Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
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Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
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Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#2In related news LSD - Dream Emulator is playable in english finally https://www.romhacking.net/translations/5523/
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#3>Iyashikei games, shows, and movies are “healing” because they help us celebrate the ordinary parts of everyday life
I'm really not sold about the game part. Like Shenmue is pretty much the quintessential ordinary life simulator but I'd not call it a iyashikei. Same with Ni No Kuni and Yokai Watch. Sure for Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon but once battle and fight involved then personally I think it's already another genre. And people wouldn't call Pokemon a iyashikei either yet Yokai is 'just' a more modern 'clone' of that
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#4What might be western games of a similar bent, with a focus on soothing game play:
-Stardew Valley
-My time at Portia
-Euro/American Truck Simulator
-Anno series
I personally find snooker/pool simulations very soothing.
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#5Doki Doki Literature Club is a classic of the genre ;-D
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#6What might be western games of a similar bent, with a focus on soothing game play: -Stardew Valley -My time at Portia -Euro/American Truck Simulator -Anno series I personally find snooker/pool simulations very soothing.
I would also add Minecraft, I spent a lot of time just mining and building while listening to audio-books at the same time. I preferred survival but it has a creative mode and options to turn off hostiles.
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#7What might be western games of a similar bent, with a focus on soothing game play: -Stardew Valley -My time at Portia -Euro/American Truck Simulator -Anno series I personally find snooker/pool simulations very soothing.
I find the energy and time mechanics of Stardew Valley to be pretty stressful, to be honest.
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#8a few pieces of media that fit the bill really well and are available easily in the West:
Attack of the Friday Monsters - it's a short 3DS game about children's fantasy merging their small town reality with a TV show
Barakamon - anime about a calligrapher who gets banished to a small island in the inland sea and comes to embrace rural life and playing with the local children. (Pictured but not mentioned in the article)
Rilakkuma and Kaoru - Stop motion TV show on Netflix about a woman who lives office lady life but also had two plush(?) bears and a chicken who live with her. Very relaxing.
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#9>Iyashikei games, shows, and movies are “healing” because they help us celebrate the ordinary parts of everyday life I'm really not sold about the game part. Like Shenmue is pretty much the quintessential ordinary life simulator but I'd not call it a iyashikei. Same with Ni No Kuni and Yokai Watch. Sure for Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon but once battle and fight involved then personally I think it's already anothe…
>Sure for Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon
Does it even apply for those?
In Animal Crossing there are two battles, wasp and tarantulas. Both have something at stake with both a win and loss condition.
In Harvest Moon you also have a battle against limits. Most of them don't have any sort of enemy units, but you do have tasks and you are doing them in a time limit where there is a failure condition (either running out of stamina or time), and in some cases there can be a big cost to failure (especially around harvesting crops right as the seasons change).
One game I think interesting to consider is Minecraft. There are three different takes.
* Normal (with Easy and Hard included) which has enemy mobs you must fight against and environmental traps.
* Peaceful, where there are no enemy mobs but environmental traps still pose a risk (though less of one).
* Creative, where you are fully immune even to lava or falling.
Each step down is progressively more relaxing as it removes even more conflicts from the equation. But even in creative, you can still have a conflict with the game rules or within yourself (consider someone trying to design some redstone contraption and getting frustrated that their design isn't functioning correctly).
I'm drawn to thinking about the following web comic on conflict in literature and how it parallels the different conflicts and battles that can occur in games and how some of these might not be possible to remove.
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FWszluTZTpM/U310wQoCMWI/AAAAAAAAE...
Re: Iyashikei: Japan’s Genre of “Healing Games” (2018)
#10>Iyashikei games, shows, and movies are “healing” because they help us celebrate the ordinary parts of everyday life I'm really not sold about the game part. Like Shenmue is pretty much the quintessential ordinary life simulator but I'd not call it a iyashikei. Same with Ni No Kuni and Yokai Watch. Sure for Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon but once battle and fight involved then personally I think it's already anothe…
It could be appropriate to consider them cross-genre games containing elements of both soothing-slice-of-life gameplay cycles and conflict-oriented-'normal'-game gameplay cycles. Games mixing placid, relaxing gameplay loops seem to definitely hold a different overall tone even if you can't play through them without any aggression or violence.
A pure iyashikei game feels like an aspirational ideal and fairly rare.