Thanks for the advice, gents. I am slowly piecing together some of the strategies needed, including exposing invaders to the vacuum of space and trying to recruit alien crewmembers with special abilities. I keep forgetting to exercise the pause setting however, so that definitely needs work. And clearly I need to harden my ship more against boarders, since that tends to be the leading defeat condition in my plays.

I will certainly be sticking with Easy until I achieve victory, given how difficult it is even on that setting. I think modern games have blunted my roguelike skills and they need to be rehoned for this kind of challenge.

Cheers!

I've finished following adventure games in 2-5 hours:
Amerzone - The Explorer's Legacy
Dracula: The Resurrection
Dracula 2: The Last Sanctuary
It was the first time I played them and I didn't use any walkthrough. It was, however, a part of my p&c marathon and after beating several adventure games in a row I usually play them much faster because my mind is accustomed to solve specific type of puzzles. Nevertheless I believe those games should be on that list.

A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda (1½h)
The Blackwell series (2-3h each)
Cave Story (3-4h for an experienced player)
DOOM 2 (About 4-5h, Doom 1 is roughly as short)
Hard Reset (Just over 5h)
Muri (1h)
Papo & Yo (roughly 3h)
Sonic Generations (5h)
Zeno Clash (roughly 2h)

Thanks, I'll get what I can onto the list. I suspect I might soon bump up against the post size limit. If that happens, GOG titles will take precedence, and I may cannibalise another post for further games.

Desktop Dungeons?

Among the Sleep fits each category quite nicely. Bought it 19 hours ago, already finished it twice (the second time was mostly to determine the level of quality of the German translation). While the second run was not quite as tense as the first time (such is the nature of survival horror games), it was still a very enjoyable experience.

Great, thanks! I picked this up myself, might have to give it a weekend play if the mood is right. :)

Onto the list it goes!

Just finished The Horror at MS Aurora and it's a perfect addition to the list. Took about an hour, and it plays like a horror film. There is decent exposition, a nice gradual pace, some timing challenges, and a really strong musical score. Recommended for horror fans as well as one-day gamers.

Finding Teddy is a short (3-4 hour game) that is relatively simple unless you're hoping for 100% of the achievements - then it might take a bit longer for us "slow" gamers ;-p

The puzzles are relatively simple but finding the "orbs" wasn't easy for me at all. All in all a really fun, short game!

Solar 2!

Beat it in about 30 minutes.

Super Hexagon

You can finish the game in six minutes :P

That sounds like a good one for the list, a story for an evening's play. Have to bump this up my own queue now as well. Perhaps it will take away the nasty taste of raw ham that Mr. Bree+ left behind.

mwahaha, wish I could be a fly on the wall when you try finding all the light orbs ;-p

Started the game last night, probably would have finished it too except that I started late. Great recommendation, it's gorgeous and fun!

So far I've found most of the orbs. It became easier when I worked out how the pings functioned. There's a gap in my unlocked pictures though so I may have missed one, though I thought I did every pinging screen so far. Guess I'll find out at the end. :)