What game is this for you?

It wasn’t .99 but it was 2.50 at one point, and that was Terraria. Poured over a thousand hours into it. The consistent free mega updates they push out breathe life into it and I’ve been floored how much they’ve supported the game well over a decade since it’s launch. The team there could have just walked away after the 1.1 launch which helped fix some bugs and introduced some new things and called it a wrap. I’m very glad they didn’t

This. Plus the modding community is quite active, I feel like you could throw a few good ones on, play through them, and find updated and new ones half a year later. Easily one of the most timeless games in my library.
Another Terraria vet who got it for $5 (and several more licenses to give to friends.) While I didn't build hoiktronics computers with it, I got very involved with the logic gates.
I really like that game and I think I got it at full price. While it doesn't scratch the same itch for me as Stardew Valley, both are amazing.
Same, I got it for 2.50 in 2012 and I've played around 500 hours. It's surprising the amount of content they've added to the game over the years.
I still remember the surprise I got when I found out there was a boss battle at the underworld, and beating it unlocked even more and better stuff. At that point I think the last bosses you could fight were the mechanical bosses and the best armor was the Hallowed set.
2000 hours here, it's not favorite game of all time

Vampire Survivor and Dredge

Dredge is $30
Vampire Survivor is a great game. I'm a little sad 'cause I'm running into the end of the content.
Dredge is $25 though
- It was 4.99 when I got it.
God dude, Vampire Survivors consumed like 3 weeks straight of my life when I bought it. I feel like a crackhead any time I pick that game up again lol.
$5 in the same vein as Vampire Survivors, I have loved Halls of Torment

Vampire survivor.

Yeah this is banger. My wife walked up while I was playing it one night and said do you really wanna play this shit looking game instead of fucking me, and I'm like ummm yep
- Yeah sure man, we all really believe that you are allowed to play games at night... So farfetched
And more recently, Halls of torment. I'm so excited for upcoming updates cause I couldn't help completing it 100%.

Pony Island. Don’t look into the game at all. Go in blind. Awesome little gem of a game.

Second this.
Also once you're done, play Dan Mullens other games: The Hex and Inscryption.
- Oh wait, Inscryption was made by the same guy? That explains a lot.
- Yep. I beat Hex. I stopped playing Inscryption by the 2nd "phase" (I don't know what it's called, but you know what I mean). I'm having a difficult time picking it back up.
Trying to take your advice and not look into the game. Can you tell us what genre this is?
- I haven’t played it in years. I guess would say puzzle platformer? It reminds me most of Undertale and it’s a little hard to nail down a specific category. It’s much more than it appears. I would say there’s very little replayability.
I never could get far in it. I have absolutely terrible hand-eye coordination for the exact type of action the game presents. I've never gotten past the second round of pony levels. I've lost at least 30 times in stage 4 (the second stage with floating demon heads). I just can't do both things at once.
Which is a shame. The puzzle part of the game is great. I wish there were a way to skip the action parts. I forgot all about it til your comment here. I might just have to give in and watch a let's play of it.

Celeste. That game is way more time consuming than I ever would have guessed. High replay value too imo.

Freakin' Terraria, man. Bought it for just six quid on release day and it's gotten me almost 3,000 hours of enjoyment. And I'm one to flit from game to game, too - my library's huge, but Terraria is just that one game I keep coming back to. Just one more playthrough. Let's see what I can get up to this time... (Especially with the new Remix seed!)

Yeah I can't get into the game too much, I prefer playing with friends but none of them are online. Are there servers or something on there?

The og Knights of the Old Republic. Got it for like $2 years ago, and once I got over the dated graphics the story blew me away. Have since rebought on mobile replay it and it’s sequel frequently.

I played it on the original Xbox and I’ve had it for iOS/ipados forever and it’s just bullshit I can’t play it on my AppleTV, it kinda lends itself to the remote more than the touchscreen.
- That’s a shock to me - didn’t realize it’s not on AppleTV. I’ve played it on PC with a controller, but found that I actually prefer m+k and even touch controls (except for when searching menus).

I picked up Portal 2 during a $2 sale of it. Still one of the best games I've ever played. And it has multiplayer, so it's infinitely replayable

How about a free one? (its free forever)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/404410/Endless_Sky/

This really gave me a "Sid Meijer's Pirates but in space" kind vibe. Ferry goods between ports (planets and station) shoot loot and take enemy ships work on a quest to ~~find your lost family members~~ save the galaxy its great.

