I completely understand that! It throws you into a mission right from the start, with no easing in. And from the very beginning you can see that the game allows you to choose - do you kill? Do you sneak around? Do you shoot the leader? Do you let him go? What are the consequences of your actions? It’s not all clear from the start.

I played the original Deus Ex around 10 years ago. Once you accept the aged visual side of it, the world, characters and plot can easily immerse you till the end. I’d say play the original (maybe with some modern visual mods), then skip to Human Revolution, then Mankind Divided.

I didn’t bother with Invisible War and The Fall. I tried them for a moment, but the bugs and clunkiness put me off.

There’s also Deus Ex Go, a mobile game that’s actually a really good puzzle with fantastic music.

For me, it’s games in the immersive sim genre. The Dishonored series and Prey, both made by Arkane studios, I can replay over and over, enjoying every moment of them, exploring alternate paths I haven’t tried yet. Deus Ex is another one that fits, especially Deus Ex Human Revolution. These games often go well below $10 during sales - here are their historical lows:

• Dishonored: $2
• Dishonored 2: $3
• Dishonored DOTO: $6
• Prey: $3
• DXHR: $3

I also loved every second of The Witness - the puzzles are ingenious, hidden things are super enjoyable, and the community made a randomizer that generates new, harder puzzles to add more content to it. The Witness is at $9.99 now, its historical low.

I know a few people who love factory-building games, optimizing the production and even creating spreadsheets to calculate the perfect production rate. But the two major games in this category don’t fit your price criteria (Satisfactory is $15 right now, and Factorio $35 and won’t get any lower).

It definitely does! I misremembered, thought that you can manually select from a list of tapes. Thanks, will edit the parent comment.

I thought about it when compiling my reply, but I can’t recommend it under “calm” requirement. The number of times I yelled at the game for giving me Time Eater when I’m playing a Shiv deck…

I didn’t test most of these personally on a touch screen, but they seem like good candidates to check:

• Pawnbarian
• Osmos
• Hexcells (+ Hexcells Plus + Hexcells Infinite)
• Frog Detective (+ 2 + 3)
• The Witness
• Taiji
• shapez
• Her Story sorry, it needs a keyboard
• Eufloria
• KAMI
• Hook (+ 2)
• The Pedestrian
• Subsurface Circular
• Dorfromantik
• Polychromia
• Hidden Folks
• Cogs

I personally use two pairs that satisfy most of your criteria:

• Jabra Elite 85t. You switch between ANC/passthrough by double-clicking the right bud; it doesn’t need the app to do that. However, if your 12 h requirement is about consecutive hours, they won’t work (buds last about 5 h, plus 20 h from the case). They’re pretty compact and the case is magnetic, which I really like (coming from 65t model).
• Sony WH1000XM5. Insanely good ANC and nice battery life. There’s a physical button on the left cup to toggle between modes, which I believe are set to ANC/passthrough by default. The app lets you add a third mode (off), so you don’t need it at all.

I had a similar approach about headphones as you had - I only planned to use them for work, specifically Teams meetings in a loud office. But XM5s have such great ANC and sound quality that I now commute and travel with them.

For gaming, I’m using HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless. They have an unbelievable 300 hours battery life and decent passive noise canceling, though no ANC. They’re using a proprietary wireless connection, making them fit for gaming without noticeable lags (Bluetooth sucks in this regard, I can’t play with 300 ms audio delay). Not sure if you can connect them to a phone.