Brotato is amazing. One of the best.

It is some of the things you've mentioned. But it is not nihilistic.

Story wise? I have no idea.

Dungeon of the Endless is a strange turn based, real time, tower defense, strategy, dungeon crawler. You control a party of units.

Endless Dungeon is essentially the same, but it's a twin stick shooter where you control one unit.

They've made a number of strange decisions I think. The game has a lot more story with voice acting than Monster Train. But then it's also co-op and has this lobby room you hang out in with random people and it doesn't matter in any way that I can't tell. The game itself is amazing though and none of the other stuff detracts from it in my opinion. If you're at all still interested, you could watch a let's play. I know there are some co-op sessions recorded.

I ignored all the mtx stuff, which was pretty easy, and have had a blast with co-op. I can't think of anything else that comes close to this in terms of meaningful synergies with friends. And Shiny Shoe has proven they know how to use EA to turn out a good product with Monster Train so I wouldn't give up on them quite yet.

I don't think you'll regret it. Shiny Shoe knows what they're doing in terms of design and Inkbound is phenomenal. They've been making solid improvements throughout EA.

Did you play it? I'm not really sure how their monetization worked exactly as it never intruded on my experience. Still, it's nice they're dropping it. Early access is doing wonders for the game same as it did for Monster Train I hear, although I didn't play that until release. They added offline play a while ago, completely redesigned movement to be simpler and more satisfying, and have been adding classes and taking things. The game is excellent, even more so in co-op in my opinion but my friend swears by 1p.

Good change, obviously. Monetizing cosmetics in this game has always struck me as odd. The game's not ugly, but it's not pretty enough to sell skins in my opinion.

If anyone's curious about the gameplay, Monster Train is a favorite deck builder of mine and Inkbound topped my list of games I was excited about. It exceeded my hopes and expectations and I can't think of anything else in the co-op space that comes close to the level of coordination and build variety found here. Great 1p as well and it's progressing beautifully in early access with some excellent redesigns on various systems and new classes.

In Zachtronics Infinifactory, the setting is that aliens have kidnapped you and force you to build things for them, in return for kibble and other things humans like, such as a little league third place trophy. Always enjoyed that.