Gaming

Minecraft and No Man’s Sky. Explore a little; build a little; shoot a few baddies; chill; repeat 😊

RDR2 Ik it's a little intense at times, but between missions its relaxing to just ride your horse around, craft/cook, and enjoy the beautiful scenery

Mass Effect, Dragon Age:Origins, Fallout 4 and Skyrim are a must when I need to play something for a few days without being worried about not having enough time to finish the game, or missing something when playing while watching the kids.

I've played thousands of hours on them.

Trackmania 2020 is great!

honestly any shoot em up or bullet heaven game. its nice and cathartic to blow up a fleet of spaceships in super galaxy squadron or mow down a thousand monsters in vampire survivors.

Slime Rancher 2 is my more recent go-to. Failing that, Super Mario World or Yoshi's Island will always do it for me

Transport Tycoon, using OpenTTD. If you've never played it you can download OpenTTD and use their graphics, sounds, and music replacement sets to play it for free. However as I own the base game I like to keep the original music as it helps to drive the nostalgia.

I love Doom, and I've been playing it since I first got hold of the shareware episode, but when I really need a comfort game it's almost always Transport Tycoon.

Minecraft

I always find myself coming back to Monster Hunter every time I wanna chill and relax.

Civilization 4. Incredible quotes, amazing sound track, deep mechanics

A Short Hike might be my favorite peacefull one. Or death stranding on a lower difficulty.

Animal Crossing New Horizons. Extremely chill, no pressure to do anything in particular, just a very “go at your own pace” type of game.

Cities Skylines tends to be the game I return to when I just need to chill for a bit. I'll come up with some silly idea for a city, fire up a map I haven't built on yet, and see what I can make work. There's no endgame, no goals aside from what I feel like doing, just a sandbox and some toys to play with.

For me it’s definitely Pokémon. When I was a kid I used to spend so much time just going through a million sapphire playthroughs. Even now if I’m having a bad day I’ll boot it up and play it a little.

Also special shoutout to factorio and stardew valley. It’s so easy to just lose all sense of time with those games lol

Tony Hawk's Underground 2. Been playing it since I was 2. 21 now

Spore. I love making little creatures. Gameplay is simple but it's still fun!

Bloons td 6

One that I can think of is Journey. Another one that is pretty nice to play is Rime. There's a mobile game called sky or something as well that's pretty pretty to play as well.

Probably World of Warcraft for. Feels like pulling on a pair of worn comfortable jeans when you haven't touched it in ages.

I always find myself firing up a few round of Battlefield 4 or, for longer stretches, doing a new playthrough of Fallout 4 (with mods of course).

For me it's the original Wild Arms on PS1. The translation makes the game a bit of a slog to play through. But, the soundtrack alone puts me into a happy place.

A sad story, made lighter by the friends found along the way.

Surprised to be the first one to name it: Europa Universalis 4. Nothing better than to paint the map listening to either the EU4 soundtracks or your playlists.

Cozy endless games like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, or Sims 4, where I can just get lost in the gameplay and don't have to stress out over objectives or missions.

Easily Path of Exile. There's something so relaxing about blowing up the entire screen with one flick of my wrist, and it really gets my endorphins flowing to minmax my stats using third party tools like Path of Building and testing out items on the trade site / changes to my skill tree to see how they'd affect my build.

To some people it sounds like work, but for me it hits that sweet spot of minmaxing and complexity that no other game really can.

Edit: I should also mention that lately I've been mostly playing on Steam Deck which has been a revelation for me. Endgame "alch and go" mapping is so perfect for the pick up and play style, only enhanced by having access to it from the couch/toilet.

Slay the Spire and the digital version of Ascension, solo play. I guess I like deckbulders. Ascension especially is so comforting for me, chill gameplay, no time pressure and I can put it down anytime and resume later on. Or not and just start a new one instead.

Or Isaac if I am in the mood for some action. plop plop plop plop.

I recently heard that a Skyrim was a comfy game and I'm one to agree. Now I haven't picked up the game in months, but I know I can go back and pick it up again knowing that I'll be able to get lost in the world of the Dragonborn.

Another one for me is Stardew Valley, and I've also started to play Veloren bit which could also go up there as a cozy game.

I don't play this often enough lately but Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams is a super simple & cosy game. It's jigsaw puzzles, yes, but you also get to decorate the apartment where you're doing the puzzles. It is just a very chill, no-pressure time and often I will just mess around doing the decor side of it so I have a few different apartment vibes to choose from for when I finally decide to do a puzzle. When I get super sad & unmotivated I will do a really small easy puzzle on the bedroom desk and it helps me to get the feeling that I have completed a thing, which is sometimes enough to help get me moving on non-game things.

Kerbal Space Program and Rain World

Skyrim, fire emblem(anything 3DS and up, I haven't played the older games) and Warframe ❤️ these games always make me happy and comfort me if needed

If I'm just relaxing, probably Arma 3. It's editor is like playing with toys for adults. I love making missions or armies that aren't balanced or made for other people. I do this little mini-game with myself where I build up an army starting with only pistols and a few guys. Then as you beat more competent opponents, like maybe it starts put with poorly equipped pirates and looters and goes up to fighting the United States or PLA, you get more and more equipment and fight on progressivly larger maps. It's very fun, and feels like being a child again. Plus, maybe it has a bit of Metal Gear Peacewalker inspiration.

Mirrors edge is a series I always go back to. Really easy to fire up catalyst or the original and just focus on running really fast while I have an audiobook or some music on in the background. There is so many speedrunning techniques for each game that there is an endless depth to explore.

It's very short, but if you need a small (big) dosage of weirdness - try The Good Time Garden. It's an experience that I like to go back to from time to time, always gets some chuckles out of me!

Used to be Test Drive: Unlimited, then the second one. After that, I moved to The Crew 1 and later 2. A big open world and car/motorcycle to ride around is unmatched when it come to just kicking back and relaxing in a game.