EDIT: I realize I didn’t really interpret the question correctly on my initial read. This is meant more for old games, not sleeper online games that are just good in their own right without being live service. Perhaps a more fitting answer would be AssaultCube. One of the first multiplayer FPS games I played. There probably aren’t any official servers anymore, but community hosted ones were supported, so I’m sure it’s still around.
Straftat. Free to play, fast paced, 1v1 movement shooter. It’s a wildly under appreciated game that would hugely benefit from a small to medium sized, consistent player base. It does have a paid dlc, that mostly functions as a tip for the dev. The DLC has some cosmetics and a few maps, but it’s not really gatekeeping any of the fun of the game, plus it’s only $5 USD so I just bought it and considered it the price of the game.
You could maybe setup a SMB share targeting your download location, mount that on the computer you’d like to install on, then point the setup.exe at the SMB share for the bin files.
I use Sunshine with the Moonlight client for Remote Desktop. With my computer running Tailscale I can connect to it from anywhere. It’s designed for game streaming on a local network, but tweak the bandwidth settings down and it works a treat for remote work.
I’m a fan of taking turns “driving” for slower paced logic or puzzle games. Titles that come to mind:
Myst
Curse of the Golden Idol
Summertime Madness
Chants of Sennar
Superliminal
Viewfinder
Baba is You
I can highly recommend all of these as they almost universally benefit from more minds working on them together. I would say Baba is the only one that gets REALLY challenging, but there are good mind and logic bending puzzles throughout them all!
EDIT: I’ll also add that Myst, Golden Idol, and Chants of Sennar (Summertime Madness maybe a little) all benefit from solid note taking and map making This provides a great job for the “copilot” while the other person is managing the actual input device.
+1 for the LEGO games. Sort of my go to sleeper pick for surprisingly good games. The humor is good, gameplay is decent though I have to go on big breaks between playing through one because gameplay game to game can be a bit samey.
If you’re open to the idea of ditching a Microsoft product, I’d suggest Vintage Story as a Minecraft alternative that I think has a nicer aesthetic. It’s meant to be a sort of slow, “grindy” game, but if you sort of rewire your thinking to it being a slice of life game, akin to Stardew, I think it’s very fun. Fair warning the early game can be very punishing if you’re brand new to it, so explore the world and difficulty setting when you make your first save.
Somewhat cozy game with a femme lead I’m excited for is Cairn. It’s got a demo at the moment, but I’m very much looking forward to the full game. It’s technically a survival game about rock climbing, but if I had to guess the story will center the main character going through a lot of personal growth while attempting to scale a mountain (a la Celeste, also a great game) and overcoming a lot of adversity to regain some self confidence.
I’m looking to leave behind the graphical Obsidian app for neovim and plugins as I already use it for most of my other text editing. What is your setup and what plugins you recommend for neovim for general use, coding, and writing?
Maybe check out a local internet or gaming cafe for those periodic sessions? I just found one near me I’m considering going to a few times a month for the “slop” games. There’s a couple I still get the urge to play now and then.
I use Tailscale instead of hamachi these days. I find it way better. Used to use hamachi in the early days of Minecraft multiplayer, was always so jank and maybe it’s gotten better, but Tailscale has the added bonus of letting me easily share other services with the people I host servers for.
For me it was Destiny 2. I genuinely enjoy the moment to moment gameplay, and no other game has really matched it for me. The story and characters were engaging enough, even at the games lows, that I wanted to see the saga through to the end. I did week one of the raid for “The Final Shape” and then I booted into my Linux install and have not booted windows since. I’m about to fully wipe that drive and reuse it in a different Linux machine. My desire to quit windows, and my acute awareness of how much of my life and money I had put into Destiny over the last decade or so, made the switch honestly pretty easy.
I still game a good amount, but it’s much more intentional, and I don’t play any live service games which frees up money I don’t feel guilty putting toward indie games.
I quit League in 2019 when I finally built my own PC. I refused to put any games from Riot on the new computer. I played enough of the game to enjoy following the competitive scene to this day, and every now and then I get the desire to play. I’d really only do it with premade scrims of people I know.
I’ve recently found a gaming cafe in my city I might go to a few times a month to play a couple of those games I either can’t or refuse to install on my Linux machine.
I use Unix Pass connected over Tailscale to a git server I host myself. The interface options for various devices are a bit clunky, but it basically “just works” outside of that.
Edit: I used to use KeePass and syncthing, which I think is probably the best (balance of simple and effective) combo for most users.
Honestly I want a Linux phone, but the scene needs to mature a bit. I’d also like a physical keyboard, so I’m even more limited in my options. LilyGo just released something I’d try, but it sold out almost instantly. Good call on the signal transfer, though I wish better platforms were catching on. Having to use a phone number to sign up kind of defeats the purpose in my opinion. Graphene and Postmark are on my short list of things to try if I end up on an android device.
To be totally honest I didn’t read your entire post, but just from your intro I think we are in similar situations. ISP router, low costs, using only the hardware you have around. I’ve solved a lot of stuff with Tailscale. None of my services are public facing and instead I connect to them over Tailscale (could be replaced with wireguard).
The wall I’m hitting you or maybe others could help with, is accessing my services from sub domains of a single Tailscale address rather than having to type port numbers for everything. I know this involves a reverse proxy and DNS (I use PiHole for that), but I’m stuck trying to configure the two in a way that actually works. Once I finally ditch iOS for good I’ll probably just sync a hosts file between all my devices using Syncthing to help streamline the DNS situation.
EDIT: I realize I didn’t really interpret the question correctly on my initial read. This is meant more for old games, not sleeper online games that are just good in their own right without being live service. Perhaps a more fitting answer would be AssaultCube. One of the first multiplayer FPS games I played. There probably aren’t any official servers anymore, but community hosted ones were supported, so I’m sure it’s still around.
Straftat. Free to play, fast paced, 1v1 movement shooter. It’s a wildly under appreciated game that would hugely benefit from a small to medium sized, consistent player base. It does have a paid dlc, that mostly functions as a tip for the dev. The DLC has some cosmetics and a few maps, but it’s not really gatekeeping any of the fun of the game, plus it’s only $5 USD so I just bought it and considered it the price of the game.