Nice mellow games

[Famous Mortimer]

I just picked up "Power Wash Simulator", which is kind of perfect for just popping on for a bit and cleaning some stuff - rather satisfying, and no time limits or owt like that. Also, less messy than a real power washer.

Perhaps it's just the Youtube recommendations I've been getting, but there seem to be a few games of this sort at the moment. Just stuff you can mess about on. Any other good ones?

[Mister Six]

A Short Hike is mellow AF. You're a young crow at a summer camp for animals, and you have to get to the top of your little island's relatively little mountain so you can get the phone reception to call your mum. There are treasures to be found, and the various other campers have their own little storylines that develop as you go. No pressure, no time limits, just a gentle ramble and some very light orienteering puzzles. Basically, it's like Animal Crossing, except you're one of the animals just pissing about and having fun instead of an overworked human maintaining the place off their own back. Lovely.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Back a few years ago when I was having lot of a work stress I used to unwind by playing SpaceChem. The unpressured simplicity of the gameplay and soundtrack is perfect for putting you in a perfectly chilled Zen-like state.

[Zetetic]

Teardown.

You can play its directed missions, or you can play the levels as a sandbox.

[Zetetic]

Bit less "mess about-y", but still quite unhurried for the most part:
Paradise Killer and Heaven's Vault are detective/discovery games that are fairly easy to drop in and out of without losing track of what you've learnt. The Outer Wilds, similarly, although I found it needed a bit more concerted attention and it is (slightly) demanding of coordination skills in a way that the others aren't. All are also very neat in general.

Vagrus - the Riven Realms and Star Traders: Frontiers are both role-play+strategy+exploration games, where you're a person in a universe with the means to go between different locations and earn a living by doing so, and while they both have pressures and peril, you can get yourself into a rhythm where you're still learning and achieving stuff and meeting challenges, but it's not terribly threatening and demanding. Utterly different settings and interests beyond that broad structure.

(I'd be really interested in recommendations similar to the above.)

[Pink Gregory]

Genuinely feel this way about the Sniper Elite games.

Fairly uncomplicated light stealth/third person shooter with a light on complexity long range shooting mechanic that supplements rather than dominates the game, expansive and pretty levels that can be traversed fairly easily with usually a diverse set of little outposts to attempt at any one time, there's an sense of being unhurried that's totally antithetical to the setting but that's a lot of the games' appeal to me.

Peaceful moments in Prison Architect are nice.  The ambient noise of voices down corridors and doors opening and closing becomes familiar and pleasing.

My mellow games are about a horrific, dehumanising war and penal incarceration by the state.

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe: over 20 years old, but still lovingly sustained by an active modding community. Set your initial game parameters to 0 competitors, and you've basically got yourself a virtual train set. There's a real pleasure, I find, in optimising the traffic on your network. Towns and cities expand as economic activity between them, opening new routes and opportunities. Free and open-source, too. What's not to like?

[H-O-W-L]

Viscera Cleanup Detail is horrifically gory and ghastly but incredibly calming and almost therapeutic in how it works. If you dunno what it is: Imagine you're the poor sod sent in to clean up the splatter after Doom Guy's rampages.

[Sonny_Jim]

OpenTTD is grand, although once you've worked out that fuck everything else, just transport coal and then pump the profits into building a massive goods generating factory you are pretty much set for the rest of the game.  The fun part really is picking a town and growing it into a mega-city.  In a similar vein OpenRCT2 is basically a modern-ish version Theme Park.

[ImmaculateClump]

Spelunky for me. I can play it on autopilot at this stage. Just turn off my brain, slouch back with Frank Skinner on or some music and just chill.

The euro/american truck sim games are great for zoning out, though I haven't played them for a long time now. Put some music on and you can enter a trance like meditative state after a while.

I used to play Hack, slash, loot after a long day when I could barely keep my eyes open. It's a roguelike that's been simplified to the point where it's almost like sitting in front of a slot machine. You just go through the motions, clicking, seeing how this particular run will pan out, seeing if RNJesus is smiling down on you this time.
I'm not gonna say it's a good game, but I put 26 hours into it.

