[HN Gopher] Cozy video games can quell stress and anxiety
___________________________________________________________________
Cozy video games can quell stress and anxiety
Author : vinhnx
Score : 535 points
Date : 2025-04-19 00:21 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| mmastrac wrote:
| This was difficult to read in Firefox without reader mode. No
| mention of that tiny town building game I've been looking for
| again (non-gridded, very adaptive, kind of medieval), which is
| shame because I completely forgot its name.
|
| EDIT: It's tiny glade
| stavros wrote:
| One of my favorite games is A Short Hike. It's not the same kind
| of game as Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, etc, but the writing
| is brilliant and it always makes me content whenever I play it.
|
| I really wish more games like it existed.
| smus wrote:
| Smushi come home if the most similar I've played
| stavros wrote:
| Thank you!
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| Absolutely love A Short Hike. Perfect to relax in bed or on the
| couch on the Deck and just relax. I have fallen asleep playing
| it multiple times. Just wandering and soaring and climbing.
| Jach wrote:
| Another game that gave me similar vibes to A Short Hike was Lil
| Gator Game.
|
| For me though, a game doesn't have to have cozy aesthetics to
| put me in a more cozy or calm mood, and I've never really
| gotten into games like Stardew Valley or AC. Beauty in a sense
| is probably important. Celeste comes to mind, though it can
| also be quite challenging. My own favorite game even for
| destressing purposes is Dark Souls... And then you have things
| like classic solitaire/klondike, or recently I played through
| the entire SNES Populous conquest mode, where they're almost
| more meditative than anything.
| KurSix wrote:
| Sometimes it's less about the genre and more about how the
| game makes you feel
| mrweiner wrote:
| A friend gifted me A Short Hike after my cat died suddenly
| during covid, and it really did make me feel better. It's a
| lovey game.
| tootie wrote:
| I recommend all 3 installments of Frog Detective. They are all
| short plays and zero challenges, just really fun writing and
| adorable characters.
| randycupertino wrote:
| Thank you for the recommendation!
|
| I generally play http://slither.io/ to relax. I find the
| visuals when the snakes explode very relaxing for some reason.
| Play some slither, pop on an interesting audiobook = chill out
| bliss for me.
|
| I know slither is played by a lot of kids, sometimes I wonder
| if I am the only adult on there. Curious if anyone on HN has
| ever played it or heard of it. I know it's popular with kids
| because one time I was in Party City getting some party
| supplies and in the kids birthday supply aisle there was an
| entire "slither" party section with graphics and themed stuff
| from the game.
|
| Just a note if anyone from here checks it out it's WAY better
| if you install the chrome zoom mod, it becomes 1000x more fun
| after that.
| riffraff wrote:
| I've played slither quite a bit, and I find it very
| stressful, it's hard to survive and very frustrating when you
| die, but I do think it's a brilliant little game.
| randycupertino wrote:
| If you get the mod so you can zoom out it gets a LOT
| easier! I play on the Pacific Servers a lot, if you see me
| on there I am LARGE MARGE. That's funny you find it
| stressful whereas I find it relaxing.
| raphar wrote:
| I found out about slither.io here at hn. Also found out about
| the similar one agar.io.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| There are tons of games like A Short Hike.
|
| Alba, Little Kitty Big City, Lil Gator Game, Haven Park, Time
| on Frog Island, Little Wings Deliveries , The Kind Chamomile,
| Smushi Come Home, Petit Island, Luna's Fishing Garden, ...
| ehnto wrote:
| Little Kitty Big City is a gem.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Thanks for that list. I had no idea.
|
| Although, sadly, most of those game appear to not have done
| very well :(
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| Spilled! is a short game about cleaning up oil with a similar
| vibe.
| stavros wrote:
| That was great, thanks!
| KurSix wrote:
| A Short Hike is such a gem. It nails that cozy feeling without
| trying too hard
| spixy wrote:
| When I want to relax I play Euro truck simulator. Its similar
| to IRL driving slowly through the city in the night.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Stardew Valley helped my non-gamer partner so much during the
| pandemic.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Came here to post this. There's just something so comforting to
| the soul about that world. There are no politics, crime,
| religion, homelessness, war, or disease. Just melons. Melons,
| pumpkins, turnips, corn, rice, and potatoes. Visiting that
| place is like pure heroin for people with anxiety.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| There is politics from scene one? You are literally fighting
| against a giant corporation which is taking over the town.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I guess I never noticed that. I actually never paid
| attention to the story or characters at all. Just spent
| hundreds of hours growing increasingly large quantities and
| qualities of produce.
| dingnuts wrote:
| you only played about a third of the game then lol, you
| missed out on hundreds of hours of content
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| Maybe politics, but it isn't necessarily fighting
| "against". You can play the Jojo path, get different perks,
| and the shopkeep doesn't become unemployed.
| pixelready wrote:
| Plus the intro of the game is the player moving to the farm
| to escape a soul-crushing corporate job, only to find that
| same sort of culture taking root in their pastoral
| sanctuary.
|
| I love pretty much every system of progression it has, but
| I do respect that the game doesn't really force you to
| engage with the parts that you don't enjoy.
|
| But anyone who sides with Joja is a monster.
| komaromy wrote:
| I hear your point, but there's literally a homeless NPC and
| an NPC suffering from combat PTSD. Another way of looking at
| it might be that you're empowered to make a meaningful
| difference in the lives of those people which feels good.
| rcfox wrote:
| Not only does that second NPC suffer from PTSD, he's absent
| from the village for the first year, serving in the
| military that's actively fighting a war.
| parpfish wrote:
| Stardew is the opposite of relaxing for me. It's a never ending
| to-do list and sense that you don't have enough time. It's
| "Chores: The video game"
| thatswrong0 wrote:
| Yeah I feel that. It was fun for me, but also kind of
| stressful. I don't know why I felt the need to min-max it but
| yeah.
| seventhtiger wrote:
| The time of day running out, the stamina, and the seasons
| calendar for crops add so much pressure to me. I simply
| cannot relax playing Stardew Valley.
|
| As opposed to something like Animal Crossing with very few
| limitations where I can really enjoy myself.
| moomin wrote:
| Yeah, that's me with SV. Horrible optimisation problem, so
| much to fit into every day. And then there's the damn fish
| calendar...
| card_zero wrote:
| I see it as a game about getting a horse.
| kgen wrote:
| When I started stardew I didn't know how to play so I would
| spend days waking up walking around and then go back to sleep
| repeating until my parsnips grew, but when I introduced my SO
| to the game, we ended up trying to learn how to actually play
| and then ended up with spreadsheets to track all the seasons,
| grow cycles, relationships and whatever else lol
| taurath wrote:
| Its also chores that have an end, that you can have mastery
| over, that makes for only a small amount of variation
| compared to all of life.
|
| Then you also know that you don't _need_ to do things as fast
| as possible, you can always let things chill. Sometimes you
| can use it to practice _not_ caring about everything - like
| "this run, I don't fish until year 2 - just farming for me."
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| 'Chore simulator' could describe maybe 50% of what gets put
| on Steam these days. Some people just can't get enough of
| drudgery, I guess.
| bicx wrote:
| It helped my partner significantly during multiple home-bound
| years of unexpected health issues. She wasn't a gamer either.
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| Right now I'm playing Sail Forth and it hits that stress reducer
| for me. It does have combat but totally optional and the
| exploration and fishing and discovery is so relaxing.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Superliminal did this for me recently. Also had me reflect on
| some things.
| ericzawo wrote:
| Going in the complete opposite direction, getting through Elden
| Ring two summers ago really helped me through what was the worst
| heartbreak of my life, an undoubtably stressful and anxious time
| for me.
| rapfaria wrote:
| Going in the exact same direction?
| ak217 wrote:
| You think of Elden Ring as cozy?
| cosignal wrote:
| Same in terms of quelling anxiety, but I think the commenter
| was referencing the fact that, in contrast to the original
| post mentioning 'cozy' games, this commenter is talking about
| a highly 'un-cozy' game.
| mrastro wrote:
| Opposite the "cozy" part of the game. OP's game is infamously
| challenging.
| nottorp wrote:
| That's just marketing. It actually has one of the most fair
| difficulties of all "challenging" video games.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Fairness and difficulty are orthogonal to each other, no
| one said the game is unfair. But it is definitely very
| challenging, and that's not marketing as far as I know -
| I have yet to see a trailer etc for the game that says
| anything about difficulty. Dark Souls did that a lot more
| with their "prepare to die edition" or the opening of
| DS2.
| kemotep wrote:
| There's something about getting into a flow state with the game
| in a From Soft title that is relaxing to me as well. Even dying
| a dozen times in a row.
| boredtofears wrote:
| I don't think I ever made it into flow state once in Elden
| Ring even though I beat it. I just grinded until I was high
| level enough that it didn't matter that I didn't time any of
| the bosses right.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I really need to do a more challenging run through of Elden
| Ring. I just played as a wizard and blasted everything.
|
| Less than double my height? You get rocks. More than double
| my height? Beam.
| moomin wrote:
| Throw in renowned ashes and party. Or get poise breaking
| and the mimic tear. So many ways to absolutely stomp
| Elden Ring if that's what you want to do.
| navbaker wrote:
| Pump strength and bonk with a giant sword was my approach.
| auc wrote:
| Bleed build for me
| Trasmatta wrote:
| There's a meme in the FromSoft communities about how "Dark
| Souls cured my depression" that I think gets unfairly clowned
| on. So many people have posted anecdotes like that and been
| made fun of, but I think there is actually something there.
| Overcoming difficult challenges in a video game can, I'm
| convinced, help when your brain is stuck in a learned
| helplessness mode.
| lwo32k wrote:
| Same thing can be said about any religion.
|
| There is a reason there are elaborate stories, rituals,
| prayers, pilgrimages etc etc in all religions. Its not an
| accident. All these practices, with the prime feature being
| Repetition, allows for a mental shift to happen/different
| parts of the brain are kept repeatedly activated, compared to
| the ones constantly responding to source of
| depression/stress/anxiety. This opens the door for a focus
| shift.
|
| The key point is, it might have an effect on people
| positively, but doesn't change the environment (and the
| triggers) people return too.
|
| Therefore at best these are coping mechanisms, until we have
| holistic approaches, where the people and the environment
| they are in or return too are both being looked at. Not just
| one or the other and hoping for the best.
| randoomed wrote:
| That is one possible explanation. However i have a
| different theory why difficult games like this can help.
|
| I notice that when i get in a bad head space, i trend to
| become less active. It then becomes more difficult to start
| doing anything.
|
| Playing a game like dark souls gives you two things: 1. Its
| stimulating, and gives you instant feedback. 2. It allows
| you to fail, and have to retry.
|
| So instead of passively drowning my self in algorithmic
| content, im actively working towards a goal. This then
| makes it easier to actually pick something up in the real
| word.
|
| breaking out of the initial cycle of running away from the
| world is the most difficult part of getting out of a bad
| headspace (for me). So anything that breaks open those
| initial steps can be very helpful.
