Recommendations for a Campaign Game with Progression but Low Overhead and a Shorter Campaign Length (lol perfect game?)

Hey All,

I relatively recently got into solo board gaming over the past year or so, mostly with Marvel Champions (though I've recently jumped into the Lord of the Rings LCG as well).

I like the idea of campaign games - my wife and I made it pretty far into Gloomhaven (before we had kids), and I've tried several others. I love RPG elements and character progression, but I find most campaign games to be too long and realistically I don't finish them. Or I stop playing for a few months, then when I come back I have no idea what I was doing, what's happening in the story, etc. etc. and it feels exhausting to figure things out so I just shelve the game (and eventually sell it). I have finally learned that the 30, 50, 80+ hour campaign games aren't for me :).

I like Slay the Spire a lot, a 3 act run doesn't take too many sessions to complete (about 3 sessions I guess :D), and I don't really have to remember any story in between each act. I also like the mini campaigns in Marvel Champions, though there isn't much progression, same with Lord of the Rings. I've tried Arkham with a friend and its good, but I don't want to dive into yet another LCG. I also really liked Arydia but again, stopped playing for a few months, then when I came back to it I had no idea what was going on with the story and what all key cards I had etc. etc. and the campaign was going to be too long for me to finish.

It would be cool to find a campaign game that has more progression and a longer campaign than say Slay the Spire, but isn't some 50+ hour campaign like Gloomhaven (something that's like 5 or 10 missions or something).

So I guess I'm looking for something with character progression that has low overhead/book keeping, maybe like hourish long sessions, and with a campaign that is beatable in less than 20 hours. Preferably fantasy or sci fi themed.

I've looked at Shadows of Brimstone, but I hear that's a lot to manage solo and quickly gets overwhelming with the amount of overhead and length of sessions, setup/teardown etc. Same with Maladum by BattleSystems - it looks cool but I've read the setup and teardown is quite intense for this one. I also looked at Elder Scrolls Betrayal of the Second Era, but that game also is a bit too much for me I think (and the individual sessions seem quite long).

So yeah, I know this is hyper specific and there probably isn't something that fits the bill exactly. I've done a lot of research and figured I'd ask the soloboardgaming collective minds to see if they come up with any reqs :).