My wife has recently been playing a game on a new tablet and she appears to be a bit frustrated. I believe the game she is on about is a world builder type. Maybe a “Tycoon” type. From what I have gathered it has a quest driven aspect that she does not fancy.
She likes to explore game worlds and see all the new sights but does not want to be forced into a continual quest line where she feels obligated to continue rather than step back and explore. I believe she would like to CHOOSE when to accept a quest.
The game she is playing on the tablet is one where you build and manage a farm. She likes that activity and enjoys the visuals and all the things she can interact with and explore. But she does not like being forced to do some predetermined activities that have some real world timelines. It forces her to play the game every so often or lose what she is raising I think.
I think she would be fine with any open worldish type game where she can build something like a farm, town, amusement park, zoo, etc. And she would like to have quests that she can select to do when she wants or ignore if she didn’t. She doesn’t really know what she would like, only that she does not like a real world time schedule with negative consequences.
Stardew Valley springs immediately to mind. It’s more about exploring relationships and people than the world, per se, but it’s very relaxed and unbothered about letting you take things on at your own pace.
AC has minor real-world timer things, but those are really about day/night and seasons and holidays and stuff, not “come water your flowers, my lord! they will die in 03:21:03!!!” Opportunities rather than punishments, say.
AC on the Switch is a truly wonderful game. That and Stardew are massive hits for very good reasons; they just burst with joy.
Well my 13yr old daughter has played one version or another of AC over several platforms. She is now on a DS2 and I think she orignally got hooked on AC on the Wii. I know she wants a Switch, but she also wanted a drawing tablet that was more expensive than her laptop! We had to set up our backup laptop for that contraption to run off of since it needed more HDMI and USB ports than her laptop had…
So Mom is not very interested in playing an AC game. She has played alongside my daughter enough to know that.
The game my wife is playing on the tablet is called “Township.” And she now appears to be all back into it again. So maybe she just had a bit of frustration and was asking me (us) about alternative games at that time?
She looked into Stardew Valley quite seriously but was tempered by the quality of the graphics. She REALLY enjoys the Stunning Visuals ™ of the (top down isometric) Township game. She particularly mentioned that while watching characters walking around in that game she can tap on them via the touch screen and they will wave to her. I believe it is that kind of interaction that is drawing her into that particular game experience.
Either way, she appears to be back into Township after at least a period of frustration. But would still greatly appreciate any other suggestions! Personally I also like top down management games where what is going on in the visuals I see from my God perspective is fairly realistic for modern graphics capability.