Endless Sky is awesome, and it's got really active development - which is something I didn't expect when I first got into it.
Being free, I thought with the main story finished, the loose ends would mostly stay loose, but no - a whole community of content and engine development has sprung up while the original author is busy with IRL.
- Even art assets are open source and I love it
Thank you for being one of the few people who actually answered the question instead of just posting their favorite game. This game looks great!
Great game

To the Moon.

It's a cute little RPG-maker adventure game and by the end of it I was ugly crying

Haha same. There's a sequel, but I don't know if I am emotionally prepared for it.
- I found Finding Paradise as good, if not better, than To The Moon. I sniffled on the first game, but full on crying for the second one.
  The third one is personally meh. I couldn't sympathize with the conflict. But I can see it touching other people's hearts. Still glad I bought it, to support the dev.

I got "To the Moon" for free (steam gift). Not saying I cried, but I cried.

I don't know if a $35 game would count for this, but RimWorld has absorbed vast amounts of my life, and it is a very good game.

It has consumed thousands of hours of my life.
- I've done the math a few times and it currently has cost me about 8 cents per hour played including all dlc
Isn't RimWorld one of those games that is like heroin? I'm too scared to try it
- For me, I do eventually get tired of it. But then a new dlc comes out and I make a new colony or two to experience the new stuff. And I have spent 100+ hours on colonies before.
  It can really suck you in for sure. You may want to avoid it if you experience video game addiction. But, on the other hand, it has given me something to actually look forward to. Shrug
- It's more the gateway drug into factorio i think. Never played any of these but that's what i've heard.

FTL - Faster Than Light is my favorite game of all times and i`m not overstating. Its regularly on sale for around 2 dollars on steam.

I got it for a little over a dollar in the summer sale. It's suprising just how fun the game is. Money well spent.
And, when you've finished the base game, try Multiverse. It's a mod for FTL, really well made, and so big on content that base FTL is essentially the intro!

I bought Minecraft way way back when it was pretty new and nobody was talking about it for about $1.50. Like a month or so later, they dropped the survival update that put it on the map.

Got MC for something like $10 in their early alpha/beta period. Probably my most played game over the last 10+ years with how many times I've gone back to it and dived into one modpack or another. It's just astounding the amount of momentum that game has had, with both Mojang developed content and fan developed.
- Yup, a friend harassed me into buying the alpha two days before the deadline, while it was still 10E
- I think I paid 12.99 and it's crazy in this age DLC that I've gotten 10 major content updates completely free.. I fucking love MC. Got 2 of my kids hooked on it too so far
- Minecraft is grand! But I got kinda stumped when Microsoft bought Mojang back around update 1.8. 0, and instantly tried to screw up all the modders.
  Some of the mods have come back, and many new created, but it just doesn't feel the same to me. :(

Titanfall 2 for like 4$ cuz it's rare to find it not on sale these days

Hands down the single best fps I've ever played. And an amazing campaign too.

Unfortunately the multiplayer has massively inflated skill curves now and is getting ddosed 95% of the time.
But still my favourite game of all time

To celebrate Steam coming to OSX, Valve had Portal on sale for 100% off (as in, free).

Both Portal games, $0.99 (due to the Puzzle Fest). I know I'm late asf but Portal was booming all those years ago but I didn't have any money. I finally got to play both games a few months ago. Portal 1 was cool I guess. Portal 2, however, is probably the best game I've played. The graphics and design, the story, the overall puzzle, the music, I immediately fell in love when I played it.

Portal 1 is still great. It's way funnier, and I think has a creepier vibe, specifically because of how little information you're given.
2 is, yeah - a more fully realized game. Also, if you didn't already know: co-op mode gives a whole new set of puzzles that can only be solved with 2 people working together. Finding that and playing it with my friend was my fav part of either game.
- I actually didn't know that and I'm going to try it now, thanks!
I own these but can no longer play them on my Mac :-(

Tabletop Simulator is around €3 on third party seller sites

And has a massive library of downloadable games in the Steam Workshop!
Seriously, buy the software and you can probably download every board game you've ever heard of to play.
- How does that work? Can I just download any of those items in your l link and use them in tts?

Mount & Blade: Warband ($3.00), Spacechem ($0.99), Cosmic Star Heroine ($1.50), Doom 1(????)

