With the oddysey expac coming out soon, Rimworld at the easiest settings & Phoebe storyteller mode might just fit the bill. I low key kinda love growing crops and sending the elephants off to sell them. You could make a whole colony around growing stuff and ranching, and then using the upcoming travel overhaul to distribute your goods and upgrade your base & ship to reach further and sell more.
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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I guess no cuteness / anime excludes the rune factory series so I'd go with the following recommendations:
- Stardew Valley is an all time favorite .
- Kynseed feels like the fever dream of someone who once heard of these kind of games. But you can decide for yourself if you want to focus on questing, farming, becoming a business mogul or whatever. Time is not really relevant in this game since you character doesn't have to sleep and you can just get kids or adopt them and continue you game with them if your character gets old.
- Graveyard Keeper has a very different spin on the whole genre, it has a dark sense of humor and not knowing what to do, when the bodies pile up can be stressful but I enjoyed it a lot.
- Travelers Rest is a game where you build your own tavern. I only played it for a few hours in early access but it felt relaxing and looked nice so far. It's out for a while now but I haven't returned yet (stupid sexy Hades II.. )
There are also cross overs with other genres like Moonstone Island which combines building your own home and collecting pets and discovering new islands with their help.
My initial impression of Moonstone Island is that it's kind of like a cross between Stardew Valley and Pokemon. Does that sound about right?
I haven't played since they added a bunch of updates and features but a while back it lacked the deep bonds you can forge in Stardew Valley but they added more content to this part of the game so I guess it became better in this regard. Collecting pets is likely still the main focus.
You start in a base island where you can forage building material and start collecting pets. You then build flying objects (I think you start with a kite?) to leave and discover other islands with different pets and different difficulties (finding out the difficulty is through fuck around and find out afaik).
The building is besides some very basic objects entirely optional but having a barn fit your pets it's very important. But then you can go out, discover islands and collect pets.
What felt a bit annoying was that there are specific items needed to open dungeons on some of these islands and these items may only appear during a specific season. I was a bit frustrated when I finally found the summer dungeon and it just became fall.
Writing this made me want to replay it since they added a bunch of interesting stuff. But even in it's unfinished state I would have recommended it.
Not who you asked, but I’m in the middle of a playthrough right now and yes that’s exactly it. The deck building doesn’t feel grindy like Pokémon though.
Traveler’s Rest looks like it has some legs, thanks for that rec!
I second travelers rest. I'm not too far in it despite owning it for years. It's very chill. I don't think there's any real time limits. The only real issue I've had with it was accidentally opening my inn and not realizing a crowd has developed with no one to serve them.
Graveyard keeper is pretty good too but I stopped playing after needing extra kinds of materials. It's been a while but the farming of the resources was just a little too much for the type of experience I was after. I'll get back to it eventually. I liked the idea of the game a lot.
I had the same experience with Graveyard Keeper but gave it another try a few years later. Either they balanced it more or it bothered me less, but the second time I was able to complete it without ending up hating it :D
Many thanks for the tips! Graveyard Keeper and Traveler's Rest look interesting. The rest is pretty much exactly what I don't want in terms of style haha.
Farming Simulator 25 - realistic modern farming
Coral island - chill life sim
Graveyard keeper - story with lots of farming and crafting sim elements
some Minecraft modpacks are farming focused
Ranch Sim - farming/hunting/homesteading mix
Farming Dynasty - euro farming sim
Garden Life - chill, grow flowers, decorate your garden, etc.
Hard to say where the line is for 'looking like anime' but for things that are a bit stylized but not anime styled exactly, there's also Staxel, the My Time At __ series, and some others.
Seconding Graveyard Keeper and Traveler's Rest.
I would also like to recommend Schedule I. It's not exactly a farming game, but there is farming, and it has a similar chill vibe.
Farming Simulator 25 is surprisingly very fun, but the time it takes to complete work can be draining.
Palia is free, and the actual farming portion is super neat with the way crops interact with each other based on placement, though it might be too cute.
Apico is bee farming, so slightly different. The creator is making a similar game with frogs.
Staxel isn't exactly anime but might not be your style either, I adored it, but it makes me motion sick to play.
Oh boy, I had the same issue with Staxel and I don't get it.. why? This annoyed me way more than I expected
Might be a slightly off (unchangeable) FoV. I, too, could not play this one very long.
This is sad. For the same reason I can't play Half Life 2, Portal and Talos Principle >.<
But in those you CAN most definately change the FoV. Usually you need to just try out your optimal in regard to monitor-size and resolution. Staxel had no option for that as far as i remember. When you found your FoV your nausea/motion-sickness should be gone for good. At least this is the culprit in most of the cases and some devs still haven't learned :-)
Mudborne: a frog themed frog-breeding simulator with some frog-breed puzzling to open up paths between islands/dimensions (very extra chill)
Apico: haven't played it yet, but it's made by the same devs & revolves about beekeeping
Farming Simulator
Sounds like you want a factory/automation game.
I propose Satisfactory, Foundry, Desynced, or Shapez 2.
None of them involve anime, through I think the robots in Foundry and Desynced look cute. All of them involve building things, and automating the building of things.
As much as I second the rec for satisfactory, I'm not sure I'd classify it as 'chill' unless you're playing on peaceful.
I've been looking at shapez 2 for a bit, but I'm worried the infinite resource aspect of it would cause me to get bored too quickly
On the other hand, you don't need to worry about power in Shapez 2. The constant power crunch in Satisfactory is what made me drop it.
Satisfactory, Timberborn (might be too cute but it doesn't bother me), Valheim.
Is Coral Island too anime in style?
Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately it is, yes.
Raft was kind of interesting, and chill if you turn off "sharks keep attacking for some reason" mode.
I watched someone play Satisfactory and they had a blast.
Dinkum was fun and not stressful, but the characters have big heads and it's got some typical farming life sim elements that were inspired by harvest moon and animal crossing.
Roots of Pacha is a really nice Stardew Valley inspired farming game with a very unique setting (stone age). Could be worth checking out for you.
So this is a very on-the-nose one but Farming Simulator 22 definitely fits your description. I've played it a lot despite being a city slick. It's very calming in a way and satisfying once you have a decent production line going. I don't love how much the story can get in the way with more whimsical farming sims so this (no story whatsoever) was a very welcome change. Oh and there's a ton of high quality mods on Steam workshop.
Maybe try peachleaf pirates.
It's a lot like stardew valley. And less than $2 in the sale. It might be a bit more puzzle game in places. Probably best to read some reviews before you buy.
Perhaps Eco. It's a bit like Minecraft but much more farming, if you choose the farming profession, and no combat whatsoever. Mainly a multiplayer game through public servers but it's doable solo as well through settings.
"Against the storm" is really really good, I'm not sure about chill. They offer different speed settings and I have a tendency to go as fast as I can.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1336490/Against_the_Storm/
Wait. i know.
"Terra Nil" is about restoring earth's ecosystem through building.
Trying to list some I haven't already read here:
Len's Island. Will even be released the next days.
Everafter Falls
Necesse (also releasing soon)
Palworld
Enshrouded
While some might not be "chill farming" only, they could be set (or modded) to nearly no danger. Actually most (more recent) survival-games could be played that way. I do 😁
If just chill is mandatory:
Farming Together (or alone, part two also incoming)
Enshrpuded is a great suggestion. You can ignore quests unless you want to expand your plot. Just pick a plot of land and start farming. Go out into the wild to find new stuff to plant. Unfortunately there's not much to do with your harvest except to make provisions to go play the rest of the game, but that's how you find more things to plant. I had a great time designing the layout of my crops.
Synergy