Gaming

You might want to look specifically at rogue 'lites' which tend to have some form of upgrade system outside of the main gameplay loop. In Hades for example, you pick up certain items during a run which you can use to upgrade your character after you die. Other ones that spring to mind are Dead Cells, Slay the Spire, Monster Train and Rogue Legacy. All of these have generally quite short sessions and each run lets you improve your character for subsequent runs.

Outer Wilds. By it's very nature, the game splits itself into 20 minute blocks.

You don't make 'materialistic progress', but you'll almost always make progress in the game; the progress you make is finding out new information. Yes, it starts over every time, but you aren't losing progress. It's also just, in general, an excellent game.

I want to point out the obvious choice by recommending Minecraft. It is very easy to proficient, acquiring in game materials is all you do. Play sessions can be as long as you want since it is a open sandbox and you can add as much depth as you want via mods.

Vampire Survivor is def a good recommendation, though I also have to mention Deep Rock Galactic!

It has a great gameplay loop that always stays fresh due to the four different classes and the procedurally generated levels. It has both solo and co-op, and both are fun in their own way. Plus it has the most positive online community I've ever come across which is a nice bonus. It's on sale for the summer sale of you wanna check it out.

Super auto pets!

Hades is a good one. Every run is under 20 minutes and makes some reasonable progress with personal upgrades.

Minecraft is also good at this. Even if you've only got 5 minutes, 5 minutes of mining or 5 minutes of building is appreciable. The only task that I would avoid (without a map markers mod) is exploration.

On mobile, I've been really enjoying Mini Metro. You typically finish a level in 5-10 minutes, and it can be surprisingly challenging.

Against the Storm is also good. Every game is a couple hours long, but you can drop it and pick it up at will. The game never gets so bogged down that it's too hard to just look around your settlement while paused and remind yourself what needs doing.

Another option is a rhythm game like Etterna. You don't progress with levels or game mechanics, but in the skills you gain as a player. I've found the skills in accuracy and such to be surprisingly durable, and easy to make marked improvements just playing a 1-5 minute song every day. Though while the time needed is only a couple minutes, I think that going more than a week or so without a session would result in some degradation of skills that you'd have to get back.

Stardew Valley might be right up your alley.

Each day in the game is fairly short, just under 15 minutes. Each days progress carries over to the next, so you have nice short start/stop sessions.

There is loot you can gain, lots of money to build and expand along with resources like food to grow or wood to harvest that then allow for more buildings on your property. Caves to explore, relationships to form with other villagers in the town, and a bunch of unlockable things to show steady progress.

My wife and I both got hooked, and over the years have sunk 500+ hours into it just from doing various replays.

Its a small game storage size-wise, single or multi-player are equally enjoyable, and not a big money investment.

Vampire Surviver spawned a new genre of games that are great single session games. There are a lot of variations, but the core loop of vampire survivors is similar to a rouge-like, but focuses on making each run fun and rewarding. You generally get points of some sort for a run, which you invest into a skill tree or stat points, and your next run is better as a result. Even most rouge-lites try not to give you a huge advantage with your unlocks, but Vampire Survivor and it's ilk really focus on that. As a result, the repetition isn't as brutal, and death doesn't feel like a punishment.

Stardew Valley has 20 minute days, and you can go to sleep earlier if you like to end the day at any point.

This is very different from the other examples, but have you tried XCOM 1 or 2?

In both games you control a squad of commandos through turn based missions to repel an alien invasion of earth.

The soldiers all have special classes and gain ranks through experience, meaning you'll have made tangible progress and got more powerful with each promotion a surviving soldier receives.

Between missions, you also construct a base / facility which structures the strategic side of the campaign.

Both games also have a good mobile / tablet port.

Hades and it's upcoming successor Hades 2 (but i doubt Hades 2 will be under 10gb).

Hades is a rougelike you specifically will enjoy because there is persistent progress in terms of upgrades and buffs almost each run, so you're not really resetting anything. It's a masterpiece in its own right, but I think it will be a good fit for you too. Hope this helps!

Hades or dead cells - both are fantastic roguelites that you can pretty much pause at any time and have loads of replayability

Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I am happy to part of this wonderful and helpful community!

That's exactly what I play Stardew Valley for -each in-game day lasts only a few minutes and ending the day saves automatically. Progress (as in extending your farm, befriending villagers, exploring the mines) is pretty much constant & endless.

"I have looked into the genre of roguelikes, however the basic premise of these games are that they start all over again from each session, which is what I am trying to avoid."

