Invisible, Inc.
If you are fan of Klei Entertainment’s (“Clay” Entertainment’s) other games like Don’t Starve or the fantastic Mark of the Ninja, the art style of Invisible, Inc. is instantly recognizable. All their games have this style, but every game does something different. In the case of Invisible, Inc. it is a turn-based strategy-RPG that has very little combat. It is about futuristic secret agents who infiltrate various nefarious corporate facilities with various mission objectives. You bring a number of different agents who have different skills and strengths. The main focus is stealth and keeping guards and security tech from seeing you. The tension is always high and gets higher as the threat level increases. The main storyline is very interesting and has a couple of good twists. Available on multiple platforms (unfortunately not Xbox…yet), it will keep you busy slinking and stabbing for a reasonable, but not outrageous, time, and you will enjoy every minute.
Steamworld Heist
I absolutely love the heck out of Steamworld Heist. Its ricochet gun mechanic placed in a 2D turn-based game is the most innovative thing I’ve ever seen done with 2D side-scrolling and turn-based combat. The story is great too, with interesting and humorous characters and enemies. It has Western pirate comedy space vibe, like some kind of steampunk Firefly. The progression system scales nicely as you level up your character and discover loot, aka booty. My standout favorite booty is the hats. You can shoot them off your enemies and wear them in later missions. There are even in-game stores dedicated only to hats. Once you beat its fantastic campaign, there may be no reason to return if you beat it on the hardest difficulty (congrats- you are truly a TBG master!). However, ramping up the difficulty on subsequent playthroughs will keep you coming back to land that one perfect hat-shot again and again and again.
Vaporum
Vaporum has sort of steampunk meets Bioshock meets Legend of Grimrock feel, as you explore a giant ominous mechanical tower going up and up rather than down and down into a dungeon. Uncover a deep story (with excellent audiologs and documents), fight increasingly difficult enemies, and uncover more loot to equip. You are a solo player rather than a party, but this is balanced by choosing a powered suit with various upgradeable abilities and a couple of weapon slots for both melee and ranged weapons, as you wish. In that way, it feels like you have real freedom in how you want to play and customize your player character. It has all the traditional grid or turn-based hallmarks like puzzles, traps, secret rooms, and aggressive enemy AI, but it has an atmosphere and setting all its own. It recently released on consoles, so you have many platform options now.
Antihero
Antihero nailed the tabletop board game to video game adaptation perfectly. You are a thief guild boss in a Victorian Londonish neighborhood tasked with dominating your terrain against another rival boss. You steal, occupy, and street-brawl your way to victory in a campaign with various maps, objectives, and enemies. The art style is excellently cartoonish, like a comic book version of Dicken’s Oliver Twist. The best part of Antihero has to be how it is easy to understand its mechanics and gameplay, but every decision is strategic and tactical. If you lose a round you usually know why and where you went wrong and can correct it on another playthrough. The old adage is apt for this game, “simple to understand, yet strategically complex.”
Skulls of the Shogun
Ever want to know what it would feel like to be trapped in bureaucratic hell as a skeleton samurai leader? Luckily, Skulls of the Shogun has you covered. It doesn’t break the strategy mold with a map and objectives to complete, a rotating host of dead Samurai era warriors to command, and buildings to capture that allow you to craft more powerful units. However, it has a unique take on turn-based tactical strategy. The movement is free-form rather than hex or tile-based, so you have to carefully observe distances from your enemy. The map can get pretty busy with all the units and their abilities, but they are all different enough to keep it interesting. And then there’s the story… oh the story! It’s not laugh out loud funny, but just generally a humorous take on Samurai movies (my favorite Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai comes to mind). If you like a good story with your strategy and you like the an interesting take on turn-based combat, you can pick it up on almost every platform, usually for a deep sale. Just make sure to check the comments/reviews to make sure it’s still working – it has been a while since it has gotten some TLC.