I’m quite torn about Dorfromantik (a tile placement game) in this regard. The relaxing music and ambience, the beautiful graphics and the minimal interface and lack of time pressure all point to a relaxing game.
Getting a high score however – one of the game’s principal extrinsic goals – puts my brains into a bit of a stress modus because I’m mentally rotating pieces, moving around the board, evaluating probabilities and hedging against the luck of the draw. To play optimally actually takes a lot of focus.
You can build your landscape solely based on aesthetics but unfortunately most of the game’s unlockable content is gated behind milestones that can only be reached by a min-max playstyle. This is a conflict in the game’s design imo.
It’s worth mentioning however that the game also comes with a map editor in which you can place arbitrary tiles to create your dream landscape. You are completely free of any pressures but also can’t unlock additional content in this mode.
The Guild. The ORIGINAL The Guild. It's so atmospheric that, despite being all about running businesses and politics in 15th century Europe, it's hard not to feel a sense of relaxation when you enter one of your buildings, the winter winds fading to a whisper behind you, as you look over your hard-working journeymen and the results of their labor.
I’ve been thinking about getting that game but every time I almost do I realize that I can’t justify cleaning fake houses to procrastinate cleaning my real house lol
Unless you hate the art style, the Atelier Games (especially the newer ones, like the "Ryza"-Trilogy or "Sophie 2" that got rid of the time limit) are definitely worth a look!
And if you enjoyed Stardew Valley, then Rune Factory might also be worth a look: the newest entry (5) is the first mainline 3d-title, which was a divise change (especially due to not amazing performance on the Switch), though I enjoyed it; but the "Special"-version of part 4 is also worth a look (if you can stomach the 3DS-style visuals)
My favorite cozy games are A Hat in Time and Dying Light. Maybe odd choices, but these are games I can kind of turn my brain off and just relax. Whether it’s platforming around poppy worlds, or jump kicking zombies off roofs into spike traps, they relax me!
Not odd at all! Before discovering games like Stardew and Cozy Grove (which I’m now obsessed with), my go-to relaxing game was AC Black Flag, because pirates xD
I’m still not even sure what a cozy game is supposed to be. Is it a specific genre, or any game that can feel “cozy” to play? (And what does that mean, really?)
Not entirely sure! It was a point of discussion on this community once. I personally think it’s one of those vague terms where you know it when you see it, and everyone has a vague idea of what you mean, but when you try to hammer down the specifics of what makes a cozy game and what is not a cozy game there’s a lot of disagreement.
I did find an article that tries to define what makes a cozy game cozy and think it makes a lot of good points.
For me, cozy is a game that I can shut my brain off to or play while I listen to a book or something. Any kind of time gating automatically disqualifies a game as cozy for me because I hate to be rushed or feel like I’m missing something. I’ll drop a game if I find out that there was some cool thing or story beat arbitrarily hidden or locked because I passed some kind of milestone in a quest.
I think the general accepted idea of cozy is games with little to no pressure or time gating and no combat or options to make combat easy. Farming sims do well in the cozy community because there’s usually no rush and a lot of little low impact things to do to keep you comfortably busy without being overwhelming. Top it all off with a pastel color pallet, and you’ve got a lot of people’s definition of cozy lol
No, you play a human in Fae Farm, who gets stranded in fairy land. You can get your character wings and kinda do a gliding jump that looks fairy like, I guess. But that’s it.
The only games I know where you can explicitly play as a fairy are The Sims 3 with Supernatural DLC and “Faery: Legends of Avalon” (not cozy).
Personally, which game gave me the feeling of being a fairy the most is Smalland!
You play as an individual of a tiny folk who calls themselves “Smallfolk”. And humans are called Giants. You can ride lady bugs and insects in general are huge creatures. You build your house out of leafs and stuff. And you can also get wings and glide. https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/ee9f03c6-382f-4cab-bef1-ed6655b6af05.jpeg
It’s a survival builder, though. In Early Access on Steam.
Just as a hint if you happen to be a fairy fan like me, who is desperate at the lack of games which allow you to be a fairy lol
Thank you for the answer! I really appreciate it, especially since the post was 2 weeks ago—was worried people were going to ignore it because of how long ago it was made. It is indeed what I thought was the opportunity to play as a fairy that made me interested in Fae Farm, even though the artstyle isn’t really to my tastes. So thanks for the recommendation!
I personally really enjoyed Subnautica. The serene feeling of diving around while listening to found tapes, doing everything at you own speed, while learning to live in the local ecosystem.
Especially diving into the deep zones really makes me relax. Absolute darkness, only the light from your cockpit and the sounds of the beings which you cannot see. Sometimes the sound of the hull of your sub scraping against the obscure walls of the caverns. Navigating only using the way points that you set after carefully having probed the way using the smaller craft, which could not actually go the full depth.
And then I got the sonar upgrade, which kinda destroyed the vibe, so I disabled it when going deep.
Not joking, although I understand it seems very silly at face value.
Dark Souls 3 PvP specifically SL60+6 at gank town (after pontiff).
It used to be my go-to wind down after a work day.
It made me smile and actually relaxed me enough to go to bed and sleep, especially after a hard day.
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