Gaming

Farm Simulator. I have no idea why, either. But when friends are raging about cheaters/bots/whatever I can tell them that I've never yelled at Farm Simulator

Vintage Story.

Its basically what minecraft survival mode could have been if they went in a slower paced and realism inspired direction.

Its very relaxing to hammer out some tools, make some clay pottery, liaten to your windmill grind away at some grain, etc.

Football Manager is weirdly comforting to me, there's just something about losing hours upon hours to what is really just a very good spreadsheet.

As silly as it may be, city builders or transport managers. I find it very relaxing and easy to just lose a day a in. I usually play with sandbox modes because I just like to design. It's kind of like digital model building I guess

Tetris 99... somehow

I'm probably the only one left still obsessed with Nidgogg 1.

The last couple of years my comfort game has been Ori and the blind forest and Ori and the will of the wisp.

I could (and have) spent hours in Valhiem just noodling around surviving as a Viking

It has been a while, but there was a time when, if I was feeling really anxious and almost panicky, a quick playthrough of Enter the Gungeon would chill me right out.

Unraveled (Unraveled 2 is great for 2 players, too), and Hue. Then there's always Slayaway Camp. All good on Steam Deck as well.

But those are for the times when I'm not addicted to RL.

Chrono Trigger. Always feels like being home with old friends. A joy every time I playthrough

TES Oblivion and Sonic Adventure 2. SA2 was a childhood favorite I got very good at, and the extra mission, game modes, and pet sim aspects makes it fairly re-playable without having to start a new game file. Oblivion is just whacky and fun, and if you know how to exploit mechanics you can get up to some pretty crazy stuff in a matter a minutes after starting the game. While grinding skills could be seen as... Well a grind, it's a grind I personally enjoy. Both games let me dive straight into what I'm feeling like doing, and reward mastery (even if one of them is cheese mastery).

I play Minecraft almost exclusively in creative, just building or terraforming. There's something really contemplative about it, and man is it pretty sometimes. I just turn on a podcast or something and make something beautiful.