| GreenWatermelon wrote:
| The great thing about FromSoft games is that I know I'm
| not being coddled. The game isn't trying to hold my hand
| (or against me), it's giving me fair, intense challenges.
|
| If I win, that's a testament to my skill. I earned that
| win, I learned the boss movesets and improvedy reaction
| time. There is no Minimap, or compass, or sound effects
| that tell you when to perform x action.
|
| Even the weakest mob can trash me if I get arrogant or
| greedy, no matter how high level you are.
| alephnerd wrote:
| During a layoff eons ago, I did something similar albeit with
| Shin Megami Tensei. The repetition, grinding, and lore aspect
| that come with those kinds of RPGs definetly help reduce
| stress.
| junebash wrote:
| Yes! My partner teases me for this, but From games are what I
| tend to gravitate towards when I need to relax.
| ehnto wrote:
| My go to is Cyberpunk 2077, something about wandering
| aimlessly around the dystopic city let's me disconnect, I
| don't even do the missions or combat.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Myst and Riven are surely the poster children for this. They're
| practically ASMR and you can just chill on any screen and enjoy
| it without fear of anything happening.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| The recent re-releases (built in Unreal Engine) were really
| cool. Kids and I had a blast playing through them together.
| Loughla wrote:
| Fucking Myst is the opposite of replacing for me. FUCK those
| puzzles.
|
| But do you also remember the Dr. Brain series? Those were
| amazingly restorative to my tiny young brain.
| ekianjo wrote:
| I find puzzles more stressful than anything else
| dejobaan wrote:
| Wholesome Games has a nice set of social media channels around
| this stuff, down at the bottom of https://wholesomegames.com
|
| They also publish, but I think they mostly talk about
| wholesome/cozy/relaxing titles on YT/Bsky/etc.
| technotarek wrote:
| Wow, what an interesting piece of journalism, in regards to the
| presentation. It reminded me of when I saw the NYT's Snow Fall
| piece for the first time. At the time, it was an amazing display
| of cutting edge UI skills that exhibited both skill and
| restraint. Great storytelling to boot.
| SamPatt wrote:
| Are there tools out there to help build these scrolling sites?
| Works well on my phone and that isn't always true on DDG browser.
| grugagag wrote:
| Maybe games do have something special because you have to be more
| actively engaged and empathizing with coziness part puts us in a
| calming mood. But it seems obvious to me that anything that you
| can engage with has a similar effect and games are just one type
| of media. Books, movies, music can do the same thing too, you
| just have to know how to get in on it and not suffer through it
| if it doesn't click the first time. I don't think it's only the
| cozy part that brings the benefits but rather what effects that
| media or genre has on you at that moment in time. Over time what
| bring me calm and comfort has drifted somewhat.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Wow. I was not expecting that at all. I wish there were more
| reporting like this.
|
| I am wondering if an LLM helped put this together for the
| journalist ? And if yes, how were they able to display all that
| in a single page, without access to servers, etc?
| 9d wrote:
| There is no escaping stress or anxiety. Life is a nightmare, and
| the best you can do is accept it as an objective fact and try to
| make it better for others, since you will never be able to make
| it better for yourself.
| marviel wrote:
| hey -- I'm not sure what's got you thinking this, but I'd
| encourage you to consider that the way things _seem_ when we
| 're in emotional states (even long-lasting ones) aren't always
| reflective of the way things _are_.
| 9d wrote:
| Somewhere in the world right now, someone is suffering
| immensely, unjustly, and with no hope of relief. This is
| always true at any given moment. How can we sit back and be
| happy when these forgotten people die daily? And statistics
| indicate they're probably living next door to each one of us.
| The status quo is not good. Do what you will, but I'm not
| going to pretend this life is a paradise.
| marviel wrote:
| Your original framing was "life is a nightmare".
|
| My response was not "life is paradise", but rather a
| reminder that emotional states can vary your perception of
| how nightmarish/paradise-ish life actually is.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Having empathy for the suffering in both other people and
| yourself does not close the door on still finding at least
| some amount of inner joy or peace. If you can only have any
| amount of joy when every other living being in the universe
| is totally free of suffering, then you are doomed to never
| have even an ounce of happiness.
|
| > I'm not going to pretend this life is a paradise
|
| Who has ever claimed that it is?
| card_zero wrote:
| Leibniz.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds
| miles wrote:
| "I said ... that there was enough suffering in one narrow
| London lane to show that God did not love man, and that
| wherever there was any sorrow, though but that of a child,
| in some little garden weeping over a fault that it had or
| had not committed, the whole face of creation was
| completely marred. I was entirely wrong. . . . Now it seems
| to me that love of some kind is the only possible
| explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that
| there is in the world. I cannot conceive of any other
| explanation. I am convinced that there is no other, and
| that if the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of
| sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in
| no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was
| made, reach the full stature of its perfection."
|
| --Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_
| kbelder wrote:
| I've seen this in some other communities... the idea that
| any suffering outweighs all the joys of life. That life is
| a nightmare because pain and suffering exist.
|
| I'm personally more inclined to the idea that the joy one
| experiences can make all the suffering fade away into
| meaninglessness. Perhaps my wife or child will die before
| me, and it'll be painful. But still, better they were than
| were not, and I would smile when thinking of them.
|
| I don't know if one approach can be considered 'correct'
| over the other... but I know which approach I'd recommend.
| It may be very difficult to change, though.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Why should I worry about that?
| card_zero wrote:
| Unclear on why you can only improve your situation by proxy and
| not directly.
| 9d wrote:
| You can't improve your situation. Others can, but you can't,
| even by influencing others to, precisely because it would
| sitll be you trying to improve yours. You can only improve
| theirs.
| card_zero wrote:
| And why is that?
| 9d wrote:
| No problems inherently cause horror. It's when we feel
| unloved that the smallest problem can seem like a
| nightmare. Almost no one in the world truly has genuine,
| selfless love. So countless people's problems seem
| insurmountable to themselves. When someone is willing to
| lift some of your burden, or at least share in it, this
| is the only proof of genuine love, and even when it
| doesn't truly solve the problems, it reduces or even
| removes the horror from them. But it has to be someone
| other than you, because love must be given and received
| from an other, and we are not an "other" to ourselves,
| even if in brokenness we often seem so. I think this is
| probably best exemplified by Simon of Cyrene helping
| Jesus Christ carry his cross.
| card_zero wrote:
| I mean, that's just physical work, Jesus could have
| carried his own damn cross if he'd been super-strong like
| Samson. (Possible bible fanfic idea? Make Jesus basically
| Samson, see how it pans out.)
|
| But you're saying _we can 't quell our own anxieties._ No
| auto-quelling. This is an interesting insight, although I
| think you overstate it because some auto-quelling seems
| to be possible. I am not very social, nor very anxious,
| but I suppose I take comfort in the _output_ of others.
|
| In fact you can see video games that way: an opportunity
| to accept other people (game creators) making your life
| better, relieving your stress and anxiety.
| 9d wrote:
| It's not the physical act but the intent behind it that
| gives it meaning and value and power.
| card_zero wrote:
| Well the intent behind it wouldn't have been meaningful
| at all if Jesus had been stronger, so this example
| doesn't work.
| 9d wrote:
| In the entire Passion, Jesus represented every individual
| person, the weakest, the most vulnerable, the guilty, the
| poor, the abandoned. However you treat them is how you
| treat him in that moment. So you can try to make that
| argument for him in context, but then you'd have to make
| the same argument for _every instance where you could
| help someone but try to argue that you shouldn 't have
| to._ If an old lady falls and breaks a bone, will you
| call the hospital or blame her for not taking better care
| of her bone health? If you find a child crying in an
| alley, will you bring it to the authorities, or leave it
| there so you can look for the mom and find a way to blame
| her? People are meant to be helped, not victim-blamed.
| That's a very large point of Jesus and the Crucifixion.
| Whatever you do to him, you do to others, and whatever
| you do to the least in the world, you do to Him.
| card_zero wrote:
| Well nobody deserves blame for being a scrawny little
| weakling. However it's still technically possible to get
| stronger, which puts a hole in your assertion that it's
| impossible to improve one's own situation. It might very
| well be _better_ if we help one another rather than
| trying exclusively to help ourselves (consider what Adam
| Smith had to say about the division of labor). But self-
| help and self-reliance still exist, when it comes down to
| it.
| Loughla wrote:
| I don't know why you're being down voted.
|
| Life absolutely is a nightmare. We live and struggle and people
| die horrible deaths for no reason. Children suffer. Then we
| die.
|
| It's what you do with that. Give up? Or try to make your small
| part of the bullshit better for yourself and those around you?
|
| Your point is 100% valid.
| 9d wrote:
| Don't worry about downvotes here, they don't matter.
|
| Giving up is never the right answer. Life is hard, but if
| nothing else, this fact becomes an opportunity to make it
| less hard for others, which in itself is a very worthwhile
| goal.
| miles wrote:
| "[E]verything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last
| of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given
| set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
|
| --Viktor Frankl, _Man 's Search for Meaning_
|
| "Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be
| real must be unaffected by outside circumstances."
|
| --Mahatma Gandhi, _A Cry from Germany_
| unkeen wrote:
| Why did you enclose the E in brackets? Is it really missing
| in the citation source?
| miles wrote:
| "Another common use of brackets is when you want to
| capitalize the first letter of a quotation that is not
| capitalized in the original. As long as the part of the
| sentence you're using is not a sentence fragment, you can
| use brackets around the first letter to capitalize it."
|
| https://www.grammarly.com/blog/punctuation-
| capitalization/pa...
| bowsamic wrote:
| > try to make it better for others, since you will never be
| able to make it better for yourself.
|
| What is the logic here? Why not?
| fossgeller wrote:
| In many cases making life better for others involves making it
| better for yourself. That's what true love is in my opinion.
| noman-land wrote:
| Highly recommend this charming unpacking game.
|
| https://www.unpackinggame.com/
| delichon wrote:
| If you need more stress and anxiety try this packing game.
|
| https://tetris.com/play-tetris
| nsfmc wrote:
| unless... maybe...
| https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-03-28-tetris-used-prevent-
| pos...
| bitwize wrote:
| So can ultra-violent games. I guess it depends on your vibe.
|
| Come to think of it, maybe that's part of why Doom and Animal
| Crossing had their Barbenheimer moment a few years back.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Doom Eternal put me into a flow state like literally nothing
| else in my life. Made me feel so good.
