• I keep hearing that Mass Effect is a series I would like, so I finally got the Legendary Edition for $5.99.
• I have also heard of Mages of Mystralia as a good game for magic mechanics, so got that for $4.99.
• Trombone Champ for $5.99. I like silly memey stuff and I’m a former band kid. I also never played the trombone, which explains why I am buying the game instead of just playing my own trombone instead.
• Sixty Four for $4.19, as an incremental game fan

I am not sure whether to pick up Noita because I have heard of its great magic mechanics, it also sounds like something that will frustrate me way too much. I’ll probably try on a friend’s computer first

I am waiting half for this reason and half because I’m busy! I won’t get around to playing it anytime soon, so why buy it at this price now when it’ll probably be for sale cheaper in a few years, which is when I predict I will have time to play?

I usually hate walking simulators but I made an exception for the Stanley Parable, and, predictably, for Rabbit Simulator

Moonlight Rabbits, an incremental/idle game with adorable bunnies!

Also Stardew Valley with friends again, and My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! -Pirates of the Disturbance-. The latter is an otome game (basically think a visual novel specifically aimed at women, and romance is a major component) based off the My Next Life as a Villainess anime/manga.

In the anime/manga, a girl who loves otome games dies and gets reincarnated into the villainess of one of the games. That villainess dies or is exiled in misery in a lot of the game’s ends, so the girl tries to prevent those things from happening. The girl is a really nice person unlike the original villainess, and inadvertently ends up attracting a ton of suitors, both male and female. She’s also super romantically oblivious to any advances towards herself since she is thinking of herself as the game’s villainess, and she’s canonically, self-acknowledged in the game to be dumb, so it is way less infuriating than it would be in most other media. It’s a romcom. And then it got an actual real-life otome game made out of it, the one I’m playing, which also seems to be a romcom.

Was free on Epic awhile back, check to make sure you didn’t get it there already

I like visual novels because of how I can change the story with different choices. This isn’t much gameplay but it is still interactive and a lot easier to do with a computer than with manually flipping between pages in a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Now, kinetic novels, where you do not change anything significant in the story with your choices, those I agree with OP’s sentiment. Some people like them and that’s totally fine, but I personally don’t see the appeal. Maybe it’s getting exposure to stories from people who had an idea but not a high enough budget for a movie?