Relaxing Games for Trying Times

Animal Crossing seems like an obvious suggestion.

For me, Steamworld Dig 2 is a most pure zen experience and Metroidvania. Partially thanks to its excellent soundtrack, but mostly because the gameplay loop is so perfectly tuned. Everything “feels” great, the progression of abilities and equipment is supremely satisfying, and I frequently go back to play this game all over again whenever shit gets heavy. It’s also available on everything, including Switch:

I’ve been playing a whole hell of a lot of Stardew Valley.

It’s StopThreadShitting.ufckr

I should try that again. I bounced off it because I couldn’t find a way to play it that “felt” good, in terms of the interface. Do you use a controller or M&KB?

I use M+Kb but use whatever is comfortable for you, both control schemes should be fine. I appreciate the mouse targeting personally.

Just take it easy and enjoy it, don’t get wrapped up in finishing everything right away. Once you get to year two you can look up the wiki and get busy if you still want to.

Oh and during the spring festival thing buy as many strawberry seeds as you can afford, they will pay off. :)

Another one for me would be The Perfect General 2. The sounds of units moving was so damn soothing.

I kept an old laptop just to play the game.

I had the same problem. Loved My Time at Portia, so picked this up since everyone was raving about it, but so far it hasn’t clicked. Playing with a controller, seems like there should be an easier way to select what tool to use.

I found glass masquerade to be a very appealing game. I would add spirit of the north.

I’ve gone back to Minecraft recently. Just playing on peaceful in the ray tracing beta, making massive stained glass windows to watch the light filter through them. Maybe have a podcast on. If there’s a more relaxing way to spend a few hours in a game I don’t know.

I was loving this game so much on Switch. Pure joy working my way through the levels, planning a path to mine.

Then I got to this stupid platform level you have to run through. No mining, just a forced rush. I hated it and haven’t played since.

This was one of the most enjoyable relaxing games I have played recently:

It would likely fall into the aquatic version of a ‘walking simulator’, so I guess a swimming simulator. There is a lot to see and study, but no violence whatsoever, nothing to fear. You won’t run out of air or get the bends. You’ll just float around, looking at the wildlife. There is a bit of an overarching ‘story’, but it’s not intrusive at all. It’s a little bit like a much lower-stress Subnautica.

It seems crazy to me that no one has said:

I’ve definitely enjoyed a few relaxing evenings designing things that are both optimized and aesthetically appealing. Fair warning it’s early access, though it feels pretty polished to me minus two small bugs I encountered, neither of them game-breaking.

How about Martian gardening! Humane, sustainable, 100% GREEN.

Or go globe-trotting instead! Oh the places you’ll go. The people you will meet!

I have a 2060 RTX card and I’ve followed the steps on the Nvidia site to install the RTX beta. I think it’s installed? However, it doesn’t let me download the RTX example maps and it seemingly doesn’t run in RTX or beta mode. Is there anything else that needs to be installed? My Nvidia drivers are the most recent…

Animal Crossing is filling this void for me.

Wanna go skiing? Without the risk of injury?

This being a Ubi game, there is an open world to explore. It is pretty relaxing just riding down slopes.

Did you go through the rigmarole of joining the Xbox insider stuff?

This is a cheap thriller, can be a good distraction if you like gliding, swooping…

Yeah… but didn’t see where it did anything.

What? I found that game so stressful. So many difficult choices! Too much to do, too little time!