games that are fast to learn for relaxing after work
got a new job and enjoy it but damn i am mentally exhausted after work. i want to play a game to decompress and regain energy to do other things with my day when i come home, a game i can pick up without learning too much and being overwhelmed at the beginning. most of the games i own right now are not like this and require lots of learning or thinking so oof.
Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Brotato, Mini Metro/Mini Motorways are some of my go-to "turn brain off, just do a thing" games.
funnily enough i did try a Touhou Vampire Survivors-inspired game and it helped me decompress and get energy to do my other hobbies, i just also am pretty sure i saw all the content in it/beat the game hence this post asking for help! thanks, i'll look into mini metro or motorways.
Peak is also a great game to drop focus on the world
Mini Airways is another one to try in a similar vein. It has a free demo too.
There's also HoloCure, a free survivors-like based on Hololive's VTubers. It's surprisingly fleshed out for a free game and rivals most commercial titles in the genre. I have zero knowledge of or interest in the source material and still enjoyed the hell out of it.
Stardew Valley - relaxing and easy to pick up, perfect game to play in short bursts, and cosy as fuck.
Vampire Survivor - hordes of enemies advance at you and you automatically fire back, all you have to do is move. It's easy to learn, fun to play and has surprising longevity and depth to it. Megabonk seems to be a new 3D take on the same game concept.
Honestly? Minecraft. It can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be, as simple or as complex. It's easy to start, but there's a lot of depth to what's possible in the game so it never really feels limited - which is one of the problems I have with most "cozy" or "relaxing" games, they get boring after about 15 minutes.
If you just want to hang out and tend the orchard, raise some crops, maybe build another addition to the house, that's cool. If you feel like getting away from the house for awhile, go on a walkabout, go on an exploration journey, go fight some scary monsters, that's always an option. You can just get lost wandering around for hours or days.
If you want to do a complex project you can get into redstone circuits, which can be as simple as lights that turn on automatically when the sun goes down, or as complex as building a functional computer.
And if you really want to get into it you can look into installing mods, and running your own server.
I always end up going back to Minecraft, because no other game that I know of offers the depth and variability to just fit how I'm feeling at that moment.
Powerwash simulator, fantasy life I, disgaea, deep rock galactic (takes a little time to learn things, but a great friendly community), any of the Forza Horizons. It all depends on what type of game you're looking for.
:edit: swapped Forza Horizon in for Sonic Crossworlds. Better flow game.
I second DRG. It's my friend and I's go to game whenever we want to chill and chat. We've been playing it for so long that we have all the progression stuff, so the minerals are basically useless to us, but I still go around collecting them because it's just fun. Also the space rig has so many fun little intractables that sometimes when we're done with missions we just goof off in there for a while until we eventually log off.
Try Crimsonland, it's the original Vampire Survivors
As someone who just beat the splitting spider level on the hardest difficulty, I can say the later game is anything but relaxing.
Pinball Arcade, Spell Brigade,
Panel de Pon
The correct answer to flow games is always Tetris.
If you're down to emulate there a bunch of great gen 1 and 2 games that fit, like Echo the Dolphin, the OG Sonic games, Waverunner, Strfox, not to mention the OG Super Brothers, and hey why not go even further back with Galaga, Space Invaders, Cenitioede, Asteroids, etc.
do you have a collection? If so I would say just go through what you got and play each one as long as you care to. if you get through your collection then maybe find a new thing.
I do, but as my post says,
I guess I could go individually check each one.
yeah I mean try playing without learning and see if you like it enough.
For me Stardew Valley worked. Easy, cosy, just don't be afraid to miss stuff, in this game you can always do anything later.
Also, Cult of the Lamb was veeery cozy. Btw if you think roguelike side of the game is a bit dull and you like the cult tycoon side more (as I did) make sure to check accessibility settings, there are options to make this part insanely simple.
Ooh, thank you for the tip! Roguelikes are not my thing, so simplifying that so I can focus more on tycoon sounds wonderful.
Glad to help!
Something I found after making this post due to unrelated recommendations from friends: interactive fiction genre (think ![email protected] without the visuals, or Choose Your Own Adventure books). Works for me, as someone who reads for entertainment, someone for whom reading fiction never classed as "work" mentally and always classed as "play" even when it was assigned for school. Especially with the paragraph format; ironically reading item descriptions and bits of lore in a few documents, or going through GUI or in-game books in Minecraft to learn someone's mod can get to me pretty badly and takes my energy away.
Sometimes when I just want to mildly interact, I play those vampire survivors clones
A really casual Steam one I played recently was Karate Survivor - you only move with the LStick and watch your cooldowns. It's a combination of strategic dodging, using environment for wacky outrageous moves, and timing your attacks. The only time you press a button is to select a power up.
There's a free one on steam called Elewar that I actually put over 100 hours into and it's free. Last time I played at the dev had overcome the worst bugs and interface oddities, and the scrambled and insane interface was getting a lot better.
I know the feeling. I even though I kind of want to play some bigger single player games, I tend to put those off to spend hours playing comfort games. More generally, I get really overwhelmed by really complex games. I still want depth, but I want it to come from gameplay interactions rather than wrangling the controls or messing with a giant character build or something.
That's why I end up playing a lot of things like card games, roguelikes, etc. Things that are really easy to start playing, easy to keep repeating, but which still provide interesting, varied experiences. Think about it, if I play something like Slay The Spire, all I have to do to learn the controls is to click and drag a card. There are builds, but those builds are constructed through a bunch of small, manageable choices.
Complete left field recommendation: It's not a repeatable game, but if you somehow haven't played it yet, Portal is a masterclass in this kind of depth without complexity design and perfectly tutorializes what little you do have to learn.
Already played Portal but thank you!
Sadly allergic to card games and roguelikes but glad you like them!
Diablo 4. 30-40 hours to get pretty deep. It's easy to jump in and out, and lots of builds to follow if you just want to blast stuff.