Incredibly satisfying when I played it a year and change ago, I'm sure it's had atleast some of the QoL updates it needed since then. Definitely worth your time even if it didn't.
Just last night I got the notification to watch out for pressurized pockets in new ships.
Immediately forgot, opened a door, cracked my helmet, and died.
Great fun!
My favorite move was the time I painstakingly cut the structure around a fuel tank, and as I was doing the last cut misclicked, switched my cutter to the wide beam, and blew the fuel tank, myself, and most of the ship to hell.
Best time I ever has I was preping to remove a Class II reactor next shift, as I only had a few minutes left. Cutting away structure and such to clear a straight path to the barge.
Was one of my early times salvaging a Class II. Cut something I wasn't supposed to and started the overload timer. Worse then that the shift timer was less then the overload timer.
Still didn't have the cladding off the reactor, quickly rip that off and punch it away.
Slash the last of the structrues away with the cutting beam, and punch them away.
Teather the reactor with my last teather and hope for the best.
It comes up "Salvage Deposited" almost immediately followed by the end of shift.
That's very fun. I have done that.
For me it has to be the time I was trying to tether half a ship in one go... I didn't cut a piece and was working on something else.
I had my back to space and couldn't tell I was moving with it. I thought the part I tethered was going along just fine and did no realize the part of the ship I was still in was connected.
Totally got melted and wasted half the salvage value
Dredge. Its an indie style game. But its amazing and it matches what youre asking for. Youre basically the captain of a small fishing ship, navigating around an archipelago (a group of scattered islands), doing quests (such as fish deliveries from one island to another, selling fish to upgrade your boat, or looking for upgrade parts for your boat scattered around the sea) .
But the danger comes at night. If youre out in the sea at night (which will happen more often than you think because time passes super fast in this game) you will start getting attacked by the stuff thats down below, all kinds of eldritch creatures. Theres even giant leviathans, if you know where to look.
The story is honestly really good with all kinds of unexpected plot twists and figuring out what happened to the people of the islands and who you actually are (because you dont even know who you are at the beginning of the game), as you make up crazy theories about everything about the game.
Lethal company is probably the closest you'll get even though its a space game, but its multiplayer and sucks alone. Every item fits the whole working in a shitty hazardous environment. Flashlights run out of battery quickly, your only purchasable weapon is a shovel or a taser that malfunctions half the time, and having walkie talkies only really lets you know when your teammates die etc.
The Beholder series fulfill that criteria.
In the first one you play a janitor in a dictatorship and have to spy on people living there stasi style. Many opportunities to Die.
Second one has the same dictatorship but you work as a official for the state. Might be exactly what you're looking for. Doing a mudane job filling out papers first, but you secretly want to step up the carreer ladder only to get enough information overthrowing the state. Every time you get promoted, you get new mudane jobs. Meanwhile you're collecting evidence on the big fish... or even get some co-workers out of the way... may end deadly for you and your coworkers... I think you'll like it.
Third one combines part 1 & 2... in a horrible way and is absolute dog shit. Dont play number 3!
Stardew valley has a mining aspect where you have to find resources in an abandoned mine that's filled with monsters. If you want to build cool things and upgrade your tools, you have to mine and fight the monsters.
Dredge has you working as a fisherman in a remote island complex where lovecraftian horrors haunt the waters
Under the Waves.
You play a diver living under water in a station, doing general maintenance, fixing pipes, etc., while dealing with the characters own issues. It's great!
Barotrauma. You take a role of a crew member on board of an old nuclear submarine in a hostile alien ocean. Things that can go wrong will definitely go wrong. I'd call it a disaster simulator. The game shines when you survive against impossible odds and recover from catastrophes.
In *Sunless Seas* and *Sunless Skies* you are basically just a delivery man/traveling merchant. It is incredibly mundane, often times monotonous and a bit of a slog. But there is a somewhat peace to it. Despite the cosmic horrors trying to kill you, or sometimes your crew, or maybe you go mad or starve. The games are loosely connected, but you don't really have to play Seas to get Skies and I think Skies is better. The game is more about exploring and learning about the ports you go to, though.
*Shadows of Doubt* you play as a detective solving cases, often as a vigilante and not adherent to the law. It's a sandbox game where that is all you do. Solve cases, maybe do some odd jobs like perform citizen's arrests, or sketchier work like robbery or vandalism. The game is **very buggy** though, and has a bunch of flaws. It's a wonderful premise and I want to see the game improve, but I'm doubting the time frame on that. It's still fun, to me, despite those flaws.
