Hello all! I would like to know what games give you that cozy, fuzzy feeling of simple happiness.
I’m currently experiencing this with Tchia, a wholesome game about a girl doing fun stuff on an island.
Weirdly enough I have a similar thing going with Doom (2016) at the moment. Something about the intensity of the levels and the interesting map design make me feel really satisfied and immersed.
Lastly, Super Mario 3D World really has a similar effect to Tchia, we’re I immediately get a happy feeling just by booting it up and looking at the wonderful colors en design.
What is your go-to game for feeling relaxes or happy?
I always say that the Mad Max video game is my comfort game, and it’s very much true. For me there’s just something so relaxing and enjoyable about just driving across the wasteland, going from site to site gathering scrap and taking down camps. It always puts me in a better mood.
Zelda OOT. I’ve been playing it before bed to wind down. It gives me good feels.
@knokelmaat Not sure if it’s a certain category, but here are some that really made me so:
- Stardew Valley
- Life is Strange (for now I only played the first series)
- Memoranda
- Tiny Echo
I’ll edit the list when I remember more.
I haven’t seen anyone mention Mirror’s Edge yet! The free running (especially in the first game) is such a unique and rewarding experience. A little janky and frustrating sometimes but when it clicks it just feels so good
This browser game/toy called Infinite Craft was doing that for me yesterday. It’s very neat, you just take different words and combine them to create new things, and then use those to make more things, but its secret is that it uses a low level AI so that if you craft a combination that’s never been crafted before it can accommodate that and attributes you as the first discoverer.
You start with the whole basic idea of combining elements like fire and water to make steam and such, but you can relatively quickly end up accidentally creating more complex things, and they dont even have to be objects, they can be named franchises or concepts like Star Wars or Creation.
Eventually I felt like a small kid ripping the limbs off action figures and seeing if the dinosaur head would fit on the Darth vader figure. I ended up first discovering some insane Eldritch shit like Barack Crabwich Vader-car, a part president, part crab, part sandwich, part sith lord cyborg, part car. Or Zombie Muppet Prince Kermie. Or the Jurassic Mecha-Deloreansaur.
It’s free and is a ridiculously absurd hoot, I’d recommend it on a PC browser since you get a big space to drag out certain concepts you wanna keep and reuse.
- Book of Hours. It’s a strange game, set in the Secret Histories, the same setting that Cultist Simulator had. Unlike Cultist Simulator, which was rather gruesome, Book of Hours is a relaxed game, about cleaning out and restoring an abandoned library, reading the occult books left in it, and drinking tea with your guests.
- Potionomics. While it’s primarily a puzzle game about brewing potions, it has a lot of heartwarming dialogue.
- Settlers 2 (the original DOS game, not the remake). The Settlers series was what brought up the term “Wuselfaktor” (No clue how to translate this. There is an English explanation of the term in this article.), and imho Settlers 2 is (by far) the best part of that series.
- Kerbal Space Program. I can’t say why this game makes me happy, but it does. There’s something strangely relaxing about drifting through space in free-fall, seeing the planetary surface pass by at high speed below.
Subnautica and Raft are my go-to relaxed-fuzzy-happy games. Being able to do things at my own pace and just noodle around with whatever I feel like is nice.
Dave the Dive was a blast. Definitely has that ocean community vibe of everyone supporting each other and contributing in their own unique way. Super laid back and just relaxing, even though there’s plenty of things to do.
My favorite part was the questionable messaging around killing endangered animals. But it was a chill game for sure.
Animal Crossing games for me! Just chilling and catching bugs or fishing or whatever is super relaxing. I also like that nothing feels rushed, you can move at your own pace, and make your town/island look however you want.
Someone else mentioned Skyrim and that’s another one for me. I have it on practically every platform and I drop back into it every so often.
On the SNES: Star Fox and TMNT 4 turned in time.
On PC it’s probably gonna be Space Quest 3 and Star Wars X-WING Alliance.
Citizen Sleeper had many moments that I just breathed in and smiled about. It is a beautiful game with beautiful stories in it
The Last Campfire feels like you’re being read a bedtime story, in the best way. I haven’t quite felt anything like it from gaming.
Factorio without bitters. The music of desolance, alone on the planet trying to get efficient so you can leave and go home. I don’t know why it is so relaxing, but it is… just having time to plan and build exactly what you had in mind is bliss.
On the other hand if you want some adrenaline, play bitters in deathworld.
Factorio has this thing where if I play it while listening to a podcast or audiobook they use up exactly 100% of my focus. No less, I can’t think of anything else. But also no more, I never get tired. It’s a very specific form of relaxation for me; where I feel like I’m existing “just right”.
Exactly what I do. I use Angels and Bobs mods for a huge amount of stuff to do, loads of trains (almost 1,000 in my current playthrough!), and loads of stuff to build.
It’s heavenly!
A Short Hike, definitely. I just wish it was longer.
I just do the hikes irl, nothing’s more relaxing than being in the mountains alone or with a good friend.
I do both, because people can do more than one thing. This is called a false dichotomy, and in this case with an unsubtle whiff of moralizing.
Perhaps they’ll make a sequel, A Slightly Longer Hike.
Spiritfarer.
The soundtrack, art direction, color palette, and gameplay all come together in a relaxing loop. I have spent hours just drifting along spot to spot, taking care of the spirits in my care until their times came to depart, and still go back to it when I just want to have some time to relax.
As a warning, the game does deal with some emotional tones, so there’s a bit of melancholy mixed in. My wife and I both had times where we teared up because it felt like saying goodbye to someone again. It’s handled well, though. Really gives the feeling of everything being put to rest, and there’s still everything they taught you right there as a reminder of the effect they had.
I remember just sitting there after helping the first spirit depart and thinking - wow. Which doesn’t happen a lot in games, but the combination of the music, the storylines for each spirit and the time when I started playing (early in the pandemic) cemented the game in my mind as a piece of art.
To top up the happy tank, I love playing
- Katamari games
- OpenRA (Red Alert)
- Wrestling games (Smackdown on PS1/2)
- OpenRCT (Rollercoaster Tycoon)
- Baldurs Gate 3
- Mass Effect
- Frog Detective 1, 2, 3
- Game Dev Tycoon
I just did two playthroughs of BG3, and I think it’s now one of my “happy” games! I can see myself going back to it several more times!
