I hate almost every trend you can think of. Looking for focused, polished games with no fluff.

Absolute deal breakers:

- Open world (that can't be ignored)

- Roguelike\lite

- Buildcraft/RPG mechanics

- Score attack without enough levels for the game to last if you don't grind

- Focus on narrative over gameplay in an action game

- Management, strategy, turn based gameplay, actually difficult puzzle games

- Archaic elements like stiff controls or lack of checkpoints

- Crafting, Survival

- PvP, online only

- Fighting games

Looking for:

- Challenge without major loss of progress as punishment (unless it's a cozy game)

- Simple, action-packed gameplay (not minimalistic, just simple)

Examples:

- Racing games with checklist/level based "campaigns" like GRID 2019, Inertial Drift, Parking Garage Rally Circuit, Trackmania

- Metroidvanias with great combat and clear direction, like both Hollow Knight games up to their "fake endings", Blasphemous, Salt and Sanctuary

- Platformers with short checkpoints, like Celeste

- Beat em ups, like Full Metal Furies (but most others are too stiff and primitive for me, because they go all in on the retro thing)

- Twin Stick Shooters, like Assault Android Cactus

- Side Scrolling Shooters, like Metal Slug

- On-Rails Shooters, like Time Crisis II

- Shooters, like Doom 2016, Quake, L4D2, Dusk, Cultic, Neon White, Rollerdrome,... but I've got the genre pretty much locked down at this point, not much can slip past my radar

- Cozy games, like Unpacking or Power Wash Sim

- Simple, arcadey stuff like rhythm games, Tetris Effect

Here's my backloggd (list of most games I've played in the last decade and change) if it helps:

https://backloggd.com/u/Mezu5/games/user-rating?page=1