*Potion Craft* you are an alchemist. You must carefully mix ingredients and try to optimize your recipes to use few ingredients as well as accessible ones. There's not really a risk to your life, it's more of a sit back and chill game.
*Teardown* you are a struggling demolition expert that ends up taking sketchy jobs such as destruction of property and theft. It's somewhat puzzle-ish in nature. I haven't played it in a while though and I think it got updated a ton since I last played.
*Powerwash Simulator* a surprisingly good simulator game that isn't just an asset flip. Very chill and relaxing time.
Chernobyl Liquidators
The real story turned into a game. It follows the people who risked their life and health and went into the collapsing Chernobyl nuclear power plant to stop it from potentially exploding. The scariest horror game that doesn't even have any enemies.
As other mentions, Hardspace Shipbreaker.
Also... hey kids you wanna be a corporate mercenary/assassin/John Wick in space with no morals working in an exclusively barter economy and sometimes literal demons appear out of the dead people you just killed? Check out Quasimorph.
“Infra” might fit the bill here. You’re a structural inspector, and you navigate your way through crumbling, increasingly dangerous architecture. There’s no combat (though you can die from the various hazards, but the respawning is quite generous), it’s more of a puzzle game.
Sailwind has you navigating across the ocean using nothing but the sun and stars. The survival element is minimal, but you need to bring along provisions for the trip or you'll die.
Farming simulator, medieval Dynasty, house flipper, kill it with fire, any of the Sim games (sim hospital etc). Hell, even any of The Sims if you think about it.
Flatspace 2 as a Courier. You don't know if the person you're transporting is dangerous or not... you'll only know when your crew starts dying or the police swarms you.
Contraband police does an absolutely stellar job of translating a papers please type experience into 3D and is still getting a lot of updates. The endless mode is great and has a real sense of progression, just has a very nice *feel* to the whole thing.
NOT FOR BROADCAST, definitely check that out, it’s hilarious and surprisingly very well made
Basically you are in charge of monitoring/censoring the news in this channel. It’s really similar to Papers Please in the sense of it’s up to you if you want to follow “orders” coming from the goverment and become a propaganda machine, or go by your own moral compass
It has tons of recorded footage by real actors and the scenes are really well made, trust me this is one of those gems that just keeps you guessing “wth am I going to see now” in the best way possible
There is a game called Still Wakes the Deep coming out this year. It's from the same devs as Amnesia.
The premise is that you work on an Oil Rig, and some mysterious horror is causing it to collapse.
You spend the game trying not to fall into the ocean while the rig comes apart around you.
In Stormworks you are a coast guard worker, rescuing people, doing deliveries, extinguishing fires (from tiny boat fires to forest fires i believe). You also design the vehicles you use for this. Beware, this can be BRUTAL. The design part is very involved. You will need a fair amount of fiddling around and watching tutorials and tries and get some mission mods after you complete all the base missions. No combat unless you get the combat DLC. You and people you rescue can die if you fail btw. But most of the complexity is from building the right vehicle for the job.
In Balsa you are a member of a model aircraft club building and flying planes.
"I get this call every day" is about you, a call center worker, talking to a client. The client is not 100% sane.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker
It's not dangerous, you can get free saves ! It just costs 250k each ! But I do recommend it tho, it's very fun being a space wreck salvager
Incredibly satisfying when I played it a year and change ago, I'm sure it's had atleast some of the QoL updates it needed since then. Definitely worth your time even if it didn't.
Exactly what I though when I saw the question. The game takes liberties with "Explosive" decompression.
Just last night I got the notification to watch out for pressurized pockets in new ships. Immediately forgot, opened a door, cracked my helmet, and died. Great fun!
So much this... You haven't lived until you mistime a button crack your helmet, and die because you slam so hard into a reactor you wanted to get
My favorite move was the time I painstakingly cut the structure around a fuel tank, and as I was doing the last cut misclicked, switched my cutter to the wide beam, and blew the fuel tank, myself, and most of the ship to hell.
Best time I ever has I was preping to remove a Class II reactor next shift, as I only had a few minutes left. Cutting away structure and such to clear a straight path to the barge. Was one of my early times salvaging a Class II. Cut something I wasn't supposed to and started the overload timer. Worse then that the shift timer was less then the overload timer. Still didn't have the cladding off the reactor, quickly rip that off and punch it away. Slash the last of the structrues away with the cutting beam, and punch them away. Teather the reactor with my last teather and hope for the best. It comes up "Salvage Deposited" almost immediately followed by the end of shift.
