Life can be overwhelming. Whether you’re reading this on a peaceful or hectic day, video games are always a great resource to regain your footing in the world. Here are 8 games you can play to decompress and prepare yourself for another day.
We get it, life can be overwhelming. Whether you’re reading this on a peaceful or hectic day, video games are always a great resource to regain your footing in the world. Here are 8 games you can play to decompress and prepare yourself for another day. These are also ranked from the most well-known to the general public to the farthest corners of your Steam library.
1 - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
This should go without saying, but Breath of the Wild has brought cozy and open world games to an entirely new level. Its vibrant environment and soundscapes bring tranquility, and the sheer amount of freedom you have lets you play exactly how you want to play.
One particular highlight is the hunt for Korok seeds, in which there are a whopping 900 of them. They’re scattered around the enormous world map, and are collected by performing specific actions in certain areas. If you’re just looking to explore the area and be a little productive to boot, this task will aid you in that journey.
With hundreds of hours worth of content and a hundred more for completionists, you’ll find so much to enjoy from this game.
2 - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The Animal Crossing series is the quintessential representation of a cozy game. Adorable animals, cute aesthetics and near-unlimited customizability are just a few features of the game that can scratch that interior design itch, amongst other things.
One of the best things about the game is that there’s always something to do, yet those things are almost never time-sensitive. For example, when you land on your island, you are to pay money back to Tom Nook, the head of resident services, as payment for staying on the island. Even though that sounds tedious, there’s in fact many different ways for you to do it, such as fishing, planting and selling crops, completing side quests, etc. You have complete freedom over how you want to earn that money, and you have unlimited time to do so as well.
Once you’ve completed that payment, more customization opportunities are open for you, such as building houses for your island friends, or even terraforming your own island.
3 - Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley is widely known as one of the best farming simulators in the industry. You take over your grandfather’s farm, invited to restore it to its former glory. On top of this, there’s also fishing, foraging, dungeon crawling and community building.
The relaxing part of this game, like animal crossing, is the fact that you can complete tasks with little to no time limit. While it’s true that crops can wilt and die if left unattended for several days, the game itself is quite forgiving in the way that you can always try again. Even during combat in the caves, the worst that can happen is that you get booted back to your house and lose a day’s worth of time.
Bonus: The most impressive part of this game is the fact that it’s all made by one, extremely dedicated person named ConcernedApe.
4 - Slime Rancher 2
As you might predict, there’s a pattern emerging with relaxing games being farm-centric. Slime Rancher 2 is a game where, as the title suggests, make a ranch with sentient slimes. You’re equipped with a vacuum-like gun which can suck up slimes, plorts (slime poop), crops and much more.
The gameplay loop revolves around collecting slimes and placing them in farms. When they’re fed with the right food, they’ll poop a valuable resource called plorts, which can be sold for cash, which can be used to upgrade your gun and farm to collect more slimes.
Just like all the previous games, there’s no time limit. The game is also super forgiving, where “losing” means running out of health and spawning back in your house, losing just a day’s worth of time.
5 - Unpacking
Unpacking is a puzzle game where you experience being a new homeowner. Your job is to take their possessions out of boxes and place them in the respective places in the house. The interesting part of this game is that the “levels” of unpacking reflect a person’s life, with you starting out in a childhood bedroom, into a college dorm, and into larger houses that they’ve bought out.
While the entire experience is relaxing and zen-like, there’s also a subtle story behind it since you’re growing with them. It’s for that reason that those with a love for stories will love playing this game.
6 - Forager
Forager advertises itself as a “idle game that you want to actively keep playing”. The game revolves around unlocking islands which require gold to buy. This gold is earned through selling resources that you mine, plant and trade. Once you’ve bought more islands, you’ll unlock more resources, and those resources will provide you with even more gold to buy more islands and to upgrade your gear, thus completing the gameplay loop.
The map itself is incredibly small, but incredibly abundant with resources, meaning that there’s always something you can do. There’s more secrets that I won’t spoil for now, but it’s safe to say that the experience can be very comforting once you’ve understood the basics.
7 - Ooblets
Ooblets is one of the newer games released in this list. You’re a newcomer to an island full of Ooblets, which are Pokemon-like creatures that you can collect, and you’re responsible for managing a farm to grow food for your island residents.
While there exists a similar concept of catching Ooblets, the way you do so is, in my opinion, absolutely buck wild. To start, you’ll need to bribe them with certain resources that you have to farm and craft. Once they’re satisfied, you’ll need to beat them in a dance competition, which uses your own Ooblets to compete. Only after you beat them will they poop out a seed, which will sprout into the Ooblet that you’ve just beaten. Once that’s done, you can register the new Ooblet, which will unlock more resources and areas that contain more Ooblet types.
Just like all the games mentioned above, there’s no time limit, and the worst that can happen is your plants wilting or dying, which just leads to a bit of lost time. The game contains hilarious dialogue, is whimsical, and absolutely absurd at times. If you love absurdist comedy, you’ll adore this game.
8 - Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to)
Kind Words is a strange one to talk about because it’s so different from the other games mentioned. The game revolves around you writing encouraging messages to others feeling down, while also receiving messages when you’re feeling down or overwhelmed. All of this is neatly packaged in a relaxing backdrop of lo-fi chill music in the background. By writing and receiving messages, you also earn stickers, which you can attach to your letters to trade with other people as well.
Now that you’re (hopefully) relaxed and ready, perhaps you’d like to continue your gaming endeavours by joining its more competitive side. If you’re interested, take a look at the games we coach here at Vanta Esports.