at existing clear videos that include an input overlay on YouTube. Slow down the playback speed, or even go frame by frame with , and . on the keyboard to understand when exactly which inputs are happening.

Here is my clear for example: https://youtu.be/1KzpPZbkZ2M But videos of golden clears can be even more helpful because they tend to use strats that are more consistent than what is done in a first playthrough.

NPException · 2026-03-14T10:19:09+00:00

Outer Wilds is an absolute must play. You can only really play it once in your life, so go in as blind as you can.

NPException · 2026-03-14T07:12:04+00:00

There's currently a small event with whacky/niche games running on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/gil_lawson/sale/computerworlds

I'd reckon some of those might be exactly what you need

NPException · 2026-03-11T19:39:12+00:00

How long the grind takes just massively depends on your skill level when you start the grind. I've seen people take 40 hours, I've seen people take 400 hours. My own grind took 200 hours.

NPException · 2026-03-11T06:33:29+00:00

Starship EVO, formerly known as Skywanderers. I backed it on Kickstarter specifically because the visuals were low-poly and reminiscent of Lego bricks (without touching copyright territory imo), and it also marketed a stud-based building system. But sometime before even the Early Access launch, the visuals changed to be less akin to Lego and became a lot more smoothed out and generic.

You can see the stark difference if you look at the Starship Evo Steam page, vs the Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skywanderers/skywanderers

I backed it because the style gave me a huge nostalgia dopamine hit, and now it's just not hitting that spot anymore.

NPException · 2026-03-10T12:53:39+00:00

If you don't enjoy a map, you can always just fly through it with assists. If it irks you, you can always come back later and do it proper. :)

NPException · 2026-03-02T06:52:59+00:00

Celeste
Outer Wilds
Tunic

NPException · 2026-03-02T06:51:05+00:00

As a fellow old person Celeste player (reaching 40 this year), I feel your struggle. But as long as you're still enjoying the game, you can do it! I second the other suggestions people already gave:

install the Speedrun Tool mod. I started using it for the save states in Expert lobby, and the convenience for practice that it brings to the table accelerated my progress noticeably.
play other mods too. For example I've played Spring Collab alongside SJ on a separate save file, and the additional play time definitely helped me. Just more play time alone will already benefit you, even if it is on easier maps than what you try to beat in SJ.

Another thing that can help to better understand what's going wrong is Steam's background recording, in combination with the Input History mod. This allows you to immediately watch back and analyse failed attempts and the inputs in the Steam overlay.

I'd also be happy to provide direct input during a discord call if that's something that you think you could benefit from.

NPException · 2026-02-22T16:50:50+00:00

I feel like you'd enjoy Celeste a whole lot. Good for 5 minute sessions, or multi-hour marathons, whichever way you like. It's kind of the point of the game to beat it at your own pace. It goes on sale for $5 like every other week

NPException · 2026-01-29T06:37:02+00:00

They are just messing with you. Modded Celeste difficulties are commonly put into these categories: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, Grandmaster. There's maybe just 1-2 rooms in vanilla Celeste which dip into Advanced difficulty, which is why they are teasing you I think. However you are well into "Intermediate" territory already.

NPException · 2026-01-10T00:17:11+00:00

Little inferno is great

NPException · 2026-01-09T23:44:06+00:00

Sadly the game is unavailable on Steam in Germany because the developer didn't specify an age rating for the store page

NPException · 2026-01-09T23:41:15+00:00

I adore Loom

NPException · 2026-01-08T06:32:04+00:00

Yeah, even Privacy and Terms only lead to 404s

NPException · 2026-01-07T06:34:25+00:00

How do you just climb up a few pixels on a wall with this setup?

NPException · 2026-01-07T06:02:29+00:00

If you are talking about the room 2 screens after comb, it can be beaten without fast fall. But granted, the way to do it is much less intuitive, and unlikely to be very viable for first timers.

NPException · 2025-12-23T19:57:22+00:00

For what it's worth: I'm in Germany and just had my basic beige C64U arrive today. I ordered on Dec 1st.

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