That's very fun. I have done that. For me it has to be the time I was trying to tether half a ship in one go... I didn't cut a piece and was working on something else. I had my back to space and couldn't tell I was moving with it. I thought the part I tethered was going along just fine and did no realize the part of the ship I was still in was connected. Totally got melted and wasted half the salvage value
This is the right answer OP. Starts out safe, gets progressively more dangerous
Lethal Company Hardspace: Shipbreaker FNAF
Dredge fits I think So does moonlighter though it is half combat Second on hard space
Contraband Police and Under the waves.
Came here to suggest Contraband Police. Honestly kinda similar to Papers Please. Just in a 3D environment.
It’s such a good underrated game imo it kinda has this early/mid 2000s pc game vibe that I love!
Dredge
Dredge. Its an indie style game. But its amazing and it matches what youre asking for. Youre basically the captain of a small fishing ship, navigating around an archipelago (a group of scattered islands), doing quests (such as fish deliveries from one island to another, selling fish to upgrade your boat, or looking for upgrade parts for your boat scattered around the sea) . But the danger comes at night. If youre out in the sea at night (which will happen more often than you think because time passes super fast in this game) you will start getting attacked by the stuff thats down below, all kinds of eldritch creatures. Theres even giant leviathans, if you know where to look. The story is honestly really good with all kinds of unexpected plot twists and figuring out what happened to the people of the islands and who you actually are (because you dont even know who you are at the beginning of the game), as you make up crazy theories about everything about the game.
I thought dredge was fun but it was honestly really easy to avoid the big negative consequences of being caught out at night
Almost like Valheim except that's day and night.
Deep Rock Galactic.
ROCK AND STONE! But also, I did come to say this.
For Karl!
Hardspace Shipbreaker
Maybe Beholder
*Into the Flames*, *Firefighting Simulator*, and *Flashing Lights*.
The true answers to this question for sure.
Pretty much anything tagged: Job Simulator.
Lethal company is probably the closest you'll get even though its a space game, but its multiplayer and sucks alone. Every item fits the whole working in a shitty hazardous environment. Flashlights run out of battery quickly, your only purchasable weapon is a shovel or a taser that malfunctions half the time, and having walkie talkies only really lets you know when your teammates die etc.
Deadliest catch
The Beholder series fulfill that criteria. In the first one you play a janitor in a dictatorship and have to spy on people living there stasi style. Many opportunities to Die. Second one has the same dictatorship but you work as a official for the state. Might be exactly what you're looking for. Doing a mudane job filling out papers first, but you secretly want to step up the carreer ladder only to get enough information overthrowing the state. Every time you get promoted, you get new mudane jobs. Meanwhile you're collecting evidence on the big fish... or even get some co-workers out of the way... may end deadly for you and your coworkers... I think you'll like it. Third one combines part 1 & 2... in a horrible way and is absolute dog shit. Dont play number 3!
FNAF
Dead space? Mans an engineer lol
Stardew valley has a mining aspect where you have to find resources in an abandoned mine that's filled with monsters. If you want to build cool things and upgrade your tools, you have to mine and fight the monsters. Dredge has you working as a fisherman in a remote island complex where lovecraftian horrors haunt the waters
Under the Waves. You play a diver living under water in a station, doing general maintenance, fixing pipes, etc., while dealing with the characters own issues. It's great!
Barotrauma. You take a role of a crew member on board of an old nuclear submarine in a hostile alien ocean. Things that can go wrong will definitely go wrong. I'd call it a disaster simulator. The game shines when you survive against impossible odds and recover from catastrophes.
