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?
Immersive games, I don’t know exactly what makes them immersive for me, but they’re the games I turn off any other videos, music, and distractions. To get totally into. Some games:
I think it’s games where there’s interesting stuff to read and think about. I know I preferred Disco Elysium on it’s initial release, when only some of the dialog had voice acting.