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| I've played doom 2016. Thinking about picking up eternal. How
| does it compare? Dark ages?
| c-hendricks wrote:
| I found Eternal different enough to 2016 that I just
| bounced off it. The glory kill system was expanded in
| Eternal and you have to keep doing it to acquire resources.
| The mobility is a huge step up though.
|
| Dark Ages' combat seems closer to 2016, with much larger
| areas.
| bitwize wrote:
| The way I put it is that _Doom_ (2016) is more balls-out
| heavy metal, whereas _Doom Eternal_ is more of a "concept
| album".
|
| See, it turns out that in _Doom_ (1993), there was sort of
| this refined balance between the enemies and the weapons
| you carried, such that while all of the enemies could in
| principle be taken out with any weapon, there were
| generally one or two really effective ways to kill them.
| Demons (pinkies) for instance, lacked a ranged attack, so
| it was possible to kill even a pack of them with the
| chainsaw while taking minimal to zero damage. And the
| cacodemon was large, moved slowly, and had a high chance to
| stun, so a rapid-fire weapon like the chain gun or, better
| yet, the plasma rifle would make short work of one while
| affording it little opportunity to counterattack.
|
| For _Doom Eternal_ , the developers decided to really lean
| in to this idea, calling it the "Doom Dance", and craft the
| enemies in such a way that they were specifically
| vulnerable to specific attacks from specific weapons.
| Again, using the example of the cacodemon, it's a real
| bullet sponge but if you pop a grenade into its mouth, it's
| an insta-stun letting you do a glory kill. The Mancubus and
| Arachnotron have weapons that can be disabled or weakened
| with specific attacks. And, annoyingly, there was one enemy
| (the Marauder) that can _only_ be killed via a sort of
| quick-time event.
|
| This expands to resource management too. There are fewer
| pickups, which means you have to top up on health with
| glory kills, ammo with the chainsaw, and armor with the
| Flame Belch as you clear an area of enemies. The emphasis
| is on "using the right attack at the right time", which is
| what the developers were deliberately aiming for. The
| campaign was also much more story-driven which only adds to
| the concept-album feel, as it's a very eurocomic-ish story
| that delves into the connection between the demons and the
| angelic aliens known as Maykrs, rather than just thrusting
| you into hell and telling you to murder every demon in
| sight. They definitely wanted you to get the most out of
| the game by experiencing it a certain way.
|
| For these reasons I liked it less than I liked _Doom_
| (2016). I can see what they were going for, but it 's just
| not my thing. For _Doom: The Dark Ages_ they appear to be
| changing the combat system yet again, with more emphasis on
| tanking, and dealing out, massive amounts of damage from
| /to hordes of enemies, as well as use of a throwable shield
| and a more flexible glory kill system. I think they
| realized that they kind of veered from the Doominess of the
| combat with _Eternal_ and are attempting to course-correct.
| Props to them for trying something different.
| ak217 wrote:
| Doom Eternal is great for affirmation and motivation.
|
| "Your strength will be their shield, and your will, their
| sword. You remain unbroken, for your fight is eternal."
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Yes. I never enjoyed "cozy" games. Whenever I see them, I
| recognize that I'm supposed to feel coziness, but I don't.
| They're just boring, nothing happens. They remind me of places
| where I have to behave, which makes me stressed out.
|
| Violent games, on the other hand, will take my attention, and
| have me stop thinking about the real-world stress. I really
| miss the craze of violent and edgy games of 2000's. Any
| recommendations?
|
| I guess the bottom line is "people relax when doing hobbies"
| which is not a revolutionary take.
| nvarsj wrote:
| I recently played Dead Space Remake and it is fantastic -
| from the limb-separating game mechanics to the out-in-space
| eerie atmosphere, there is nothing quite like it.
| klaussilveira wrote:
| I have a ton! If you want to play Doom again, but from the
| perspective of 15-year old you, try this:
|
| https://www.moddb.com/mods/project-
| brutality/downloads/proje...
|
| Or if you were more into Heretic, try this:
|
| https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=56762
|
| But you should also try new releases that were made thinking
| of the classics of the past. There's ton of crap, and
| develoepers that don't really understand what they are doing,
| but I recommend these:
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/562860/Ion_Fury/
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/2272250/Forgive_Me_Father.
| ..
|
| I also recommend the Ashes Trilogy, which is like a blend of
| Stalker and Doom:
|
| https://www.moddb.com/mods/ashes-2063/downloads/ashes-
| stand-...
| kianN wrote:
| As someone who didn't play many video games but grew up somewhat
| adjacent to them, I'm just amazed at how much more relaxed I am
| having gone through that article (experience?) compared to
| before.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| It's funnily enough the opposite for me, people always give me
| weird looks when I say that Lovecraft is my favorite author to
| read when I'm anxious or stressed but there's something cathartic
| and honest about it.
|
| "Cozy games" actually always unnerve me, they give me this
| uncanny valley feeling of "what are they trying to hide from me
| here, what am I not supposed to think about", like can I actually
| go and walk out from the farm or is this a Never Let me Go or
| Truman Show situation. Granted maybe this is a lesson of not
| having your kids grow up on Lovecraft but I've always found it
| hilarious how it makes me feel the exact opposite of what it's
| supposed to do
| Loughla wrote:
| I'm absolutely with you. It's the pointlessness of cozy games
| that gets me. It's just clicking around and a weird attempt at
| making you feel like you've accomplished something (instead of
| running on a hamster wheel).
|
| Far Cry 4, half life 2, or fallout new Vegas are my go to
| destress games.
|
| I also love Lovecraft and The King in Yellow when I need to
| space out and relax.
| rr808 wrote:
| I still think video games are a net negative on society. How come
| so few women play - their lives are so much more balanced and
| successful - are games a symptom or a cause?
| Lalabadie wrote:
| Isn't it a myth that women don't play as much? If I recall
| correctly, they just don't play the same games.
|
| Much like women-dominated professions, their choices tend to
| end up labeled "not real games". Cozy games, social games,
| mobile arcade a la Candy Crush, etc. You need that exclusionary
| lens applied to what is a game to then get a tally where women
| comparatively don't play.
| card_zero wrote:
| Not even sure this is true. Perhaps a skew toward survival
| horror.
|
| OK, here's a 2024 survey:
|
| https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology.
| ..
|
| Deloitte says women prefer solo story-driven games and
| dislike multiplayer.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| > How come so few women play
|
| I feel like you really need to update your priors here? It's
| 2025, not 2000, and games are immensely popular for both men
| and women. Almost all women I know play at least some games
| these days.
| Jedd wrote:
| I'd guess a symptom rather than a cause, but I'm not sure what
| of.
|
| Curious about your evidence and metrics for your claims of:
| 'net negative', 'few women play', 'more balanced' and 'more
| successful'.
| Krssst wrote:
| It's leisure. I don't see how they are worse than movies or
| watching sports.
|
| There are bad actors out there with gambling mechanics or
| addiction exploitation but the article is not about those. (and
| sports have their variant of it with sports betting)
| Loughla wrote:
| What about movies, television, books, hiking, riding atv's,
| fishing, drawing, etc.? Are those a net negative? They're also
| hobbies or entertainment.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| > How come so few women play
|
| Are you living in 1997? Do you also think men are from Mars,
| women are from Venus?
| drannex wrote:
| Women make up just about 50% of all gamers, and in many cases
| they make up the vast majority when you include mobile related
| games. This has been the case since about 2015.
| lightedman wrote:
| IF you have a VR headset, Moss is one of those semi-cozy games.
| theshackleford wrote:
| I had an "incomplete" spinal cord injury back in 2020. Its left
| me with permanent pain and symptoms, this pain and these
| symptoms leaves within me a significant amount of ongoing
| stress.
|
| As dumb as this sounds potentially, because in real life, i'm
| not that huge on it, I have found a big help is this VR game I
| play, walkabout minigolf. Once every few days, usually when
| pain levels etc are peaking, I play a slow 18 holes and
| something about the landscapes, the visuals etc...its like a
| zen garden for my mind. It just soothes me.
|
| Primarily this course:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6mt9ev2xQY
| grg0 wrote:
| Websites that hack the natural and expected behaviour of the
| scroll bar certainly don't.
| sideshowb wrote:
| Horses for courses...
|
| If the game in the article captures what these are about, it
| didn't do anything for me. Interesting to read, though.
|
| I've enjoyed some games that have a cozy vibe while actually
| presenting me with puzzles to solve. Monument Valley for example.
| ls612 wrote:
| Reuters realizing in 2025 what gamers knew in 2016. That's the
| mainstream media in a nutshell.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| And also what gamers knew in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s...
| halosghost wrote:
| As opposed to overly-engineered websites that hijack [0] scroll-
| behavior, which only increase anxiety and fury.
|
| tth_tth
|
| All the best,
|
| -HG
|
| [0]: web-designers take-note, the normal term [1] in the field
| for doing this refers to violent crime. Think on your sins.
|
| [1]: https://robinrendle.com/notes/scrolljacking/
| Loughla wrote:
| All the rest of your nonsense aside, why did you sign your
| comment. You know your name is already attached to that, right?
| halosghost wrote:
| What can I say? It's a habit I developed long ago... [0][1]
|
| All the best,
|
| -HG
|
| [0]
| https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1417817#p1417817
|
| [1] for anyone who doesn't have an Arch BBS account:
| https://0x0.st/8OL4.png
| Loughla wrote:
| That's really, really weird. What are you trying to
| accomplish with all that?
| halosghost wrote:
| I don't understand how it is harming anyone--unlike web
| designers who actively design inaccessible websites--and
| while I suppose I could offer a reason, I don't
| particularly feel the need to explain myself.
|
| I am sorry that this seems to have struck a nerve for
| you. And, as I _genuinely_ mean to convey every time, I
| wish you...
|
| All the best,
|
| -HG
| dan-g wrote:
| From the HN guidelines[0]:
|
| > Please don't complain about tangential annoyances--e.g.
| article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button
| breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| halosghost wrote:
| While I fully understand, and try hard to refrain from making
| such comments, given that the actual point of this article is
| about stress-relief, but it leverages design patterns which
| are genuinely awful for accessibility and positive,
| consistent experiences on the web, it does actually feel
| topical to me.
|
| Put another way, I _do not believe_ this is about a
| "tangential" annoyance.
|
| All the best,
|
| -HG
| kbelder wrote:
| Right. It's front and center; kind of the most obvious
| talking point about the article. It arguably generates a
| much stronger visceral reaction than the actual contents.
| That's why it's such a bad pattern.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| My cozy recommendation: Creating landscapes out of tiles.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorfromantik
| Cordiali wrote:
| +1, Dorfromantik is great!
| jader201 wrote:
| Was going to post this if someone hadn't already.
|
| The first game that came to my mind.
|
| Not only is the gameplay chill, but the music and sound
| effects, on their own, relax me. You could sleep to the OST:
|
| https://youtu.be/h5gOAJl-7ZE
| sharkweek wrote:
| Well for me on the other hand, when I was working in tech on
| backend data services that needed constant maintenance and
| optimization, I loved nothing more than coming home and...
|
| ...Optimizing my Factorio base supply chain until two in the
| morning.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| There's something about doing the same thing with a tighter
| feedback loop, higher immediate reward.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| And without management breathing down your neck.
| fouronnes3 wrote:
| Truck drivers going home and playing truck simulator.
| matt3210 wrote:
| It was a while before I realized you scroll down to advance the
| graphics...
| neilv wrote:
| Reuters has good visibility into the state of the world.
