Hudsen’s Hall of Games is The Michigan Daily’s Weekly Column about all things gaming. Whether it’s Dungeons & Dragons or the newest Steam releases, this is where you’ll find it!
Hey all, Hudsen here. Whenever a new video game comes out, I find myself wincing at the new experience’s price tag (I’m looking at you, Nintendo). In order to save you from my plight, dear reader, I have collected three cheap games that have eaten up more of my time than I would like to admit. Each of these experiences are not only cheap, but also highly replayable. If you’re looking to try something new and don’t want to break the bank, or you want to get into gaming without spending too much, these games are a great place to start.
Mosa Lina
Mosa Lina is a physics-based puzzle platformer where players use strange tools to navigate stages and win each level by touching fruits. Each level is generated randomly, so there’s a unique challenge every time you play. While the game may seem simple at first, the true beauty is in combining the assigned tools together to find unorthodox solutions. Your tools range from simple ladders and boxes to frogs and gravity inverters, leaving more than ample room for experimentation. The game isn’t a pushover, either. Sometimes, levels can be so simple that you don’t use a single tool; other times, you’ll have to set up strange machinations just to get close to victory. With a price tag of $8, multiplayer and modification support, Mosa Lina is an easy recommendation thanks to its long shelf life and engaging puzzle-solving.
Darkest Dungeon
While it’s been around forever, Darkest Dungeon is one of the games I find myself coming back to the most without tiring of it. Darkest Dungeon is a turn-based roguelike dungeon crawler where players control parties of adventurers looking to clear out a cursed estate after the original owner dies. While the game starts off pretty tame, it quickly ramps up the difficulty. With a large selection of character classes available, team-building is always engaging. Very few roguelikes since Darkest Dungeon’s release have managed to capture its efficacy in dungeon crawling and strategic combat, making it best-in-class for its specific subgenre. While the game isn’t perfect — it can often be poorly balanced or repetitive — there’s a lot of fun to be had. Not to mention the game’s extensive modding scene, which adds tons of quality additional characters, enemies and even entire campaigns. The asking price for Darkest Dungeon is $25, but you can usually get it on sale for under five. At that price, it’s more than worth it for the hours of content to be found.
Nubby’s Number Factory
Nubby’s Number Factory is a plinko-inspired roguelike where you drop Nubby, your ball-shaped friend, into a pit of numbers, trying to hit as many numbers as you can to rack up a high score. Each level has a score to beat, with the difficulty increasing as you go along. Between levels, you can buy items from Nubby-Mart, which each earn you points in new, zany ways. The items you buy often have effects that can work in tandem, allowing your score to reach new heights. Essentially, buying items and trying to fit them together to make an absolutely insane strategy work is at the heart of Nubby’s Number Factory. The game is simple, but becomes shockingly deep once you check beneath the hood. And at only $5, it’s hard not to recommend crunching some numbers with your pal Nubby.
Gaming can often be a very expensive hobby, especially these days, so finding ways to pinch pennies will help you keep gaming for as long as possible. With that, I wish you well, and have fun playing cheap games!
Senior Arts Editor Hudsen Mazurek can be reached at hudsen@umich.edu.