Man I remember trying the demo for the original Mount & Blade and being instantly hooked, then I pirated it and it was glorious. Warband with it's many mods is one of the best games I have ever played
The bannerlord is very good as well!
I have bought all the games and dlc's on steam since

Closer to $10, but Streets of Rogue. It's a top down roguelite that's...kinda hard to describe. It's one of those games where you can approach situations in multiple ways, from killing everyone, threatening some guy, to just teleporting through a wall and stealing the quest target with nobody the wiser. It's simple but fun and addicting... I'm also fairly bad at it, as I still haven't beaten the game with most of the pre-made classes.

Streets of Rogue 2 is in the works just so you know. I loved the first game and I'm excited for the second.
Currently $4 until the 31st
I'm still trying to go through the Big Quests myself too. I want to get most of the standard ones done before starting the DLC characters (however tempting Alien is), but man... Scientist and Wrestler are an eternal struggle, and are currently my main Brick Walls.
SoR is really good, and has co-op!

Fucking "Heat Signature". Look it up, buy it, thank me later.

Yep, great game. It's made by Suspicious Developments, the same guy that made Gunpoint.
You should keep an eye on Tactical Breach Wizards. The teaser video is, as always, very entertaining.

Not on steam, but Voices of the Void. It'll probably be sold at some point, but for right now it's free on itch.io. It's still in pre-release, but it has more content even now than a lot of fully released games have.

"World of Goo" was this for me, just a fun little surprise.

Randomly grabbed the Rusty Lake Hotel for a few bucks, was not expecting it to become my favorite point and click puzzle game of all time.

They gave this away for free at one point on both steam and iOS and it’s just been sitting in my library.
Guess I’ll have to give it go.

Soma

I got soma for free on epic at one point. I started my playthrough mostly as a joke, since I did a similar thing with amnesia - I'm not good with horror but a friend wanted me to play. It caught me super off guard when I realized that it's actually really good. It's become one of my favorite games just for the story alone.
I wouldn't call this a super cheap game, but it is still one of the best games I've ever played.

XCOM2 - I'd heard of it but was never really interested. Then it was either on sale or in a humble bundle (with all its dlc) very cheap (under £10). I absolutely loved it from start to finish and it's made me obsessed with turn-based combat.

XCOM games are great!
- I could never get into XCOM, I played the first game through its source port. Are the sequels less frustrating?
Hey, I was big on X-Com 1 and 2 as well and really think Gears Tactics nailed the combat portion, no base upgrading though :( A friend is pretty into Jagged Alliance 3 too but I haven't played any of them.
Gears Tactics is on Game Pass as well.
- Thank you for the recommendations. I'll definitely give Gears Tactics a go. If you haven't, give Marvel's Midnight Suns a chance. People are in mixed minds about Firaxis' latest game but I found the combat and card play brilliant. The battles are really addictive. It's 60% off right now on Steam.

Vampire survivors was great, its not .99 but it is still pretty cheap and has been free on epic a few times. But enter the gungeon is one of the best games I have ever played.

exit the gungeon on the other hand is an empty shell of itself. Pun intended.

Dave the Diver is 20 bucks, not a dollar, but it's super relaxing.

Salt and Sanctuary. Great souls like metroidvania with great hand drawn graphics.

It was closer to $10, but Wandersong was worth every penny. It's a puzzle/platformer game where you play a bard, the main gimmick of the game being that you have to sing your way out of any problems you encounter. It feels like something that should get stale, but the game is always thinking up new ways to use the mechanic from communicating with ghosts, to making plants grow, to convincing bugs to move rocks out of your way. Great characters, great story, good soundtrack. Definitely worth trying if it's sitting in your library from a bundle or a sale.

Once bought Darwinia for 99c in some US store, what an amazing game. Wouldn't mind a remaster or sequel to it.

They actually remastered it for free in 2022. Like, if it's in your Steam Library, you can redownload it.
- Wow thanks for the tip. I love Introversion, surprising that missed this!

I don't have a story like this regarding Steam but the game was Morrowind. I picked it up from a $10 bargain bin at Best Buy having never heard of the game before and the whole open world character sheet thing blew my mind. Prior to that I used to play first person shooters, racing games, and sports games but after playing that I switched to mostly playing RPGs.

- I felt the same. I had never played anything like it before. It took me awhile to figure out that hitting an enemy with a weapon required more than just having the sword pass through the enemy and that there were simulated dice throws happening behind the scenes.
  Figuring out character sheets for the first time was also an adventure.