|
| Have they seen the writing on the wall, and are now promoting
| cutesy escapism?
| freediver wrote:
| Not sure I would call it cozy, but Magic the Gathering (Arena)
| has played this role for me for a long time. It is probably about
| the retreat to familiar that helps most of all to supress stress
| and anxiety, regardless of the type of the game.
| Avicebron wrote:
| No Man's Sky here, just cruising around, trying to find the best
| pet to float around on
| fossgeller wrote:
| That game has been on my radar ever since release, only managed
| to play 1 hour of it so far due to crashing issues.
|
| I always wondered how's the procedural generation part of the
| game? Does it get repetitive fast?
| default-kramer wrote:
| I highly recommend Dragon Quest Builders to anyone who enjoys (or
| might enjoy) Minecraft even a little bit. It can reliably make me
| feel like a kid with a new Lego set for hundreds of consecutive
| hours.
|
| Killer Feature #1 is the room system, which can be a great source
| of inspiration if you don't know what you want to build. Killer
| Feature #2 is the overall charm you would expect from a modern
| Dragon Quest game, especially the NPCs. DQB1 has the better story
| mode (in my opinion), while DQB2 gives you much more freedom to
| build.
| jader201 wrote:
| I enjoyed both games, to an extent, but OMG, get ready to spend
| 90% of your time reading through the boring dialogue of the
| characters.
|
| I tried to follow it, and then I just started skipping through
| it. Then I go to where even doing that was just not worth it.
|
| I couldn't make it through either game.
|
| (To be fair, I don't think DQB1 was quite as bad with this as
| DQB2, but I wasn't a huge fan of the roguelite approach of the
| levels.)
| moomin wrote:
| I enjoyed both games. My kids are obsessed with DQB2. There's
| stuff I really like about the storyline in 2 e.g. the "now save
| the monsters as well" ending. It's a crying shame no-one's
| making anything like it since.
| meander_water wrote:
| For me it was going deer hunting in the woods in Oblivion. Maybe
| it's just something about open world games that allows you to
| find a quiet corner to yourself.
| hammock wrote:
| When did "cozy" become such a buzzy word? How did that start?
| That one snuck up on me
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Gotta say, Animal Crossing during Covid was a god send. I spent a
| lot of time in that game just putzing around and taking in the
| world. I'm not traditionally a person who enjoys those types of
| games, but the routine of hopping in every morning while I had
| coffee and every evening while I was winding down really lowered
| my stress level during an exceptionally stressful time in
| everyone's lives.
| ungawatkt wrote:
| As much as it was a meme, I really did see a split in what
| folks enjoyed between Doom and Animal Crossing during covid,
| and they basically boiled down to the same thing: yeah, this
| game is so relaxing, I just turn my brain off and play.
|
| Doom: all flow state, no thoughts, just execution.
|
| Animal Crossing: cozy, comfortable, routine.
|
| Funny how both accomplish similar things despite being so
| different on the surface.
| ehnto wrote:
| Warzone became my friend groups defacto 3rd space during covid,
| and I don't love shooters but the game loop had considerable
| down time where you were just exploring the massive map with
| friends while preparing, and able to chat like you were at a
| cafe or a pub. We had lockdowns here, so that social
| interaction was so important.
|
| After the lockdowns people slowly drifted back into normality,
| full time work etc, and we all stopped playing together.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Kingdom Come Deliverance: 2. Oh, my lord, if you're remotely into
| Medieval realism and RPGs you'll be floored. Amazing escapism.
| haberman wrote:
| It's funny, I fit that description perfectly and played all the
| way through KCD1. But when I saw the trailers for KCD2, it
| looked like it was so fighting and confrontation focused, maybe
| even more than the first one. The main title art seems to
| reinforce this:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/kingdomcome/comments/1etv380/offici...
|
| But I'd love to hear if it's reasonably "cozy" for a lot of the
| time.
| delichon wrote:
| After you get your combat skill levels high the rest of the
| game is a charming gambol through the woods with no real
| challenge, even for a slow twitcher like me. The fox potion
| reduces the grinding by half.
| mancerayder wrote:
| You can spend enormous amounts of time on non fighting
| quests. And some of the fighting quests can be worked around
| with high speech or threat.
|
| I spend an embarrassing amount of time wandering around in
| between towns as well as playing dice.
|
| Fighting can be clunky and hard but it's over pretty fast,
| and there's something very realistic about things. It's no
| FPS, I'm not a fan of those.
| pacomerh wrote:
| My goto for relaxing is "Lonely Mountains Downhill" for the
| Switch. It's so relaxing, you can hear the nature and there's no
| background music. It's a third-person biking game.
| herrherrmann wrote:
| Interesting that you mention this! I like this game a lot, but
| would rather describe it as hectic and fast-paced (due to the
| many attempts to optimize race times or find shortcuts). But I
| do agree that the nature sounds and landscapes are lovely on
| their own.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Loving Jusant for that reason. Liminal spaces and wonderful
| music.
| GCUMstlyHarmls wrote:
| You might enjoy the Cairn demo on steam if you like Jusant.
| sama004 wrote:
| truly, playing rdr2 helped me ngl
| drewcoo wrote:
| Debeaking keeps angry chickens from beaking others.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Hijacking scrolling increases my stress and anxiety
| brynet wrote:
| I played through the indie game 'Forest's Secret' and its DLC a
| few years ago, it's a cozy, non-violent, zelda-like game.
| Definitely recommended.
|
| https://bynine.itch.io/forestssecret
| al_borland wrote:
| Breath of the Wild felt this way for me. Sure, you can fight
| stuff, but it's often optional and most of the game is walking
| around in nature and exploring the world. I hadn't played
| anything of note in over a decade, and then probably spent over
| 1,000 hours in BotW.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| I came here to leave this same comment about BotW
| valenterry wrote:
| Next, try windwaker. Older game, but the remake is great.
| Similar feeling in a different style - less walking, more
| sailing and exploring islands.
| al_borland wrote:
| I might have to try this again. I got it on the GameCube when
| it came out, but remember hitting a wall and being
| frustrated. The open world change really old me on Zelda. I
| might give some of the older games another look after finally
| falling in love with the modern Zelda games.
| B-Con wrote:
| I unwind with about 2-3 hours of BotW each weekend. I'm years
| behind the gaming community and TotK is still in my backlog,
| but I don't care. You only get to play through for the first
| time once and I'm enjoying it immensely.
| jader201 wrote:
| I love BotW and TotK. Definitely two of my favorite games, and
| two of the best games. And agreed that much of the exploration
| aspects are chill.
|
| But both games definitely have some frustrating elements,
| especially if you're not going out of your way to avoid them.
| The constantly breaking weapons, to name one. Some of the
| battles are definitely intense, too. Some of the temples have
| some bizarre puzzles, particularly some of the dexterity
| puzzles -- and even more so in BotW, which almost felt buggy
| (TotK seemed to "fix" this).
|
| Again, loved both games, and also spent probably around that
| much time playing each of them.
|
| But they're not the first games that came to my mind when I see
| "cozy video games that can quell stress and anxiety".
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| 100%. The blood moon's appearance and the scary piano music
| when you encounter a guardian, always gives me anxiety. I
| wish I could skip the blood moon's cutscene reliably.
| breppp wrote:
| > But they're not the first games that came to my mind when I
| see "cozy video games that can quell stress and anxiety".
|
| I think what quells stress is the lighting, a game which is
| mostly outdoor sunny is relaxing in my experience compared to
| mostly dark games. I had that experience with rocket league
| of all games
|
| Haven't played BotW though, so this was my impression from
| gameplay videos
| xandrius wrote:
| That's why I am playing TotK without durability, it was such
| an annoyance that ruined everything else for me. Might make
| some things easier but I am not there for the challenge.
| zoul wrote:
| My only regret is the game is not designed for the player still
| roaming the world and finishing various quests after the main
| story ends, like in the various Marios. If you want to keep
| playing, you have to keep Ganon alive and get the regular Blood
| Moon reminder here and there.
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| This is the exact reason why I haven't killed Ganon yet, in
| spite of putting 400+ hours into the game. Now I look forward
| to starting all over again - this time in 4K and with
| hopefully better performance, once I get my Switch 2.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| Don't do it. I replayed Botw before Totk came out on a
| higher res tv. The wold felt a lot more empty than the
| first time and totk felt even more repetitive. I decided to
| be a lot morecareful with replays these days.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| That's always how I've played games. Once I see the ending
| the game is "done" and I can't get myself to play it anymore,
| so I always do the final boss last
| carstenhag wrote:
| Weirdly enough, I started playing it just yesterday. I'm a
| gamer and I died about 10 times in the first 2 hours. I always
| read it's newbie friendly etc, but am wondering how, as the
| game doesn't seem to have handhelding at all :D
| mabster wrote:
| I rage quit the game several times before it finally clicked.
|
| The realisation was that "wait, Link is a coward!". I then
| avoided most battle encounters and spent most of my time just
| exploring.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Newbies tend to be really afraid of the monsters early in the
| game. Maybe you are used to games that puts enemies there for
| players to kill. You're supposed to sneak around enemies in
| the early game (you just woke up weak after a 100 years...)
|
| With that being said I don't think it is newbie friendly
| though. The controls uses all buttons and many with different
| modes. It's can be quite overwhelming imho.
| navbaker wrote:
| Once you've grabbed your initial set of abilities from the
| opening area and stocked up on some weapons it becomes much
| easier. Shifting your mindset to "combat is almost entirely
| optional" also changes how hard the game feels.
| al_borland wrote:
| The game doesn't hold your hand, but it does guide you to
| discover things pretty well. I never really felt lost, which
| is something I've often had problem with when playing open
| world games. I could explore, but I could also easily get
| back to whatever I needed to continue progress. There was
| also no penalty for exploration once you can fast travel, as
| you can easily get out of a bad situation.
|
| What I think is really good is that there is no one right way
| to do something. With some games if you can't figure out what
| they are trying to tell you, you hit a brick wall. With BotW,
| I could always figure something out, even if it wasn't
| "right". For example, at one point you can talk to the old
| man chopping down trees and the intent is for you to chop
| down a tree to make a bridge across a gap. For whatever
| reason, I didn't pick up on this. However, there was a wall
| that I thought I might be able to use to climb over there. It
| wasn't trivial (I died several times), but it taught me how
| to find little places on walls to recover stamina while
| climbing. I was still able to get over there. This lesson on
| climbing paid dividends throughout my entire play through,
| while the tree bridge mechanic was almost never needed again.
|
| The first non-red Bokoblin (in the skull with the archer out
| front) probably killed me 10 times on the first play through.
| That was a bit frustrating, but I eventually got it. But I
| just ran in there and tried to fight him directly. To use
| tactics, you should have just gotten a bow and arrow before
| activating the first tower, and you can shoot the rope that
| suspends the hanging light inside the skull (by shooing
| through the hole where the skull's eye would be). This causes
| an explosion and gives you a big leg up in the fight. Later
| there are shines that help teach you how to use the various
| fighting mechanics, which help level up your skill
| controlling Link.