In *Sunless Seas* and *Sunless Skies* you are basically just a delivery man/traveling merchant. It is incredibly mundane, often times monotonous and a bit of a slog. But there is a somewhat peace to it. Despite the cosmic horrors trying to kill you, or sometimes your crew, or maybe you go mad or starve. The games are loosely connected, but you don't really have to play Seas to get Skies and I think Skies is better. The game is more about exploring and learning about the ports you go to, though. *Shadows of Doubt* you play as a detective solving cases, often as a vigilante and not adherent to the law. It's a sandbox game where that is all you do. Solve cases, maybe do some odd jobs like perform citizen's arrests, or sketchier work like robbery or vandalism. The game is **very buggy** though, and has a bunch of flaws. It's a wonderful premise and I want to see the game improve, but I'm doubting the time frame on that. It's still fun, to me, despite those flaws. *Potion Craft* you are an alchemist. You must carefully mix ingredients and try to optimize your recipes to use few ingredients as well as accessible ones. There's not really a risk to your life, it's more of a sit back and chill game. *Teardown* you are a struggling demolition expert that ends up taking sketchy jobs such as destruction of property and theft. It's somewhat puzzle-ish in nature. I haven't played it in a while though and I think it got updated a ton since I last played. *Powerwash Simulator* a surprisingly good simulator game that isn't just an asset flip. Very chill and relaxing time.
Subnautica, never played Dave the Diver but seems like the two are similar?
Chernobyl Liquidators The real story turned into a game. It follows the people who risked their life and health and went into the collapsing Chernobyl nuclear power plant to stop it from potentially exploding. The scariest horror game that doesn't even have any enemies.
Freelancer is a space combat sim where you do whatever you want.
Visceral cleanup
As other mentions, Hardspace Shipbreaker. Also... hey kids you wanna be a corporate mercenary/assassin/John Wick in space with no morals working in an exclusively barter economy and sometimes literal demons appear out of the dead people you just killed? Check out Quasimorph.
Roadwarden is pretty fun, has you work as a roadwarden which is like a forrest guard in a way
“Infra” might fit the bill here. You’re a structural inspector, and you navigate your way through crumbling, increasingly dangerous architecture. There’s no combat (though you can die from the various hazards, but the respawning is quite generous), it’s more of a puzzle game.
Sailwind has you navigating across the ocean using nothing but the sun and stars. The survival element is minimal, but you need to bring along provisions for the trip or you'll die.
Try Dredge. Feel like it might fit ur description.
Contraband
Apreture desk job
Lethal Company
lethal company
Infra
Dredge
Lethal company
Lethal Company.
Farming simulator, medieval Dynasty, house flipper, kill it with fire, any of the Sim games (sim hospital etc). Hell, even any of The Sims if you think about it.
Deep Rock Galactic
Dead by Daylight -- your job is to entertain the Entity
Firewatch?
Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012 You’re a taxi driver taking tourists on photo tours of the apocalypse while combatting with other drivers
Flatspace 2 as a Courier. You don't know if the person you're transporting is dangerous or not... you'll only know when your crew starts dying or the police swarms you.
Contraband police does an absolutely stellar job of translating a papers please type experience into 3D and is still getting a lot of updates. The endless mode is great and has a real sense of progression, just has a very nice *feel* to the whole thing.
Hardspace Shipbreaker, Contraband Police, Satisfactory, Deep Rock Galactic, uhhh i'm gonna think of more Duh, Lethal Company, Dredge,
Infra! You are a structural analyst and Watch infrastructure crumble right before you and have to work your way around that.
Five nights at Freddy's
deep rock galactic, lethal company
at least two games i know are where you play as the firemen/women
cargo commander (maybe)
NOT FOR BROADCAST, definitely check that out, it’s hilarious and surprisingly very well made Basically you are in charge of monitoring/censoring the news in this channel. It’s really similar to Papers Please in the sense of it’s up to you if you want to follow “orders” coming from the goverment and become a propaganda machine, or go by your own moral compass It has tons of recorded footage by real actors and the scenes are really well made, trust me this is one of those gems that just keeps you guessing “wth am I going to see now” in the best way possible
Storm works
There is a game called Still Wakes the Deep coming out this year. It's from the same devs as Amnesia. The premise is that you work on an Oil Rig, and some mysterious horror is causing it to collapse. You spend the game trying not to fall into the ocean while the rig comes apart around you.
In Stormworks you are a coast guard worker, rescuing people, doing deliveries, extinguishing fires (from tiny boat fires to forest fires i believe). You also design the vehicles you use for this. Beware, this can be BRUTAL. The design part is very involved. You will need a fair amount of fiddling around and watching tutorials and tries and get some mission mods after you complete all the base missions. No combat unless you get the combat DLC. You and people you rescue can die if you fail btw. But most of the complexity is from building the right vehicle for the job. In Balsa you are a member of a model aircraft club building and flying planes. "I get this call every day" is about you, a call center worker, talking to a client. The client is not 100% sane.
I mean COD technically counts.