Terraria

It's impossible to talk about Terraria without mentioning how mechanically similar it is to Minecraft: Java Edition. You chop down trees and mine the earth, collecting raw materials to build houses and craft items, both to defend yourself from enemies and to explore the game world farther and deeper. What makes the Terraria experience (drastically) different from Minecraft is how these mechanics are tuned and balanced, such that, while I'd say Minecraft is more about the exploration and construction, Terraria is much more focused on fighting and survival. Being 2D, fighting enemies is a lot simpler and more straightforward, but these enemies are at the same time tougher, and more numerous, than your foes in Minecraft; and as you dig deeper into Terraria's underworld, they become downright fierce.

This progressive difficulty in turn forces you to focus on level-up items (as far as I know, just pickups to increase your mana pool and total health); crafting potions to get you through the tough times; and forging new armor and weapons to give those hell-monsters more of a fight. When I started playing, some of my buddies gave me their old equipment to get a leg-up, but I've still got a lot of equipment to make and upgrades to collect before I can adventure comfortably in the deep-dark underworld.