...Except this isn't true of what we'd traditionally call rogue-lites, which is really most roguelikes these days. The vast, vast majority have a lot of meta progression systems to the point where people actually expect it these days.

Sounds like you want Roguelites for sure. But here’s some other suggestions incase you’re looking for something else:

Stardew Valley and like games also come to mind, farming, gathering, etc. game is played in single days which usually don’t take too much time. Moonstone Islands was promising whenever that comes out.

Tower Defense games with upgrades, such as Pixel Junk Monsters or plants vs zombies or Dungeon Defenders. Playing through levels usually lets you get some currency or exp to level or unlock some new towers or etc.

Casual RPGs, something like one of the many Atelier series which has you gathering materials to craft alchemy ingredients, along with story, character development, etc. probably bigger than 10gb though.

Less specifically what you want, but could be of interest:

Casual Friendly MMO, such as Guild Wars 2. Levelling, material gathering, exploration, etc. all good progress to be made. Most stories and things are able to be done in fairly short instances, though some maps do have hour long metas, that’s end game-expansion stuff. Raids also may take a while, but strikes are the short version of that and much friendlier. It isn’t specifically single player but it can be played without having to party up with others unless you choose to do the group content. Some world content will have other players, but the games designed so seeing other players isn’t a pain. They can’t steal materials or ores or etc, it’s all player based. Definitely bigger than 10gb tho.

Check out supraland. It's puzzle solving with rouge like, but also a shooter and RPG 😄

Might’ve meant “material” progress, like “tangible” or progress that’s real and meaningful? “Materialistic” I think usually just means thinking about things you own rather than the quality of your life and relationships? Though saying it out now, I guess that works kind of… But I’ve only ever heard “materialistic” referring to people who only care about what someone owns rather than being a good person; never about video games or the kind of progress I think you’re wanting.

Anyway, lots of good suggestions here. I can’t add anything that meets all your qualifications; but if you are willing to dramatically break your install size requirement, I’ve been having a lot of fun lately with the Forza Horizon games (4 and 5) which are open-world racing/challenge games; but literally everything you do contributes to experience points and money you can use to upgrade and purchase new cars, and there are a lot of challenges which aren’t just races, there’s speed trials (how fast can you hit this one stretch of road), trick trials (how many jumps can you pull if in a minute) and so on.

But the install is like 65GB for FH4, and 150+GB for FH5… hundreds of high detail cars and massive open worlds, I guess… :(

Celeste is a great game that lets you play for as long as you want even if 1 minute. It's fun and challenge scales with progress, but also the game isn't punishing to you in any sense, it encourages you to try again small pieces of the puzzle that you're able to digest.

Probably some farming/life sims games, such as Stardew Valley and Coral Island. Cat Quest 1 and 2 might also fit the bill, plus they are soooo cute.

Maybe Terraria or similar basebuilder games? Sessions can be as long as you want and there's always something to work towards, whether it's building, crafting, exploring or fighting - sometimes all of these at the same time too.

You could play something like Civilization. It's turn based, so you can basically do a game session the lenght you want to do.

Any RPGs that's not cut-scenes heavy? For example games from the Etrian Odyssey series

I would recommend Dave the Diver. I haven't played it much yet but it's been playable in short spurts and has incremental progress that's been fun so far. And it has gotten really good reviews

I love Diablo 3 paragon system for that: I can play a few time, gain 1 paragon level, close the game et get back the day after. Because there are no soft or hard cap to paragon level, you always have that pleasure of gaining one level after the other. Sad they didn't kept that paragon system for Diablo 4 😢

Pentiment (free on Gamepass)

Against the Storm has you design a small town for the Queen every session.

Desktop Dungeons: Rewind has you take on one small dungeon each session.

Darkest Dungeon also fits, though progression is slow and grinding.

I'm not sure if it's under 10GB, but Cozy Grove is really nice. It's on Steam and probably a console or two.

You're a Spirit Scout, and every day you check in with some spirits on an island you shipwrecked on, and gather some materials, and do some dailies. It has many things that Animal Crossing also has, but it's really ideal played for 10-30 minutes a day. There's no real penalty to putting it down for a few months other than missing holidays. Super cute watercolor visual style.

I'd also look into Don't Starve. It's hard but other than that fits your description great.

Loop Hero. Idk what genera you would call it, but seems to be built to meet your criteria. Gameplay is made up of discreet loops that take maybe 10mins or less, and there is a material gathering, upgrade building meta progression in between loops.

Small data size, easy and quick to run, and cheap to buy too.