With gaming often bringing me into a really depressive headspace sometimes with how the markets are developing, whats a game you can always go to and just be lost in, or just be happy with?
Personally i would go for advance wars 1 and 2 on the gba (there is no remake and never will be)
the artstyle, the music, the game-play is just simple, yet effective, a sublime experience of very fun times.
Whats yours?
I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this gem:
Vampire Survivors
Minecraft. It’s just a nice game to get lost in.
OpenTTD is my happy space. It’s relaxing to just hop in and start building some railroads.
For me, it’s always Ocarina of Time. The music always improves my mood and there is something oddly comforting about the game.
Outer wilds. The music is so pretty, and going back to it after you’ve explored it all feels like being on your childhood playground again. Sometimes now I just go out into space and watch how the planets move.
Second this. Outer Wilds is amazing. If you do play, try not to look up anything as the satisfaction of exploring and figuring things out is so cool. The sound track is very good as is the DLC.
How would you sell that game to someone? I keep hearing about it but know nothing about it? What makes you love it?
The outer wilds is an exploration game of the highest pedigree. You’re in an intricate solar system with lots to discover and puzzle out to solve the central mystery of the game. The atmosphere is quite fun and calming. The music is pretty catchy too. I appreciate the big revelations, the moments where you immediately feel big brained by putting 2 and 2 together. It’s genuinely a really good time if you want game about the wonder of discovery.
There’s a reason you keep hearing how good the game is but still don’t know much about it. The community is great in letting everyone experience it themselves.
It’s best if you know nothing about Outer Wilds before playing it, trust me. I know this is a cliché way of recommending stuff, but in this case it can’t be overstated. Just give it an honest try for at least 1-2 hours.
It’s a game that gives you “2”, “plus”, and “two” separately, instead of telling you the answer is 4. Some people don’t like it and prefer handholding. Half of the game is done in your head when you’re not playing it.
So basically a game that’s heavy on exploration and puzzles? It’s not open world is it?
Not in the way BOTW is, it’s closer to Myst in that there’s a world (solar system) to explore with lots clues and lore but not a lot of irrelevant fluff.
Gotcha, I prefer a bit of structure (BOTW being one of few exception) so that works out for me.
Animal Crossing New Horizons. Extremely chill, no pressure to do anything in particular, just a very “go at your own pace” type of game.
If you like New Horizons, I recommend trying some of the earlier entries, like New Leaf or City Folk, if you haven’t already.
New Horizons took a page out of Pocket Camp’s book and turned a lot of the gameplay into a grindy collectathon (get wood to build stuff, seasonal events are just “collect 50 thingamabobs”), and personally, I’ve found that to be stressful.
So if you haven’t tried the other entries, I definitely recommend giving them a shot. You might find that they’re even more relaxing :)
Euro Truck Simulator/American Truck Simulator
It quickly just becomes a virtual road trip simulator, and as someone who generally enjoys driving and road trips its very chill
Yes. Podcasts and ets/ats is very zen.
I’m surprised Katamari Damacy hasn’t been mentioned yet. Both that game and its sequel, “We Love Katamari,” have been remastered in recent years (in fact, the sequel just came out last week) and they’re a joy to play.
The game has all that OP mentions… Quirky art style, awesome music, simple tactile gameplay, and just overall a relaxing and fun time.
Stardew Valley comes to mind right away, but I think it applies to all titles after you get the hang of it, with the exception of heavily RNG-based games like Risk of Rain 2, Hades, Dead Cells where you have to be alert almost all the time. Currently I’m enjoying playing Red Dead Redemption 2. Definitely a comfort game just riding your horse around.
I tried Stardew Valley one time, and it killed me. I would probably call myself a completionist and all the stuff I have to remember from the get go and dates and times I need to be somewhere to don’t miss out just made me stressed out. But I haven’t looked into it if you really miss out or you can do the stuff later, too. It was I while ago… perhaps I will give it another try.
I don’t think you can actually permanently fail anything. If you want to just farm and ignore socializing with people that’s totally fine, you can always raise your friendship with them later, once the farm is more established. Having sprinklers installed really cuts down on tedium.
Adventuring in the mines is another way to go, you can ignore farming for a while if you like, or just do it on rainy days.
Or you can just spend all your time socializing until you are maxed out and don’t need to anymore (stardew wiki required if you want to keep your sanity figuring out how to max socialize).
It’s all valid.
Stardew Valley is as stressful as you wanna make it lol
I can always go for a game of Age of Empires 2. That game takes me back to my childhood.
It has been a while, but there was a time when, if I was feeling really anxious and almost panicky, a quick playthrough of Enter the Gungeon would chill me right out.
Stardew Valley is my go-to. I found Firewatch really easy to get lost in too.
Yeah, definitely Stardew Valley with some mods. It’s pretty close to endless things you can do in that game. Thinking of Stardew Valley have me wondering about the state of the Haunted Chocolatier game.
I forgot about this! Now I’m wondering too haha.
Firewatch is great! Since you liked that, also check out Life is Strange: True Colors
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll check it out!
Trackmania 2020 is great!
If I’m not careful, an entire afternoon will disappear before I notice if I fire up Trackmania. It’s just so good at getting me in to a flow state of just really dialing in my gameplay.
No Man’s Sky is a good mix of nice scenery, low stress, and engaging without requiring a lot of mental capacity that can be comforting.
also worth mentioning: No Man’s Sky (or NMS) has lots of settings to tailor the experience to the difficulty you want. It can be a walk in the park, just building with limitless resources, and it can be permadeath.
I have multiple save games in NMS which I pick up based on my mood. A Survival save game when I don’t want to mindlessly wander but don’t want consequences, a Permadeath savegame when I want to be thrilled and a Normal savegame if I just want to soak in the beautiful planets.
Excellent point. I keep meaning to try a permadeath run but its hard with a 2 year old running around to find the time for something like that.
just… don’t. Not everything in life has to be hard ;)
Try not to have an overly rosy retrospection about this. There were plenty of crappy, cash-grabby games in decades past. We just don’t remember them because they were crappy, cash-grabby, and not worth remembering. They hadn’t invented microtransactions yet, but that’s just one more flavor of crappiness.
