That was exactly my view until about a year ago, when I learned that the steam client was not mandatory. I now have about 100 steam games installed on a portable HDD, fully playable without client or internet.

Which is for me the exact same situation as with GOG games, except of course that I still have more GOG games (having bought only GOG from 2009 to 2020), and except of course that now I can buy DRM-free/client-free games at a fraction of what it used to cost me on GOG (especially with key reseller bundles).

I still buy a bit on GOG (primarily GOG exclusives), but I have mostly moved to steam for my DRM-free/client-free gaming.

It is mandatory for many games, and you can never be sure that an update won't make a formerly DRM-free game into a DRM-required game. I personally bought a game on Steam last year because it was supposed to be DRM-free according to a list that maintains such things, and it absolutely refused to work without the client. So I refunded it.

GOG, fix your page layout.
8 hours after the news is published – it's unavailable on the main page and technically unavailable at all without searching for the thread and link on the forum.

What you described is the full game, after installation, not the same as the installer. The installer usually occupies less space in the HDD and less troublesome to work in other systems. Personally, I find the installer to be worth the extra few dollars, but I am on the team that is so disgusted with some decisions by the GoG staff that I do now consider Steam more than I did, say, a year ago, when I was almost "GoG or nothing".

That is true, but that is also true of GOG (see No Man's Sky fiasco, luckily resolved, or Absolver and CP2077, not so), not to mention that on GOG you run the extra risk of not having updates at all (see second class citizen thread).

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That's true.

Unless you compress the installed game with zip...

Not me, not anymore. Especially not since I got burned by getting a Divinity: Original Sin offline installer that has a serious bug, and GOG refusing to release an older version installer that does not have the bug (despite the developer encouraging it to do so), claiming that one can always use galaxy (yes, the optional galaxy) to rewind to the older unbroken version.

That's one reason I keep the installers of versions I like, something that is not possible on Steam.

You must have a lot of HDD space.

I only have a 5TB HDD for GOG, 95% full, so I can't afford to keep copies,

Indeed. Double that, and I want to buy another.

On the wish list for now as I've already spent all that I'm going to for the month after putting out about $1000 on the family dog, who went in for surgery today.

I can speak for this game, it's procedurally generated done well. It's well told and you will feel super attached to all the characters, like XCOM but turn to 11. Even if you don't like that tyoe of games I can easily recommend it to you.

My kupuna was given a pure bred Dachshund, AKC registered, as a b'day present 60 years ago, which he subsequently learned our ohana chipped in for, to raise funds for the purchase price: $20. Da Good Old Daze! ((;--))

The game card for Wildermyth gives strong vibes of the Glorantha world, the myth-rich world created by Jeff Stafford. Runequest, Heroquest, Dragon Pass... Orlanth? Do those names ring a bell?

The idea of heroes developing and some of them becoming part of legend, then myth, sounds very appealing. Normally this player frowns when procedural worlds are mentioned, but maybe this is one of those games where they are put to good use, because there is a story if you can make one with what the game gives you.

Incidentally, when games provide tools for making the stories your own, that a big plus in my book. From getting to name individual units (useful and fun in Panzer General II and the like and whatnot) to allowing you to write backgrounds (made Icewind Dale even more fun) to allowing meaningful choices.

Someone mentioned Massive Chalice. An interesting game marred by design choices. One of those was its refusal to provide any ways to make the game your own. For example, they never allowed to create customized blurb for the heritage Houses (akin to noble families) in the game. Because they only allowed the family blurb and crests that the the original crowfunding supporters designed, and most of them ranged between the poorly humorous to the idiotic (giving design rights only to the original supporters was a point of appeal in the crowfunding... really? they did not seem to care much about people getting the game after the crowfunding... will not buy any game where such as decision was made anymore) and no way to change names or write a background in a game where a big appeal was seeing your heroes improve, then mature and help future generations, and eventually grow old if they did not die in battle.

So, I do hope it is NOT like Massive Chalice in those ways.

The forum ate my post. :/
Short version: I'll get the game despite what I posted yesterday.

This sounds encouraging, thanks.

Also, in a sea of games that are mostly copies of each other, it is nice when some of them try to do their own thing.