I find my brain extremely happy when a game provides ample opportunity to make connections, like in Dwarf Fortress, where I watch an event unfold, which can stir my creativity and imagination like nothing else. Writing a story out of it is extremely smooth and easy compared to other sandbox games.
I also find myself in love with immersive sims like Desu Ex and Thief, where level design and exploration take a front seat, every map is like a big playground with verticality and branching paths, where you find secrets and lore hidden around every corner in an atmospheric world.
What is immersion to you?
Zomboid, for me personally, is one of the most immersive games. It’s a life sim with such in depth mechanics i feel like my character is an actual person growing
I kinda know what you mean, but I come from Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, not Zomboid. I lost my first character when I was happily siphoning gas from cars. At the same time, I was too relaxed and bumped headfirst into a gang of giant wasps, can’t fight or run because I was carrying a steel jerrycan, RIP. That was a month of work with this character. xD
I keep meaning to get into CDDA, but never get around to it. All I know is it’s highly suggested in the Zomboid community