|
| Most of the dying I didn't mind so much, because there was
| little to no penalty for it, and all felt like I was learning
| something. Can I jump off this high thing... nope dead... how
| else can I do this? I used the manual save a lot, instead of
| just relying on the autosave, if I was about to do something
| risky.
| loeg wrote:
| I feel similarly about, uh, Horizon Zero Dawn or Far Cry 3+.
| Mostly it's about exploring the beautiful world. (With FC in
| particular, the plot kind of gets in the way of that.)
| mentalgear wrote:
| For me it's also mostly the exploring angle. Do you know any
| more BOTW style exploration games ?
| loeg wrote:
| The Assassin's Creed games also have huge, beautiful
| environments. Not sure if it's BOTW style, but you can ride
| horses around a big open world.
| LADev wrote:
| This is so relaxing!
| didip wrote:
| I don't play video game anymore since fatherhood but my 2000
| hours of Skyrim would agree with the article.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Some day you might play games with your kid(s). Keep the
| reflexes!
| mrbalihai wrote:
| I initially stopped playing when I had kids. As they got older
| though we started gaming together on weekends while my wife has
| a break. We have an absolute blast together building a world or
| questing in Minecraft or squadding up and getting a victory
| royale in Fortnite. I know it probably won't last as they get
| into their teens but for now it's something both me and them
| look forward to every week.
| j7ake wrote:
| Euro truck simulator memories
| trollbridge wrote:
| Reminds me of Gathertown, although it felt patently absurd to be
| using it for actual business meetings.
| funcDropShadow wrote:
| I really loved it for a virtual conference
| nafeyhs wrote:
| thats gta sa for me xd
| keeda wrote:
| I think coziness is an underrated aspect of gaming, maybe because
| gaming is commonly depicted as fast-paced and frenetic. In fact,
| coziness was also an underrated reason that World of Warcraft was
| very popular. Unless you were in a top raiding guild or PvP, most
| gameplay matched at least one of the aspects listed in TFA; some
| flavor of "tidying up" and "community" all the while not being
| too challenging.
|
| A couple of other aspects of coziness were those of exploration
| and social interaction, glossed over in the article but a big
| part of MMOs. Exploration and solo questing were almost
| meditative in nature. You could mix and match socialization,
| questing and exploration to find your preferred flavor of
| coziness.
| SvenL wrote:
| Yes, to this day I create a low level character in wow classic
| and quest in Elwin forest and Westfall. The music is just
| relaxing, the setting/landscape, sound effects...
| vueko wrote:
| > You could mix and match socialization, questing and
| exploration to find your preferred flavor of coziness.
|
| For sure. I think one of the big reasons successful MMOs were
| successful and were such comfortable places to exist in for a
| lot of people was the broad internal variance of intensity of
| activities - even if you were in a top raiding guild or a big
| PvPer or whatever, odds were you probably still spent a solid
| amount of time running around a meadow picking flowers,
| enchanting other players' gear, or just trying to jump onto the
| head of the statue outside the bank while chatting with
| friends. When you just felt like taking it easy, the game had
| plenty of things for you to do that matched that vibe, just as
| there was plenty of challenge on offer for when that was what
| you were after. I feel like a big part of what theme-park MMOs
| miss out on, and why they often feel so hollow and
| unsatisfying, is insufficiently fleshed-out low-intensity
| activities.
|
| Up-thread, someone was wondering about how a Fromsoft game
| could ever be considered "cozy" - I think contrast helps
| engender coziness; Majula or Firelink are definitely cozy, if
| admittedly a somewhat wistful variety of it. That dynamic of
| contrasting intensity allows coziness to exist in a game where
| you're also saving the world on a weekly basis.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I think all games can do that, the type of game you enjoy is
| highly personal. Not sure why they focus on "cozy" games.
| Probably because bloody games are still a bit controversial.
|
| Personally I'm relaxed by city/empire builder games. But my
| bother plays Doom to wind down.
| zkmon wrote:
| Playing cards. With no devices and screens. Multi-player. Lots of
| fun.
|
| If it must be computer, then I go for good old Microsoft games -
| sweekend puzzle, motorbike madness or midtown madness (I have a
| Win7 PC with no internet). I also enjoy driving around with Forza
| and enjoying the scenery of the country side.
|
| I can't even dare to look at the title imagery of these new games
| on xbox while scrolling through list of games on app store. It's
| gory, weirdness and insanity being portrayed as high quality.
|
| I guess, humanity in the West craved for some excitement in their
| lives, due to post-war peace time being devoid of any survival
| struggle. And the media - movies, music, internet - kept on
| dumping loads of it. Even the music, which is supposed to flow
| with soft, pleasant and melodious tunes and beats, has turned
| into a cacophony of loud shouting and hysteric expressions and
| acts of the artists.
|
| Similar to how a military band is designed to dispense alert and
| agility, western music appear to have evolved to dispense fear
| and anxiety which was missing in their daily lives.
|
| Not only that. Lack of such frantic craziness is seen as boring
| (I never heard of this word boring in my childhood). Slow life in
| general is being viewed as socially unacceptable. We are frogs in
| a boiling pot.
|
| You don't have to join the mad crowd running around ferociously.
| Just sit back, power on your old computer, pull out the internet
| cable, enjoy the slow, old games.
| WA wrote:
| Ah come on. While you have a point, it's been bread and games,
| public executions, and sad classical music in D minor for
| hundreds of years.
| hansworst wrote:
| Hundreds? The bread and games thing is literally a quote from
| the Roman Empire, and I'm sure they didn't invent it
| themselves either.
| WA wrote:
| Yes but "hundreds" is the selector that applies for all
| three of my examples, whereas "thousands" merely applies to
| two ;)
| hansworst wrote:
| Pretty sure the romans had public executions too
| jader201 wrote:
| You're referring to a lot of mainstream games, but it's not
| hard to find relaxing (cozy) games.
|
| Also, many of Nintendo's first party titles still have the same
| charm as their old school titles.
|
| I'm not a fan of a lot of the gory, hyper, crazy games you're
| referring to, either, but there are no shortage of games that
| stick to the traditional charm, and I can always find something
| to enjoy.
|
| I'm playing through Unicorn Overlords right now, and while I
| wouldn't consider it "cozy", it's none of the adjectives you
| use, and reminds me a lot of Ogre Battle on SNES, or Final
| Fantasy Tactics on PS1.
|
| Having said that, I'm also a huge fan of breaking out a deck of
| cards or board game and enjoying a quiet game with
| family/friends.
|
| Heck, I'll even spend a couple days playing through a solo game
| of 1862. [1]
|
| [1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/66837
| safety1st wrote:
| The Reuters article might be conflating some game design
| philosophies (relaxed, unrushed, non-competitive, no penalty
| for failure) with some game themes (farming, building, social
| relationships).
|
| Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley - yeah for sure
| these are some of the original and most iconic "cozy games"
| out there.
|
| But personally my favorite game in that genre is Graveyard
| Keeper, mechanics feel reminiscent of Stardew Valley, but
| when you're not burying bodies you're out looking for booze
| to keep a talking skull inebriated.
|
| And frankly the coziest game experience I have these days is
| with a title that no one ever would have associated with that
| term a few years ago: World of Warcraft. Nostalgia probably
| has something to do with it but they've now added a solo
| player mode (Delves) which is relaxed, unrushed, non-
| competitive etc. You can die five or six times before you
| fail, and penalties are light, but frankly, they're not very
| hard. If you have a spare half hour you can just
| Delves'n'chill by yourself and come out with a gear upgrade
| or two.
|
| So, I think it is not the theme, not even the mechanics but a
| set of game design principles that makes a game cozy. What
| were not cozy were the competitive FPSes and fighting games I
| played when I was younger, where we were all screaming at
| each other - that stuff can be fun but these days my
| emotional energy is directed elsewhere and I game to
| recharge.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| I couldn't find if this was linked to a study or was
| anecdotal, because of the scroll.
|
| A common issue with studying the effects of gaming is most
| studies are studying 1-2 blocks or light gaming schedules.
| I think most of the population is doing that, but there are
| people playing 4+ hours a day, most days. When articles are
| shared about the positive effects of gaming, a lot of
| people read them as though the effects must apply to them.
| Maybe they do! I don't see a lot of studies on this
| population.
|
| I feel the same with this article, because I don't find
| Stardew Valley super relaxing. I think it's aesthetically
| relaxing, but mechanically stressful. Trying to complete
| the quests on time or get a certain item before the season
| ends is stressful. I could go into it with a more relaxed
| attitude, but then how is the game cozier for me than
| others? I could go into Skyrim with that attitude. Maybe I
| am too rushed in my professional life to play games in a
| relaxing way.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > I can't even dare to look at the title imagery of these new
| games on xbox while scrolling through list of games on app
| store. It's gory, weirdness and insanity being portrayed as
| high quality.
|
| What an absolutely stupid generalisation. Play what you want
| but don't be ignorant. I actually love a good gory or "insane"
| game but the last 5 played games on my Steam list are Factorio,
| Overcooked 2, Planet Coaster 2, Pico Park 2 and F1 2023. It's
| absolutely fine if you don't like video games but to class
| every mainstream video game as "gory, weirdness and insanity"
| is ignorant.
| satellite2 wrote:
| I had a dinner with a friend which is a doctor and one which is
| a dentist.
|
| They famously consume movies/series that perfectly fit your
| description.
|
| They told me after a full day being kind and empathetic while
| also spending a lot of time standing, you just want to see the
| world burn.
|
| Very enlighting, especially since most of our society works in
| services
| antonchekhov wrote:
| "Frasier", Season 5 Episode 12: Niles: [walks
| in] Hello, Dad. I believe we switched videotapes on
| accident. Martin: Believe me, I noticed. Niles:
| Yes, there you go. [hands over video] At first I was
| dismayed. I popped in the tape, and there was
| Charles Bronson blowing away street trash, but
| I actually got into it. It was quite
| suspenseful. Martin: Yeah, well, that's the way Duke and
| I felt about "My Dinner With Andre." Talk
| about suspense! [fake, dramatic anticipation]
| Will they order dessert? Will they leave a good
| tip? [walks to chair and sits]
| augzodia wrote:
| I have two therapist friends who like to watch horror movies
| because they say it's a good outlet to externalize their
| stress and anxiety
| pier25 wrote:
| I agree but you're exaggerating.
|
| Millions if not billions are playing cozy "boring" games like
| Candy Crush.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| And that's a good thing? Sure, these games ease anxiety. So
| do opiates. Every minute spent playing addictive drivel like
| Candy Crush is a minute spent not exercising, learning, or
| bonding with fellow humans.
| maccard wrote:
| Most animals have down time. Spending it on candy crush is
| no worse than spending it reading agony aunt magazines or
| napping.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| I think we'll eventually realize that this line of
| thought is the same as tobacco company apologetics.
