Probably not for everyone here but 'I was a Teenage Exocolonist' is one of the best games in that category I ever played. You feel the developer's love in every character and storyline and being able to have so many different outcomes really made it feel special.

The Witness also falls into this category I think. I love these games as well

Lingo too! Gosh I wish I could forget Lingo and play through it again.

I love Celeste for this exact reason!

I have some suggestions that fit this category with varying degrees so I will include some justifications so you can decide if you want to include them in your own playlists

• Her story/the stanley parable :: fit the category perfectly
• subnautica :: Survival game with heavy exploration. Unusually for this genre it has a story which you can only progress by finding some clues and piecing them together
• the witness :: This one has been mentioned already but I just wanted to reiterate that although it may seem like a simple puzzle game it's a good fit for this category. Here's an excellent analysis of it that you can watch after playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZokQov_aH0
• The talos principle :: the main part of this game is just a puzzle game so it seemingly doesn't fit very well. However, along with those there are some characters which ask you some philosophical questions which you unintentionally end up mulling over while solving the puzzles. By the end of the game you have understood some things that can make the ending very meaningful and emotional.
• antichamber/gorogoa/superliminal/baba is you :: Simple puzzle games but they are solved by lateral thinking where you're constantly pushing the boundaries and rules of the puzzle itself
• into the breach :: rougelike tactics game. Someone else mentioned how roguelikes in general fit this category and this is my honorable mention
• hacknet :: You are given some tools that can open some doors but you have to learn how to exploit those doors to open the remaining ones

Noita and Who's Lila? 🙏

holy shit wawa

Thanks for recommendations! Outer Wilds is phenomenal, and Obra Dinn was so-o satisfactory to complete.

OP's image is pretty good but some recommendations posted are really stretching it specially the RPGs.

Trying frantically to remember some recs too but nothing that fits exactly comes to mind except those already mentioned. Probably Cultist Simulator? Though it has frustrating moments where you seem to exhaust all available options and hit the wall without noticing some seemingly random option you have to try. Maybe also Sorcery! series — the more branches you try, the more complete picture of the world you get.

I almost feel like you're describing a job.

I'm always having to learn new practical skills for work, and getting into things I know nothing about and having to learn them to be successful.

The difference is that the skills you learn from playing games usually are not transferable to the rest of your life. There's some exceptions to this but most of the stuff you learn from complex games are completely fabricated for the game and have very little bearing on real life.... Though, am argument can be made in many cases, such as kerbal. I haven't played kerbal, but I understand there's some reasonably accurate orbital mechanics and rocket science involved. This is just one fairly obvious example that I know of. Not to be confused with a comprehensive list of games with practical educational value.

For me though, I usually don't want to learn anything useful while playing a game, since that's basically what I do for work. So any game, like our example of kerbal will, in all likelihood, feel like more work to me, which is decidedly not the objective I'm going for by playing a game.

I dunno. Different games for different folks or whatever.

Chants of Senaar mentioned!!!

The whole soulsborne series

Didn't think while reading and got 'I want to fuck(ing) fellas' and I concur