Brotato - such well spent 5$

Superflight, 3$ normally goes on sale for 0.59$. I've gotten a good 30 hours out of the game so far. Perfect for winding down after a stressful day or playing while talking to friends and passing the controller around.

I was scrolling looking for someone to say this. I can't believe it was a student project. Aims to do one thing and does it very well.
I'm intrigued tell me more.
- Gameplay loop is pretty simple you spawn at the top of a small procedurally generated map with a wingsuit and get to fly to it. The more risky you are with how you fly the more points you get. Their are portals in the map that will teleport you to a new area, if you fly all the way to the bottom of a map it also teleports you to a new area.
  It's easiest to understand if you just watch like 1 min of gameplay: https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=YfRBsP_TFLA
  It's a very simple game which is what I love about it. The difficulty is completely up to you, if you want to just relax and fly in a super roundabout way to view each map then go down to the bottom and go to the next map with a 0% chance of death that's easy to do. If you want to challenge yourself and fly through as many ultra-tight holes as possible you can also do that. I originally saw it in the background of a video essay online and picked it up. It's perfect to play while you are talking to friends about random stuff as you can still focus on the conversation while playing the game and it's entertaining to watch. Though the conversation will sometimes get distracted with everyone passing around the controller trying to make it through a super tight hole.

Dicey Dungeons. I love roguelike deck builders, but on paper DD has too silly a premise and too much RNG. It's a lowkey masterpiece of game design. I ended up buying it for my switch, android, and steam. If you like games like Slay the Spire or Monster Train, you owe it to yourself to check out Dicey Dungeons. I am not sponsored in any way.

I used to think I completely hated turn-based RPGs.
Dicey Dungeons was the one game that turned me around on the genre. I'm actively thinking on each turn, and even the enemy's turn, without feeling like the game is wasting my time. If a battle is slow, it's only slow because I'm taking the time to think, and that's MY choice.
I still don't think I'll play most turn-based RPGs, but I definitely know they can be fun, now!

not really $0.99 purchase but a sale one nonetheless, but for me that hidden gem ended up being OneShot. a great story-based game with a cute artstyle.

Oneshot is an amazing game! Fully suggest it for anyone who hasn't played

Jazzpunk. Still play "wedding quake" from time to time. Steam store link

Spaceplan on mobile, it's a fun ride

LISA: The Painful.

It's gone up in price with the Definitive Edition, guess it's grown a lot in popularity.

This is a postapocalyptic RPG done in RPG Maker with excellent storytelling and the weirdest weapons and attack patterns I ever experienced. You can attack enemies with your own stench or even frighten them by telling them ghost stories.

I've felt more for the pixelated companions in this game than I've ever felt in a AAA game. It's so full of humour and despair, playing through this is such an emotional rollercoaster.

I'm not ashamed to have cried ::: spoiler Spoiler when my alcoholic best friend got kidnapped ::: . ;_;

I remember that game from a Donkey video review, the video was hilarious but I've been told the game is deep and heart crushing.

I'm up to about 70 hours with Tametsi. I'm almost done the 100 main puzzles, but I haven't touched the 60 bonus puzzles. Considering it cost me ~1000 won (78 US cents) that's got to be some kind of cost-per-hour-of-entertainment record for me. Not counting things I got for free.

Transport Tycoon, got a copy off a friend then brought the Delux version when it released and now play the free open source version OpenTTD.

I bought Left 4 Dead 2 for $5 and I kinda feel bad about it in hindsight

Pretty sure the whole Orange Box goes on sale for 99¢ these days.
- You can get every game Valve's ever made (aside from HL Alyx) for like $8 in a bundle. It's insane.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, Spiritfairer, Slay the Spire

These were all free to me through gamepass or Amazon. Went with fairly recent ones

Can't remember what i paid but was cheap, beat invaders, pretty awesome space invaders like arcade game, fun addictive game play, good music and sound effects, good visuals. Blast through fleets of enemies, skill up, and compete for daily and weekly high-scores. 32 hours played so far and is perfect for the Steam Deck.

Not on Steam, but Boomerang Fu was one of the best game I purchased for ~$3. Probably my most played game on Switch.

It was one of the games in the humble monthly. A great game with the kids

It's a small game that people rarely ever heard of but https://store.steampowered.com/app/406150/Refunct/ Refunct is simple and awesome in its movement mechanics.