| Napping isn't A/B tested for maximum addictiveness.
| II2II wrote:
| One of the things I enjoy about many (albeit, not all)
| cozy games is the ability to step into them, step out of
| the game five minutes later, then pick them up several
| days later. Sure, some developers are going to do A/B
| testing to monetize every last second of game play. That
| said, I doubt that many of those games would fit into a
| realistic definition of cozy games simply because most of
| them exploit the player's emotional state.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| And let me guess, you can quit any time you decide?
|
| Try not to play for 30 days and report back with your
| findings. I think you are underestimating the amount of
| time you spend on this filler activity.
| maccard wrote:
| My point is that humans aren't wired for 100% uptime, and
| filler activities are somewhat necessary. Any leisure
| activity is "filler", and we don't have to AB test
| something for it to be maximally harmful. Playing
| Fortnite is objectively less harmful than hurling bricks
| at buses, and only one of those is AB tested.
| II2II wrote:
| We're talking about two separate things. I was talking
| about being able to play a game for 30 minutes (or even 5
| minutes), then set it aside for later. That could be
| later in the day, or several days later.
|
| Quitting gaming altogether wouldn't have many benefits in
| my case. I only play on weekends, and usually less than
| an hour per day. It's not that I'm boasting about a lack
| of filler activities in my life. I have them. They're
| just elsewhere.
| thih9 wrote:
| > music, which is supposed to flow with soft, pleasant and
| melodious tunes and beats...
|
| This is very subjective.
|
| And as you earlier say, e.g. military band music is supposed to
| do the opposite.
|
| > ...has turned into a cacophony of loud shouting and hysteric
| expressions and acts of the artists.
|
| Chill music is actually very popular these days, especially on
| streaming media and youtube but it's also accessible via
| traditional media.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Yeah Lofi is huge!
| xeonmc wrote:
| He must find Beethoven scandalous.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Nintendo has the Animal Crossing series which are certainly
| relaxing (cozy) games and it's latest one is multiplayer.
|
| I don't know if Pikman counts. Feels a little stressful to me.
| But of course there's several 3rd party games, the obvious one
| being Stardew Valley. Lots of other non-streesful games.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| > Even the music, which is supposed to flow with soft, pleasant
| and melodious tunes and beats
|
| There's quite a lot of research that our music exposure between
| roughly 13 and 16 creates our formative taste.
|
| Everyone has a first time hearing (e.g.) Beethoven's 5th,
| Autumn Leaves, Bohemian Rhapsody, Killing in the Name, and
| Blank Space. Their reactions will be different depending on
| their age, taste, emotional state, musical interests, social
| context, and so on.
| Loughla wrote:
| To my pride, my oldest child picked BYOB or Killing in the
| Name as his choices for his walk up song in little League
| baseball.
|
| I've never, ever been prouder of him.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| In defense of gory games - blood and gore can be framed in
| different ways. Some of my favorite early PC games were quite
| "gory", but the violence had a funny element to it. Carmageddon
| 1 and 2 are still pretty hilarious today because the poor
| pedestrians can meet such outlandish and ridiculous fates. Half
| Life also makes me chuckle with its low poly gibs. Gore can be
| quite silly.
| KurSix wrote:
| I think the rise of cozy games is kind of a counter-response to
| exactly the overload you're talking about. Not everything in
| gaming today is high-octane chaos or gritty realism
| namaria wrote:
| I've come to resent the frenetic pace demanded of everything
| now. Why does everything must keep accelerating? Slow down
| and fix things I say.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| Which Forza would you recommend for doing that?
| natebc wrote:
| For me at least, Forza Horizon 4 especially with Lego Valley.
| nvarsj wrote:
| That's just like, your opinion, man.
|
| There's something incredibly cathartic about ripping heads off
| of demons to the cacophony of heavy metal (Doom).
| frogpelt wrote:
| Yeah... but if you had to rip heads off of demons in your day
| job you might not feel that way.
| whatevaa wrote:
| If you had to be factorio engineer in real life you also
| wouldn't like it, so I don't understand this comparison.
| Games are games, life is life.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| Mick Gordon music makes me ride my bike faster. In the same
| vein: https://davdralleon.bandcamp.com/album/street-krvzader
| keepamovin wrote:
| Yes! I'm always wanting to play with my wife, but she finds it
| really boring. I find it super fun. Haha
| polytely wrote:
| I would suggest you start looking into independent games.
|
| Just this month Blue Prince came out, a puzzle game a la mist
| but mixed with elements from modern rogue-lite games like
| Binding of Isaac. It is designed and directed by one guy, Tonda
| Ros, and it is thoughtful and rewards playing slowly and taking
| plenty of notes.
|
| >I can't even dare to look at the title imagery of these new
| games on xbox while scrolling through list of games on app
| store. It's gory, weirdness and insanity being portrayed as
| high quality.
|
| >I guess, humanity in the West craved for some excitement in
| their lives, due to post-war peace time being devoid of any
| survival struggle. And the media - movies, music, internet -
| kept on dumping loads of it. Even the music, which is supposed
| to flow with soft, pleasant and melodious tunes and beats, has
| turned into a cacophony of loud shouting and hysteric
| expressions and acts of the artists.
|
| This is just plain wrong, and a sign you are not looking good
| enough. Never in the history of the world have we been
| producing the amount much art and culture as we are doing right
| now, the only problem is that the good stuff will not passively
| reach you, you will have to take initiative and seek it out.
| taeric wrote:
| Blue Prince is remarkably fun. Finding the over arching story
| puzzles has been a real joy. Brings mystery to the experience
| and a new sort of suspense to how you plan out the house each
| day.
| andai wrote:
| That's a funny way of looking at it... we finally have peace,
| and most the guys I know spend their free time rehearsing
| killing!
| vinceguidry wrote:
| > Lack of such frantic craziness is seen as boring (I never
| heard of this word boring in my childhood). Slow life in
| general is being viewed as socially unacceptable. We are frogs
| in a boiling pot.
|
| Reminds me of this clip of Jeff Bezos being a total dick to
| William Shatner.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GQoHIBDogU
|
| Shatner later realized that 11 minutes in space wasn't really
| anything to write home about and that billionaires are
| assholes.
| mdaniel wrote:
| > Shatner later realized that 11 minutes in space wasn't
| really anything to write home about
|
| I am totally on board with the qualifier "not worth the
| money," but I can't imagine an outcome that's not worth
| writing home about. Hell, I'd probably enjoy the ride just as
| much as the view because when else do you get to go multi-
| Mach?
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| I learned about this from YouTuber Angela Collier recently
| and, not too take anything away from the thesis of their
| video or from your point, a longer video of the same event
| shows Bezos giving Shatner his undivided attention
| immediately after the shorter video ends.
|
| Longer video here: https://cosmicperspective.com/william-
| shatner-overview-effec...
| pxoe wrote:
| >Even the music, which is supposed to flow with soft, pleasant
| and melodious tunes and beats, has turned into a cacophony of
| loud shouting and hysteric expressions and acts of the artists.
|
| Ironically, this only shows closed-mindedness and limited view
| of music (and other entertainment as well).
|
| Seriously though, what is up with people here that go
| "entertainment is bad (cause i don't know better)", and
| seemingly have so many people agree with them as well. It's not
| even funny, it's just kinda sad, if this is even a sincere view
| and not just obtuse trolling slash some bizarre 'culture war',
| 'current culture is bad' shit takes. "the gory games", this is
| some "parents being scared of Doom (1993 videogame)" nonsense,
| are we seriously recycling all of that idiocy? Just barely new
| puritanism. Feeling traumatized by the Xbox games catalog is
| kind of a hilarious image though.
| jamwil wrote:
| I thought it was an interesting perspective from someone who
| has lived a very un-American life.
| rikthevik wrote:
| Or play Wizardry and be so full of despair. :)
| 9029 wrote:
| balatro
| badmonster wrote:
| super cute! love pixel games
| colordrops wrote:
| Machinarium did it for me. Immensely atmospheric and relaxing.
| The soundtrack is John Williams level quality in my opinion.
| Introduced me to the musician Floex, whos songs I played at my
| wedding.
| lkuty wrote:
| There is Creaks also but I did not find the time to play it
| yet.
| ehnto wrote:
| I have long lamented the over use of combat in games, not for
| pacifist ideology, it's just a cop-out as a game mechanic for a
| lot of games. The medium can represent a chasm of possibilities
| but usually all the focus goes of AAA titles goes into combat.
|
| Which is to say the indie game and cozy game niches respectively
| have a lot of scope, because their possible gameplay is
| "everything that isn't combat", and I welcome the variety and
| creativity.
| XorNot wrote:
| I'd say Death Stranding was a AAA effort at a game which didn't
| have combat at its core (though it did still have combat).
|
| The systems of that game were very impressive in terms of using
| game systems to support themselves.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I may have to revisit it. It was pretty zen unless it rains
| but I got a bit bored of the Norman reedus walking simulator
| after a while.
| tmtvl wrote:
| You do know that sports games exist, right? Football, rugger,
| snowboarding, skateboarding, rally, street racing, circuit
| racing,...
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| That's just combat but with stronger rules
| randoomed wrote:
| If we want to go that route, any conflict would be a kind
| of combat.
|
| As a conflict has multiple parties trying to reach their
| own goal which doesn't completely overlap with the others.
|
| i think this would rule out nearly all games (including
| most non violent ones)
| jrowen wrote:
| I'm intrigued by the notion of a chasm of possibilities. Can
| you explain further?
| jackstraw14 wrote:
| that caught me too, and now I can't stop trying to imagine
| what it might be.
| randomstate wrote:
| I think you'd greatly enjoy Undertale, it's a great 4-5h game
| exploring the combat/pacifist side of RPGs.
| Matumio wrote:
| Agree, Undertale is absolutely brilliant in that aspect.
| Especially the beginning (the part that is in the demo
| version). The mood changes after that, for the worse I
| thought. Things got a bit more silly/naive than I like. The
| ending is absolutely brilliant again, tough, in the same way
| (it is a reflection on game mechanics). It is not 4h because
| you'll want to retry some parts.
| seventhtiger wrote:
| I've thought about this a lot as a game designer.
|
| My first answer is that one of the most amazing mechanics ever
| designed is health points, I believe invented by Dungeons and
| Dragons. Almost every non-health win condition feels more
| arbitrary than health. Whether it's shooting balls in hoops,
| crossing a finish line first, or collecting victory points they
| are all less intuitive and feel more contrived than "you have
| this many points, at 0 you die."
|
| The second is that many game designs are essentially about
| conflict, whether with other players or game agents. The
| ultimate conflict is life or death violence, aka combat. So
| it's a quicky and easy way to raise the metaphorical stakes. If
| you take an olympic fencing game and instead make them use real
| swords and no armor then it's a lot more dramatic with no
| change in the game mechanics.
|
| Making non-violent games is not undesirable, it's just harder
| to do well when combat fits so naturally. You end with non-
| violent games being worse on average, non-dramatic low stakes
| metaphors and contrived win conditions.
