From 'Islanders' to 'Townscaper,' a handful of titles are designed to soothe your frazzled brain with minimalist, puzzle-like calm.

I am looking for more games like this: though this list seems like a good starting point.

Anybody have any recommendations or experiences with city builders (the less-stressful variety, not like Frostpunk or something haha)

Thanks!

  • guyrocket
    20•2 years ago

    I have Dorfromantik and play it occasionally. It is very relaxing, which can be nice. And very, very simple. So simple that I sort of hesitate to call it a game. There is some sort of scoring, depending on the mode you play. But I always pretty much ignored the scoring and didn’t even want to try to understand how it worked. It is fun just to make your little town, forest, river, train track, etc. So it is more like model railroading to me than a videogame. But highly structured and guided model railroading.

    • Sas [she/her]
      10•2 years ago

      That’s probably the better way to play that game. I kept worrying about placing the tile in the perfect place and took for ever on my turns and got stressed a lot which is probably exactly the opposite of what the devs intended. But idk my brain just sees achievements and takes the challenge and the achievements are tough and stressful challenges

      • @[email protected]English
        3•2 years ago

        Well you’ll eventually run out of moves if you don’t get the placement at least “good”

        Isn’t that how it fills the moves back up?

        • Sas [she/her]
          3•2 years ago

          Tiles fill up through perfect placements and completing quests but there’s also a free build mode where you have infinite tiles

    • slst
      4•2 years ago

      I always play it trying to get max score and it is still very chill

    • Blake (he/him) English
      6•2 years ago

      So simple that I sort of hesitate to call it a game.

      I’m guessing you haven’t played Townscaper?