I think I bought Glyph for pretty cheap on the Switch. I loved it so much I bought it full price on Steam shortly after

I didn't buy it for $0.99 but it has been on sale for that much in the past: N++ is an incredible platformer, excellent value at full price: https://store.steampowered.com/app/230270/N_NPLUSPLUS/

Bro I used to play n+ on web browsers in high school. Shit was legit.
- Perhaps you mean the original N? I think N+ was the Xbox release. I may be mistaken.
  Yes, N was an amazing flash game, one of the best. If you enjoyed that, definitely check out N++, it's so good. :D
i think n+ was cheap-as-free on xbox360 a while ago not long after i first got one,
awesome game.
I didn't know it had plussed one on steam.
- Yeah, if you enjoyed N+ you're going to love N++, the graphics are nice, great music, tons of colourschemes, lots of features like level creation / sharing, online scoreboard and replays with optional uploads: you can see how other players completed levels. There's local co-op and versus, also works online via Steam Remote Play Together or Parsec. Highly recommended.
  Just be warned that sometimes save files can get corrupted and wipe progress, the most popular guide is a warning for this and instructions for backing up your save. I had it wiped once a few years ago and I've been backing it up since, it's not super common, devs have looked into it extensively and are stumped.

Fallout 3. I had a big lull in gaming where I played some on Xbox and ps2, but not much on those either because I started working (at like 15 years old) and my PC could no longer handle games. So I missed out on that when it came out. And New Vegas. Well after a few years and after moving to a place that had broadband, I had the money for a new PC. FO3 goty happened to be on sale on steam. I grabbed it for super cheap and just become so engrossed. I don't think I had played a modern open world game like that ever at that point. And it had such a fun interactive story where choices had consequences. I blew the shit out of a whole town with a nuke not realizing how it would impact things. Now it is my favorite type of game. Grabbed New Vegas on sale shortly after and got to continue the experience. All for super cheap.

Gnomoria $3.99 and got about 300 hours out of it. It was a game that took a lot of inspiration from Dwarf Fortress but had 'graphics.' The dev stepped away a while ago but pretty sure everyone that bought it got their $$ worth.

Another Gnomoria player! Yay! I loved that game.

Downwell

Undertale

Ultima IV: free on GOG, one of the greatest games ever made that still holds up today (though irritating in certain ways, the core game is pure gold).

The Captain

Got it for free during an Epic giveaway and was blown away. LucasArts point and click style with massive replayability

I got Days Gone for $12. Didn't play it for 6 months, then when I finally did it was the only game I played until I beat it, and it's not a short game

I don't like open world games anymore. I don't stick to one game ever and I don't usually bother with games over 25 hours but holy shit. Such an amazing game

It's taking everything I have to just not start a new game + immediately

Days gone was an absolute banger.
I also bought it on a steam sale, and then let it sit for several months.
Well, more accurately I bought it, downloaded it, installed it, and then spent hours trying to get it past the boot screen without crashing. Finally fixed the issue. Spent the next hour or so posting the issue fix to various forums unlike the last 500 assholes who fixed their issue and then fucked off.
Then I played about half the game and got burned out.
Sat it down for about two months and when I picked it back up I couldn't put it down again.
Had the same experiences with ghost of Tsushima, and last of us.
I also really liked this one. I've seen other people complain about aspects of the story, but I felt like the story hit me way harder than it had to to be serviceable.
- The story was great. I liked the world. The score was fantastic.
  Again, I hate long games. Like >25. I finished this at 72. I wanted to do so much

Insurgency Source was on sale for 1.99 one time and I picked up a bunch of copies for my friends and I. Ended up clocking close to a thousand hours on that game and spent years playing off and on

I am having fun playing defense grid: the awakening. It was $5 in a recent steam sale.

The Beginners Guide. $10, 2 hours long, and one of the most personal and profound pieces of media I have ever experienced.

Within this genre I'd add Halls of Torment for $5.
It recently blew up in early access and I've really enjoyed it.

How about $0 for CS:GO?

I have not spent one red cent on that game and I have 1600 hours on it.

I got it for $3.75 and I'm at something like 2700 hours. Completely destroys the dollar per hour ratio of any other game

Not Steam but, GunMan Clive was a great platformer on 3Ds, had a gorgeous art style and the best usage of the 3D-Effect i've ever seen. The game was 99c, not on a sale 99c normally, absolutely wild

Hah, I bought it on sale for 59 cents, try not to be jealous of all the money I saved.
Seconded! Beat it as every character. While the 3DS eShop is gone, the HD collection of it and its sequel goes on sale for dirt cheap.
Oddly enough, that's one of the first games I ever got on steam like 10 years ago for around .80$

SNKRX for me. Minute to minute gameplay is very simple -- all you do is steer your train of dots left and right around a small arena, but the depth of strategy and the skill cap is surprising. I got many hours out of it. Also there is a mobile version!