| lurk2 wrote:
| I touched on this in my own reply to the grandparent comment
| [0]. I realized a while ago that lots of competitive games I
| played regularly were making me feel animosity towards the
| people I was playing them with, and it led me to think about
| this issue for quite a while.
|
| Competition is such a default in game design that a game not
| based on it often isn't recognized as a game at all. There
| are cooperative games, but aside from Minecraft, none of them
| are particularly popular. It's arguable that this a
| reflection of the human condition; living things are always
| fighting for resources, so games attempt to emulate this
| competition.
|
| It's odd that this ended up being the paradigm, though;
| digital worlds can provide us with a space to explore what we
| would conventionally consider to be impossible - infinite
| worlds which obviate the need for competition in the first
| place. There's maybe a commentary on human nature to be made
| that even in a game like Minecraft, so many players' first
| inclination is to start fighting each other.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43736674
| moomin wrote:
| It horribly breaks the stories of many games. The obvious
| modern example is Last of Us 2 where sparing a single life
| seems pretty meaningless given the mass murder spree you've
| been on to get there.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > pacifist ideology
|
| One of the things I like about Minecraft is that it isn't
| structurally adversarial. Most conventional multiplayer games
| are fundamentally about outperforming another player.
|
| Even when a game is not explicitly violent, I think there is a
| compelling argument to be made that it continues to shape the
| player's perspective as to how the world is and ought to be.
| Mario Kart is no different from Call of Duty in this regard;
| both share triumph over others as their win state, whereas
| Minecraft offers at least the possibility of a (practically)
| infinite world that is purely cooperative.
|
| I often like to think that the afterlife is something like a
| big Minecraft server, where our wills have been perfected such
| that the idea of competitive strife never even crosses one's
| mind, and all there is to do is expand into a horizon of
| possibility. Naturally this makes me very unpopular at LAN
| parties.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Valheim
| psyclobe wrote:
| I wish I could spend more then 10 minutes playing games; feels
| like work.
| shinycode wrote:
| That's exactly my feeling also. So frustrating, some games want
| you to invest so much time I gave up and sold them back
| JFingleton wrote:
| Same. At 40 I simply can't expend any of my limited time or
| energy with games, when I could be doing something
| productive/wholesome (which for me is lifting weights, reading
| and learning). It's a shame as I used to love playing RPGs and
| FPSs.
| theshackleford wrote:
| I have no issue playing games at nearly 40. After having been
| on a productivity grind since childhood, and having faced my
| mortality, I now appreciate having stepped back to smell the
| roses.
| kubb wrote:
| That's because jobs steal too much time from our lives and we
| don't have it anymore to sink into something meaningful. We are
| forced to find meaning in jobs.
| biker142541 wrote:
| Surprised not to see Tiny Glade mentioned as a reference game in
| the comments here... it's truly the definition of cozy. For
| anyone not familiar, we really need more games hyper focused on
| cozy/relaxing:
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/
| smusamashah wrote:
| Another one is summer house
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/2533960/SUMMERHOUSE/
| natebc wrote:
| Lushfoil Photography Sim should also be in the conversation.
| It's very chill and very beautiful.
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/1749860/Lushfoil_Photogra...
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| I think it would be cool if there were games that get slower
| and calmer over time, like it it could make you walk and talk
| and perform things slower gradually
| kyriakos wrote:
| Is it just me that finds exploration open world games
| frustrating? It makes me feel awful having to walk around
| endlessly to gather resources etc. I prefer linear experiences
| that don't feel like I'm back to work.
| marcosscriven wrote:
| I like the open-world aspect, but you're right it's often
| paired with what is commonly called "grind", which I despise.
|
| So in practice, the open world I enjoy are those focussed
| purely on discovery like The Witness, and metroidvania games
| like Hollow Knight.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Hollow Knight is a great game. That's not the kind of game I
| meant though. I think the older I get the simpler, easier to
| get into games I'd rather play. I have 1 hour to play, I'd
| rather spend it entertaining myself rather than going through
| a tutorial or having to grind.
| jamiejquinn wrote:
| Yeah, I like gathering/crafting mechanics but it has to be a
| focused experience, either I'm out on an adventure and happen
| to pick up some useful things on the way, or the whole point of
| the adventure is to pick up one or more things I need. Either
| way, the movement still has to be slick enough to not be
| boring, and the world has to be engaging enough to warrant
| caring about moving through it.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Open World games were an interesting experiment, but the result
| is clear: the good ones are good despite the open world, not
| because of it. Not a single one managed to not feel like the
| developers copy-pasted content in a desperate attempt to fill
| the empty game world. At that point maybe don't make such a
| huge world? And replayability suffers too, because replaying
| the game means working through a list of things to collect
| before the actual game can start.
|
| That said exploring the world in Elden Ring was probably the
| best time I ever had in a video game. The repetitive dungeons
| not so much.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| I noticed I need high reflexes games to make my brain rest after
| work, so I don't agree. It's really hard to shutdown after a day
| that required a lot of brain power, but high reflexes games do
| the trick (nine sols, hollow knight come to mind)
| uejfiweun wrote:
| Is this really so much of a shocker? Video games are awesome.
| They're one of the best things about living in the information
| age. In an overcrowded, unequal and stressful time to be alive,
| it's awesome to have an escape - a portal to another universe
| that is far more engaging than any other forms of escape that
| came before it. And far more economical, too.
| brettgo1 wrote:
| If you're into this kind of music, I highly recommend checking
| out the genre "Comfy synth" or "Dungeonsynth".
|
| Some artists include "Grandma's Cottage", "Shire Oak", "Mushroom
| Grandpa" etc.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Also dreamcorw
| sph wrote:
| During the worst of my depression, all I could play was House
| Flipper. Cleaning virtual homes helped a bit when I didn't have
| the energy to clean mine. Also, watching calm videos about nature
| on YouTube. Taught me that most of my mental issues are due to
| living in a city and unable to recharge by being in contact with
| Mother Nature (something about fractals vs the right angles of
| man-made objects)
|
| The fact that cozy games are all the "rage" these days says a lot
| about our society and the mental state of our youth.
|
| Though depression has lessened, I don't have the appetite for big
| gaming experiences any more. My zen retreat these days is
| TrackMania and nothing comes close to it to the sense of peace,
| silence and flow I get while playing that game, even if I suck.
| Strongly recommended to any squirrel brained, over-stressed
| knowledge worker.
| KurSix wrote:
| It's wild how something as simple as cleaning a virtual house
| or zoning out to nature videos can become lifelines when
| everything else feels too heavy
| ajb wrote:
| I have heard two theories on how to treat anxiety:
|
| 1) Paul Gilbert's theory that the brain's 'threat system' is
| overdeveloped and the 'soothing system' underdeveloped, and the
| right treatment is to stimulate the 'soothing system'.
|
| 2) Steven Quartz' theory that the brain's evaluation of risk has
| become distorted, and that the right treatment is any form of
| 'risky play' that you can tolerate; with an emphasis on being
| able to feel you've achieved something after taking (reasonable)
| risks.
|
| (Both of these are about how you reduce anxiety in the long term,
| not how you cope with it if you're overwhelmed in the moment).
|
| Video games could in theory work for either - but not the same
| ones. Under the second theory, coziness may work in the moment,
| but seeking coziness could inhibit long term reduction of
| anxiety.
|
| I don't know which theory has the more evidence. ( Also I'm not
| an expert and the consensus theory might be something else
| entirely. )
| prox wrote:
| I haven't seen those theories before. The first one seems
| intuitively apt.
|
| If you are overwhelmed the first thing that goes is your
| leisure and creativity. Say if you used to play piano or did
| any hobby, and you stopped, it means you lacking bandwidth to
| relax. After that, and you don't correct your brain starts
| changing until it breaks : a burn out, or even further along :
| PTSD.
|
| So to counter it, is to bring back leisure and your hobbies.
|
| If someone burns out right next to you (I have had that happen
| to a colleague) is a couple of things : you can ask them if
| possible to focus on deep breaths, or ask them to call out the
| name of objects and ask them to describe them. Another strategy
| is deprive them of sensory overload. Have them put the hands on
| their face and hunch over so they are in their own cocoon. Stay
| with them and soothe them until you get a professional over.
|
| I am not sure if this is the most current view, but this is
| from my direct experience.
| lloeki wrote:
| This excerpt has resonated deeply:
|
| _But, parallel to this political phenomenon, we observe the
| disappearance of free time. Free space and free time are now
| just memories. The free time in question is not leisure as
| commonly understood. Apparent leisure still exists, and even
| this apparent leisure defends itself and becomes more
| widespread through legal measures and mechanical improvements
| against the conquest of hours by activity.
|
| Workdays are measured and their hours counted by law. But I
| say that inner leisure, which is something entirely different
| from chronometric leisure, is being lost. We are losing that
| essential peace in the depths of our being, that priceless
| absence, during which the most delicate elements of life
| refresh and comfort themselves, during which being, in a way,
| cleanses itself of past and future, of present consciousness,
| of suspended obligations and ambushed expectations. No worry,
| no tomorrow, no internal pressure; but a kind of rest in
| absence, a beneficial vacancy, which returns the mind to its
| own freedom. It then concerns itself only with itself. It is
| freed from its duties toward practical knowledge and
| unburdened from the care of immediate things: it can produce
| pure formations like crystals. But now the rigor, tension,
| and rush of our modern existence disturb or squander this
| precious rest. Look within yourself and around you! The
| progress of insomnia is remarkable and follows exactly all
| other forms of progress.
|
| How many people in the world now sleep only with synthetic
| sleep, and provide themselves with nothingness from the
| learned industry of organic chemistry! Perhaps new
| arrangements of more or less barbituric molecules will give
| us the meditation that existence increasingly forbids us from
| obtaining naturally. Pharmacology will someday offer us
| depth. But, in the meantime, fatigue and mental confusion are
| sometimes such that one naively finds oneself longing for
| Tahitis, paradises of simplicity and laziness, lives of slow
| and inexact form that we have never known. Primitives are
| unaware of the necessity of finely divided time.
|
| There were no minutes or seconds for the ancients. Artists
| like Stevenson, like Gauguin, fled Europe and went to islands
| without clocks. Neither mail nor telephone harassed Plato.
| The train schedule did not rush Virgil. Descartes could lose
| himself in thought on the quays of Amsterdam. But our
| movements today are regulated by exact fractions of time.
| Even the twentieth of a second is beginning to be no longer
| negligible in certain domains of practice.
|
| No doubt, the organism is admirable in its flexibility. It
| has so far resisted increasingly inhuman treatments, but,
| ultimately, will it always sustain this constraint. _
|
| - Le bilan de l'intelligence, Paul Valery, 1935
| ajb wrote:
| This is good advice. One thing to note is that deep breathing
| needs to be slow. If you over oxygenate you may get weird
| sensations which can cause more anxiety. The standard advice
| seems to be 'square breathing': In for count of four, hold
| count of four, out for count of four, hold again for four.
