Hello all! I would like to know what games give you that cozy, fuzzy feeling of simple happiness.
I’m currently experiencing this with Tchia, a wholesome game about a girl doing fun stuff on an island.
Weirdly enough I have a similar thing going with Doom (2016) at the moment. Something about the intensity of the levels and the interesting map design make me feel really satisfied and immersed.
Lastly, Super Mario 3D World really has a similar effect to Tchia, we’re I immediately get a happy feeling just by booting it up and looking at the wonderful colors en design.
What is your go-to game for feeling relaxes or happy?
Probably Civilization V (with the difficulty set below maximum so you’re not too restricted and don’t have to play so sweaty). I like just seeing whatever the Planet Simulator map spits out, putz around with half my brain turned off, trying out niche civs and basically just playing it like solitaire.
I don’t play it even every week anymore, but when I need some distraction and relaxation that’s a comfort game go-to.
Factorio without bitters. The music of desolance, alone on the planet trying to get efficient so you can leave and go home. I don’t know why it is so relaxing, but it is… just having time to plan and build exactly what you had in mind is bliss.
On the other hand if you want some adrenaline, play bitters in deathworld.
Factorio has this thing where if I play it while listening to a podcast or audiobook they use up exactly 100% of my focus. No less, I can’t think of anything else. But also no more, I never get tired. It’s a very specific form of relaxation for me; where I feel like I’m existing “just right”.
Exactly what I do. I use Angels and Bobs mods for a huge amount of stuff to do, loads of trains (almost 1,000 in my current playthrough!), and loads of stuff to build.
It’s heavenly!
West of Loathing. The RPG stuff is great and the comedy is great but really the main strength is I just enjoy reading its dialogue. The vocabulary and sentence construction have a real sincerity for the setting contrasted against the silliness of the rest of it that makes both parts hit harder.
Similarly, the first three Monkey Island games which achieve that same injection of the heartfelt into the wacky by way of their gorgeous art and music.
But as far as the joy of just doing something it’s hard to beat the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games, to just be dropped into a level and be told “do cool stuff for a while”.
I love West of Loathing, one of the best games ever made. Completely second this.
- Minecraft, sometimes.
- Garden of the Sea, when I first played it
- Walkabout mini golf
- Lumber Tycoon 2 on Roblox
This browser game/toy called Infinite Craft was doing that for me yesterday. It’s very neat, you just take different words and combine them to create new things, and then use those to make more things, but its secret is that it uses a low level AI so that if you craft a combination that’s never been crafted before it can accommodate that and attributes you as the first discoverer.
You start with the whole basic idea of combining elements like fire and water to make steam and such, but you can relatively quickly end up accidentally creating more complex things, and they dont even have to be objects, they can be named franchises or concepts like Star Wars or Creation.
Eventually I felt like a small kid ripping the limbs off action figures and seeing if the dinosaur head would fit on the Darth vader figure. I ended up first discovering some insane Eldritch shit like Barack Crabwich Vader-car, a part president, part crab, part sandwich, part sith lord cyborg, part car. Or Zombie Muppet Prince Kermie. Or the Jurassic Mecha-Deloreansaur.
It’s free and is a ridiculously absurd hoot, I’d recommend it on a PC browser since you get a big space to drag out certain concepts you wanna keep and reuse.
Stardew Valley for sure. Sometimes Euro Truck Simulator 2 to chill.
I used to play ets2 to relax, then I discovered truckersmp
As a newbie, I was rushing to figure out all the mechanics fast enough to unlock the greenhouse in year 1. It was a bit of a stressful optimization game trying to max out every single day.
Since I unlocked it, cash is rolling in so fast I don’t even know what to do with it anymore. I just hit Spring in t year 2 and it’s really chill, now. I’m thinking of selling most of my animals since It’s repetitive needing to pet them and make cheese/mayo every day. I might just cheat and get a couple auto-petters to make it even more relaxed…
On the SNES: Star Fox and TMNT 4 turned in time.
On PC it’s probably gonna be Space Quest 3 and Star Wars X-WING Alliance.
- Persona 5 Royal
- Captain Toad Tracker
- Mario 3D World
Minecraft with friends
Hi-Fi Rush
Pure joy and happiness from start to finish.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon. rouge likes are tough as all fuck, but there’s something about the level of detail in this game, and the way I get to build characters that I find very relaxing
Slime rancher and Subnautica for sure.
Citizen Sleeper had many moments that I just breathed in and smiled about. It is a beautiful game with beautiful stories in it
The Last Campfire feels like you’re being read a bedtime story, in the best way. I haven’t quite felt anything like it from gaming.
Heat VR. Not even for the adult content; just staring into the character’s eyes or mussing their hair is incredibly relaxing.
VRChat, too, but since those are all real people you can’t just necessarily go around admiring them up close since it would disrupt their experience. Just as rude IRL, imo.
Alba is a really sweet game with a photography mechanic. It’s short and usually cheap and well worth the time you’ll spend with it if it sends like something you’d like.