Deadlight, from Tequila Works. I bought it for less than $3 on a whim (might have even been $1) during a Steam Sale on the last day, because "Why not" I thought. Then I actually gave it a shot, and it turned out to be really good. Especially surprising since I don't normally like side scroller puzzles with action elements. The difficulty was just right, and the forgiving checkpoints did away with the usual frustrations I have with games like this.

KOTOR. Bought it in 2012 for 2.24€ during a steam sale, not only I'm still playing it to this day, but its plethora of technical issues pushed me to learn new things about how linux works internally.

I got Rocket League for like 5 bucks. Didn't touch it for a long time. Starting playing during the early COVID lockdowns. I got HOOKED now have nearly 1200 hours in it .

Lots of Valve stuff - Portal 1 / 2, the Half Life games, and Left 4 Dead 2 all go on sale for like a dollar very often. Team Fortress 2 is flat out free to play, if you're willing to either pay like $2.50 for an item to unlock your account or put up with a bit of f2p bullshittery. Put almost 4000 hours into TF2, it's my all time favorite game.

Straight up bought L4D2 and the portals for my partner during this last sale for 1 money each. What insane value

Supraland, I 100%ed that and the dlc, I hadn't done that since Spyro 2 on the PlayStation.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter also left a big impression on me. The ending keeps lingering in your mind. I think a lot people reach the end of the game without doing the side quests, when it turns out the side quests are what trigger the ending and the credits to roll. Just sit there in silence after the credits are done running kinda game.

Prodeus just kept on giving, also recommend. Doom on steroids.

Reflex Arena, which is the best arena shooter with classic feel. It also has that classic amount of players, which is none, which is a problem for a multiplayer game. Only recommend if you are a hardcore Quake fan and have friends, a rare combination.

Auralux is a very relaxing "RTS" reduced to the bare minimum. It's a great game. Many states of varying difficulty.

Most people would probably enjoy auralux and supraland the most. Especially auralux can be very soothing.

I hope you're not referring specifically to Wheat Thresher-vania. I'm reminded of what that Dead or Alive guy said about Dynasty Warriors... "Yes, there are tons of onscreen characters, but they're all dumb as toast. You're just lopping off dozens of cabbage heads."

There's just something mechanical and hands-off about Vampire Survivor that I don't like. It's playable? But rarely did I experience anything I would call fun. It was more of an unhealthy compulsion than anything, like picking at a scab.

Same here. People keep raving about it but I find it so boring. No story, no adventure or exploration, just a step above a random number generator in terms of strategy or puzzle

Ring Runner.

The game is mind blowingly well made. Incredible tutorial, fun story, co-op, multiplayer with self hosted servers, customize 14 different integral parts of your ship with 20 meaningful customizations each.

I bought like 20 copies and hand them out to anyone whenever. I got the book for it, which sadly isn't really well written... And kickstarted their next game Pop-up dungeon.

Legitimately best $1 I ever spent on a game and that includes to the moon.

Gary's Mod!

I may have paid more and it is not necessarily my favorite game but I was pleasantly surprised with I Am Alive.

Insurgency. Insurgency:Sandstorm. And now…Battlebit

Why would that make you angry?

ZZT on shareware
https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/zzt

icey. i literally only bought it for the £5 steam link, but it's actually a really good hack&slash platformer with a stanley parable-esque story. i'd recommend anyone who has it languishing in their library to give it a go

Risk of rain, and Murder miners. Anyone I add on steam immediately gets gifted both.

Awesomenauts

Not steam, but Defunct and Fearful Symmetry are xbox games that I spent about a buck on each (on sale, probably), and expected about 5 minutes of amusement from; however, they both proved to be very enjoyable games. The levels on Fearful Symmetry get diabolical, and Defunct is just extremely chill. Meditative, even.

Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Hero was $3 and I love every minute I play of it. Its best on the steam deck, sitting on the couch watching some TV with your SO.

Good God, that's me when I forget to put "notes" on in sudoku!

The game Papers Please is so simple, yet so deep at the same time. Definitely worth playing over a night or two.