|
| Sensory overload sounds specific to some neuro divergent
| conditions, might not help with other people.
| kavith wrote:
| This is very interesting! I enjoy playing Gran Turismo 7 and
| often find it very calming; especially when I'm in a flow state
| and can get through a tricky part of the track very quickly
| without any mistakes.
|
| I wonder if this is a case where both theories apply - the
| rhythmic, controlled driving stimulates the 'soothing system'
| while the challenge of maintaining control at high speeds
| provides that 'risky play' element.
| amelius wrote:
| I have a third approach for you:
|
| 3) spend time with friends, drastically reduce screen time,
| have people around you most of the time, never have dinner
| alone, etc.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Nah not at all, spending time alone is crucially important to
| me for managing anxiety. Solo dinner is great. Being
| surrounded by people constantly is a way for my anxiety to
| greatly increase.
| amelius wrote:
| It is important to make a distinction between close friends
| and people you don't know. Also, being alone may feel good
| but it is not a lasting solution as ultimately humans
| evolved as social creatures, and you can't rationalize that
| away.
|
| Try spending e.g. a weekend or a week with close friends or
| family (if you have a good relationship with them), and see
| what it does for your anxiety.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| The important thing is having a balance. Never being
| comfortable alone can be an issue just as spending all of
| your time alone can be.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes but my main point is that it's very easy to get stuck
| in a local optimum without ever realizing that there can
| be a significant social component to one's anxiety issues
| that can be easily explored.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| The social component of anxiety cuts deeply in both
| directions
| amelius wrote:
| Glad you understand it! ;)
| hliyan wrote:
| (1) is entirely believable because our brains evolved as a
| prediction engine that can help increase the survivability of
| its owner. So it's understandable that it over-indexes on
| threats.
| KurSix wrote:
| As someone who's put an embarrassing number of hours into Stardew
| Valley, this all really resonates. Cozy games give you this
| weirdly powerful illusion of control and calm - your farm, your
| pace, your little pixelated life that somehow feels safer than
| the real one. It's not just escapism - it's like a reset button
| for your brain. I love that the article highlights how these
| games aren't necessarily "easy," just low-stress. They let you
| engage deeply without the constant threat-response loop that most
| traditional games (or life) tend to trigger.
| KronisLV wrote:
| It does feel a bit similar to sitting down with a good book and
| taking things ahead at your own pace, quite zen.
|
| I will say that personally even the more action/goal oriented
| games can be quite enjoyable as long as they're not too
| difficult, it's the online PvP ones that get the most stressful
| for me. I don't really play many of those anymore, it feels
| like other players are just better and I don't want to have to
| be on the edge all the time.
|
| Oh also it's a really nice site!
| staindk wrote:
| I fully agree!
|
| ... and then you try your hand at Stardew Valley fishing and
| all sorts of weird frustrations bubble up inside you haha.
| natebc wrote:
| Stardew has always been stressful for me. What crop to plant
| on which day, whose birthday is coming up, the energy economy
| ...
|
| I've NEVER been able to really get into it because of the
| constant feeling that I was missing something or wasting
| energy/time on the wrong things.
| alecco wrote:
| I'm sure walking outside is much better. Or outdoors sports.
| Kovah wrote:
| Can you just not accept that there are others who just don't
| enjoy sports? Or going out in winter when it's either rainy or
| freezing cold outside.
| ykonstant wrote:
| You may need to sit down for this... did you know we can do two
| things, that are not the same thing?
| natebc wrote:
| I played video games for about 2 hours already today ... and
| went for a 20 mile bike ride, played with my dogs, fed the
| local birds, had breakfast with my friends and hugged and
| wished a different friend happy 50th birthday.
|
| I'll play a few more hours of video games this afternoon too
| and play some music.
|
| My point is that people do lots of things. Gaming is a modern
| form of entertainment and is much more active and engaging than
| watching TV or mindlessly scrolling a social media site.
| fossgeller wrote:
| I've been just thinking about the last point you made, on
| video games being more engaging than most other forms of
| media.
|
| It's quite weird how gaming is still looked down on by the
| general public. While watching movies and TV shows is
| considered to be "more mature" hobby, even though it requires
| less engagement. Wonder what the effects of binge watching
| are on the brain in the long term, especially compared to
| gaming's. If we think about it the latter is much more
| similar to solving puzzles or reading.
| box_eyed wrote:
| Are point-and-click games considered "cozy"? They often provide a
| relaxing experience--similar to reading a book, but with an added
| sense of agency in the narrative. Classic examples include the
| Broken Sword series, Monkey Island, and Grim Fandango. More
| recent titles like Disco Elysium might also fit.
|
| This video does a good job exploring what makes the genre so
| appealing. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUso3zWbDfE
| nprateem wrote:
| Let's not forget Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
| ykonstant wrote:
| Some P&C can sustain a cozy atmosphere even with some
| moderately heavy themes or light comedy. However, it depends a
| lot on the game. For instance, I would not consider The Longest
| Journey cozy, even though it is one of my favorite adventure
| games. Nor my absolute favorite, the Blackwell series.
|
| But I would definitely consider Monkey Island, Broken Sword and
| Kathy Rain cozy. Why? It is very hard for me to articulate.
| Besides the obvious (beautiful graphics and sound that is not
| too "challenging") it is something about the narrative working
| in a well-defined sandbox without too many surprises, but not
| in absolute monotony either. And the plot and story not being
| too heavy, while not being a complete farce either.
| MarceColl wrote:
| For me Mutatzione[0] was incredible and appeared at a time in my
| life where I was in a very dark place. I discovered one saturday
| morning, bought it and played it the whole day. It's short, it's
| sweet, the art is beautiful. It's not super cozy in the
| traditional sense, but it has a lot of calm, serenity and it was
| exactly what I needed that day.
|
| [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1080750/Mutazione/
| mangomountain wrote:
| That's such a cool game. I also really like the sandbox music
| gardens. You might also like Melody of Moominvalley if you're
| open to Moomin content
| stan_kirdey wrote:
| exactly for this made vortle.com no login, no internet needed, no
| data collected, no score - just you and the game to de-stress and
| calm down
| wodenokoto wrote:
| When TV shows go to Japan and interview people at pachinko
| parlors and ask why the patrons go there they all say it's to
| relieve stress.
|
| Pachinko parlors are noisy, with loud music blasting from
| speakers in the ceiling being drowned by music blazing from each
| individual machine, competing with the sound of metal marbles
| falling.
|
| It's not what you think of as a relaxing environment.
|
| I don't think it is cozy video games that quell stress, I think
| it is the escape that helps manage it. I played a lot of Tetris
| when I was going through a phase with a lot of stress. It's
| pretty intense at the high levels, but it was nice for me at the
| time. Now that I'm not stressed, I actually find it kinda
| overwhelming...
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Have you tried the 3D versions? They're made in Unity I think
| but they can be profoundly relaxing even as they get more
| difficult and pick up speed.
| levzettelin wrote:
| A tried A Short Hike. Games like this make me anxious, actually,
| because they make me feel like I'm wasting time. But I'm not
| anxious in general. I guess, it depends on the person.
| coolThingsFirst wrote:
| Absolutely, they helped a TON with my depression and anxiety.
|
| The important thing is to select Story Games, the slower the
| better that slowly pull you in. Any fast paced game will keep you
| anxious and won't work.
|
| Some game recommendations that I will make while we are here:
|
| 1) Outer Wilds - must play especially for HN people. Great puzzle
| and exploration game. A game you will never forget.
|
| 2) Alan Wake 2 - Insane story and graphics.
|
| 3) Day's Gone - really chill zombie game.
| smeeger wrote:
| i have always kind of thought that videogames are bad for young
| adults but the other day i realized that people exposed to
| certain videogames growing up are much more sophisticated. same
| with movies. if we could take the violence out of games and
| movies then they would be a very useful way to supercharge the
| education and development of young people. if we had movies that
| werent filled with harmful misinformation... its a great way to
| augment life experience. a lot of kids would have trouble sitting
| down to read for two unbroken hours... and the bitrate of movies
| is much higher
| theshackleford wrote:
| > if we could take the violence out of games and movies then
| they would be a very useful way to supercharge the education
| and development of young people.
|
| No thanks. Violent video games led me to my career and passion.
| Non violent games exist, you are free to choose them. No need
| to enforce your choices onto others.
| ismailmaj wrote:
| I really like potion craft, it really hits the optimization part
| of my brain without feeling grindy or stressful.
|
| The gaming loop is about using the right subpaths using resources
| to reach a destination while avoiding obstacles, and slowly
| improving your resources options and quantity, at the end of the
| game it looks a bit like the traveling salesman problem. Also
| liked this series on YouTube:
| https://youtu.be/d_JfzuJzUFE?si=pifLxMFo4itOihdK
| ilker2495 wrote:
| I'd love to read the article but _it_ doesn 't want me to On the
| subject of cozy games I personally like Viscera Cleanup Detail a
| lot. I've seen people criticize some of the (arguably) annoying
| design decisions like bucket dispensers sometimes sending out
| organs and severed limbs. The way I see it: I'm playing this game
| for the express purpose of cleaning spaceships and sci-fi
| laboratories. The game is just giving me more stuff to clean,
| good! When there is some meta-progression (unlocks, dialogue
| trees, etc.) I find myself getting stressed over what I can
| unlock next, or which dialogue tree I have yet to clear. In that
| way, VCD is perfect because you just pick a map and go. More
| games should make all of their content available to the player
| from the start.
| Alhaitham wrote:
| https://archive.is/oty3L
| tim333 wrote:
| I quite like Pokemon Go in that way, which also gets you out for
| a stroll.
| latexr wrote:
| This was fantastic, and I didn't even realise at first I was on a
| news website. Unfortunately, that became very obvious at the
| bottom:
|
| > MORE FROM REUTERS GRAPHICS
|
| > Inside North Korea's vast operation to help Russia's war on
| Ukraine
|
| > The Most Daunting Hole at Augusta
|
| > How South Korea's largest and deadliest wildfire spread
|
| > The list of proposed US tariffs
|
| After a whole article about quelling anxiety, perhaps don't end
| with links to anxiety-inducing themes?
| rfmoz wrote:
| Walden, a game. This is an other calm game, full of nature and
| simple life.
| fuzzy_biscuit wrote:
| I'd say the increase in cozy games is more easily attributable to
| Stardew Valley in 2016. So many of the clones that came out
| directly resemble SV in progression, style and content.
|
| Also, the site is beautiful. Excellent work.
| miiiiiike wrote:
| My girlfriend calls farming vials in Bloodborne knitting.
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| I find Stardew Valley to be stressful since I keep trying to max
| things out for the 3 year goal of meeting grandpa and that always
| stops me from continuing it.
|
| Literally I have a todo list for it.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Can't see a mention of Sable here.
| dimitar wrote:
| Nothing relaxes me like throwing tanks and helicopters into the
| fire in Warno - a Cold War Combined Arms Real-Time Tactics game
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