Oh man Astroneer is so good — but I don’t think it’s up OP’s alley. There’s no quests to speak of, or even goals really, besides the 1. tutorial stuff, and 2. overall “reach the end” — besides that, it’s up to you to be self-directed.

Context: my breath-of-the-wild loving partners didn’t much get into Astroneer, unless I specifically set them goals and they didn’t have to figure anything out for themselves. :P (Well, one of them, at least …)

I think the “map marker check mark” dopamine game is a whole different thing from ‘true’ open-world … well, that’d unnecessarily exclusionary. Neither one is truer than the other. But they’re definitely extremely different.

Anyway, OP, my suggestion in that vibe would definitely be the Fallout or Assassin’s Creed serieses. Or Horizon: Zero Dawn! Great sidequest-driven, exploration-heavy, gigaaaaaantic games, all of them!

Try getting older!

A decade ago, I was extremely into hi-fi — most of my disposable income went to it. (Martin Logan electrostatic speakers and McIntosh amps, stereo JL Fathom 13.5” subs, sound treatment and reference mic for balancing and analysis …)

Now? I’m perfectly and completely pleased with my AirPods Max. My hearing just ain’t what it used to be, and I genuinely don’t hear the slightest difference. (… obviously modulo feeling the bass, hah.)

(Yes. I listen to music over Bluetooth. Not even APT-X. WHO HAVE I BECOME? 😭)

What’s this in reference to, as one Not In That Country?

What on earth size of monorepo is that!? iirc, we’ve got ~1Mloc of OCaml, probably another two or three times that in assorted generated code, specs, config, infra, and other languages; and my VScode-Remote definitely boots up as fast as the network connection can stand up.

Definitely faster than I can think of the first thing I want to do … ¯_(ツ)_/¯

That said, I should own up to having had an absurdly overcomplicated vim config, tons of plugins, a decade n change of customizations and patches and shit. Maybe I’ve just always had a high tolerance for a slow boot. hahaha

Whewf I’m boutta out myself or something, but …

after 15 years of vim, writing (and contributing to) a host of plugins, even running custom builds with my own patches …

I basically never boot up Actual Vim anymore?? I’ve basically entirely switched to VScode + VSCodeVim. embarrassing as fuck, in some ways, but jesus christ it’s just too goddamn good.

The neovim integration, even, was fantastic. (Although I don’t use it right now, for “VSCode Remote reasons,” lol.)

I absolutely adored Invisible, Inc (by Klei — yes, of Don’t Starve & Oxygen Not Included fame — what a diverse bunch!)

It seems a little different from your usual vibe (it’s not an first/third-person shooter-y thingie; iirc it’s isometric and pixel-art?); but it’s easily the best stealth game I’ve ever played. :D

Same where I grew up in Alaska — no billboards, minimal advertising. The south was such a culture shock. )=

There’s no reason to be so critical of OP for this … if anything, it’s impressive, or at least cute. Why you gotta be bringing Reddit negativity over here? )=

I’ve been turned on to Notion by work, and now use it for my lil’ polycule as well — but I do want something … better.

Unfortunately both logseq and Obsidian have way, way too much of a “text” focus for me, even with plugins; and way too little of a “data” focus — the real potential strength of Notionalikes is definitely in deep database features and integration; not ‘this is only useful if you type at a full keyboard for hours.’ At least to me. 🤣

I’m pretty excited about http://anytype.io; but it’s in perpetual development/beta — still kinda barebones. It’s definitely got the correct focus, though? Chunks of data, not “articles” or “pages!”