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?
Minecraft. It’s just a nice game to get lost in.
I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this gem:
Vampire Survivors
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.
Ooo heavy second Outer Wilds. Very fantastic game and comforting.
How would you sell that game to someone? I keep hearing about it but know nothing about it? What makes you love it?
Been meaning to play it after I bought it a while ago. I’ll have to get to it this weekend
Bloons TD 6. Just so incredibly addicting, and there’s depth to the different monkeys and how they interact, especially when you think about all the upgrades.
OpenTTD is my happy space. It’s relaxing to just hop in and start building some railroads.
It is still Guild Wars 2 for me.
It is very chill to play and only explore and it also has more challenging content if i feel like it. Best MMO out there. At least for me personally.
If anyone can show me the way to a guild wars 2 community here i would be grateful btw.
I have the base game. I played for a couple hours but haven’t got the “hook”. It feels very… unfulfilling… “objective marker on map, done, next”. Maybe not for me or I’m playing it wrong?
Honestly I still come back to old school RuneScape every now and then for that comfy nostalgia. Even as I type I get that pang to go questing.
To me, the best approach for base game, has always been to tackle it similar to Zelda BOTW/TOTK - you should just wander around until you find something interesting and then hang around and see what events might pop up. It’s not a very quest-driven experience similar to other MMOs and requires a bit of a different mindset.
Yeah we do not quest like other mmos, except in the campaign maybe. Which i always found refreshing and way better. I dont like to run from one questgiver to the next and back and do fetch quests, just to access the rest of the game. Cannot play those games anymore.
It is a theme park where you decide where to go. You could go to pvp from the start since stats are the same for everyone, or boost to 80 and start the expansions or wvw right away.
Funny thing about the markers on the map is , that most of them got added after launch because people did not know where to go and many complained it felt to empty.
They wanted to make it feel more real, so you have to get used to dynamic events and meta trains.
No other game that i know of has those grand fights with hundred of people against giant bosses like guild wars. Or mounts that feel different to play and not just means to travel. Check youtube for griffon and rollerbeetle races. Amazing stuff.
The combat seems to be simple sometimes but that is mostly in the open world and beginner zones.
Depending on the class, endgame in group content can be quite difficult. But the nice thing is that almost everything is optional.
Gotta set your own goals.
The achievement panel is sometimes confusing but once you learn to navigate and stick them to your HUD they become your questlog and there are a lot of them.
It also has no subscription so you can take all the time you need, which also helps socializing.
The fee to get the whole game can maybe be steep and the starter story is a bit old fashioned, but at least you own everything and it is cheaper and has more things to do than most other games these days.
It is understandable if you are not into it tho. We all play games for different reasons and like or dislike certain mechanics.
Just wanted to give you a rundown why i like it so sorry for the wall of text. :)
I appreciate it! It helps me understand what turned me off. I’ll look into giving it another shot when I want a break from Deep Rock Galactic.
i just might get back into it for it
Stardew Valley is my go-to. I found Firewatch really easy to get lost in too.
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.
Stardew Valley is amazing for this. Minecraft was it for years and years, but Stardew is just like a nice hug. I adore it.
Hogwarts Legacy has also fallen into this category for me now.
Star Wars: Racer - I know every track by heart at this point, have it on my Switch and still play quite a bit. Amazing flow state game.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - absolute classic and the nostalgia I get from playing is unmatched
Age of Empires 2 - the music is just muah
KotoR - Best Star Wars game ever made next to Dark Forces 2 and Jedi Outcast
Anyone of my simulation/management games. Whether it’s running a hospital, creating an auto manufacturing assembly line or helping some brave adventurers find oxygen I’m always more at peace with a single player goal driven experience.
Portal. I’ve played through it enough times that I can complete it in a little under 20 minutes. I’m not very good at games but there are a lot of fun and easy tricks to run through it quickly. Playing it a bunch of times is relaxing and fun for me.
Im gonna be “that guy” and say dark souls 1. Subsequent playthroughs of the game are surprisingly relaxing, when you know where everything is and you’re just putting together a build and steamrolling bosses.
Agreed. And when you do want the old intensity back, you can try a challenge run or fire up a randomizer for some chaos.
Was going to say the exact same thing! First playthrough is super stressful, but each time after it pretty much becomes casual.
I think that the bonfires are actually not that far apart when you really know where they are, with the exception of a few areas.
There is something about how casual the subsequent playthroughs are that is really cathartic. Like you’re just walking over challenges that seemed insurmountable the first time through.
Yep, knowing where things are is a relief from stress. This is also why the Fog Gate Randomizer mods are so fun.
Ah I haven’t heard of that one. Mods in ds1 are an avenue I haven’t explored yet, but the item and boss randomizers look really fun.
Oh man, [https://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/1305](Item Randomizer) and [https://www.nexusmods.com/darksoulsremastered/mods/165](Fog Gate Randomizer) together (they’re compatible!) is my jam. I was so mad the one time a key item was placed where the Blue Slab is in Crystal Caverns.
Thanks! Any builds that work better in randomizers than others, or is it just about being flexible on what you find early on?
That’s kind of the thing, you won’t know what’ you’ll get until you play, so you can’t really plan. One time I had to jump between spear and pike until I got something good. Another run I got the Giant’s Blacksmith Hammer (not from him) during my first few areas.
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 ;)
Over the past years I’ve played a lot of relaxing indie- and open source games. The ones that really stuck with me were Eqilinox (Steam), Endless Sky (homepage, open source) and Veloren (homepage, open source).
Bonus game which just came to my mind: Slime Rancher (Steam) was a really fun, too!
