91–100 of 114 posts
What 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.
You don't get healed by kitsch. You get healed by facing the issue and working (out)/fighting hard.
It depends on the situation. It's almost a teenage meme at this point but I don't know how many problems in my professional life (for example, coding problems) that I've solved just stopping work and taking a walk where my mind is free to relax and then approach something anew. Just grinding all day doesn't always work.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild has strong elements of Iyashikei. I picked this up recently after years of no video games. And I find myself just wandering around marveling at the sights and sounds. I mostly avoid conflict while performing the more ancillary quests. It's just so much more relaxing than the platform/shooter games I grew up with.
Ive been goofing around in gta, by following traffic laws. Very relaxing, and just observing the natural chaos and beautiful setting. Put some tunes on and it reminds me of the old outrun games.
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A Channel is another healing anime, as is Song of the Sky. Laid-back Camp is probably the most recent and most popular healing anime out there. Welcome to the NHK isn't one, but in the manga the game the two protagonists are working on is a healing/erogame, and the main protagonist goes into length about why he is making it.
Yuri Camp is one of my favourites, it really does capture that wonderful tranquil feeling of being outdoors. And it has introduced me to a number of great new winter foods from Japan too!
a 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 articl…
Does (did) Farmville fit in this category?
Minecraft is so open-ended that it can be molded into almost any genre. But the way I play fits entirely within this. I play in survival mode mostly to make the world feel more grounded, but I sleep every night and rarely explore caverns. The game is mostly me building living spaces, mining for supplies, mapping the world, and collecting items. It's really satisfying.
I think what makes minecraft great is that you can switch between spelunking, combat, farming and building so seamlessly and they all integrate with eachother well so when you get sick of one you just pick up the next.
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I wish more AAA games industry designers recognized this about a lot of players.
My read is that he's also treating this as an exploration game, and that at least has some traction in AAA games. I mean people are still playing Skyrim for Pete's sake.