Good Pizza, Great Pizza, you work in a pizza shop. It's a bit like those cook serve delicious games, but way less chaotic. I used to like zoning out, forgetting my troubles and going through repetative motions, making pizzas, cooking them, cutting them and serving them to chumps.
Again, wouldn't call it a good game, but I spent 11.4 hours playing it.



Peglin is nice and chill.

[lazyhour]

Elli! Lovely gentle puzzle platformer where you have no attacks and there aren't really any enemies, just exploring and jumping and avoiding the odd bit of fire. It's lovely. Like 3D Zelda but but chill af.

[oggyraiding]

I found Mario Odyssey pretty mellow. If you're aiming to 100% it and do Darker Side Of The Moon or whatever, not mellow. But the core story mode, every point of interest in the levels has some sort of reward, the bosses and enemies aren't too hard to dispatch, and it's just a nice selection of colourful mini-sandboxes.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I just picked up "Power Wash Simulator", which is kind of perfect for just popping on for a bit and cleaning some stuff - rather satisfying, and no time limits or owt like that. Also, less messy than a real power washer.

Perhaps it's just the Youtube recommendations I've been getting, but there seem to be a few games of this sort at the moment. Just stuff you can mess about on. Any other good ones?

Have you ever experienced the pure pleasure of using a power washer in real life though? I'd recommend it. Just the act of blasting away the grime from a flagstone and seeing the pristine underneath is very therapeutic.

[brat-sampson]

Surely Animal Crossing New Horizons is the ultimate solution here, that or some puzzle game, maybe The Witness.

[ImmaculateClump]

Surely Animal Crossing New Horizons is the ultimate solution here

I dunno, I was gonna say Stardew Valley, but then I remembered how I played that game. Running around, trying to pack as much into the day as I could, tearing pumpkins out the ground, ripping milk out of my frightened cattle and then off to the mines to chin slimes.
I had a wand that'd teleport me back to the farmhouse so I didn't have to worry about setting off early.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Spelunky for me. I can play it on autopilot at this stage. Just turn off my brain, slouch back with Frank Skinner on or some music and just chill.

Interesting choice. I love the game but I think most people would find Spelunky about as mellow as a brain hemorrhage.

[ImmaculateClump]

Yeah, I wasn't like that when I started, but I've played for 1,147 hours on steam, and probably a couple hundred more on the 360 so it's more about being so comfortable with the games mechanics and controls that even though it's procedurally generated, I can switch off and play it on semi-autopilot now.

Compared to the daft bullet hell, blink and die shite I usually play, it feels like sitting back with a nice cup of cocoa.

[Famous Mortimer]

Have you ever experienced the pure pleasure of using a power washer in real life though? I'd recommend it. Just the act of blasting away the grime from a flagstone and seeing the pristine underneath is very therapeutic.

Oh, definitely. I think there might be a few raised eyebrows if I just turned up at my local fire station and asked to clean stuff, though (which is a thing in the game, I ought to explain).

[Replies From View]

Buttock Dispensation 12 on the SNES emulator

Just one of your standard chilled-out vibes where you get all the buttock dispensation and there isn't really anything especially bad.

[Famous Mortimer]

I just completed the giant gnome fountain in "Power Wash Simulator", very satisfying stuff. I pick a nice tactic, pop on a podcast or two, and have a lovely time.

It's apparently officially coming out of early access next month - I presume the multiplayer will be fully sorted (not that I want to do that) and there'll be more challenges. As long as they don't mess with my lovely peaceful cleaning, I'll be happy.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Presumably in the multiplayer you try and aim the jet spray at each other's genitals.

[Zetetic]

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is not a mellow game in 'Career' mode, but I suspect that the free-play mode feels quite similar to Power Wash Simulator.

(Currently on Game Pass for PC.)

[Famous Mortimer]

I've watched a few videos of people playing "Hydroneer" and it looks up my street. Set up a mine, buy a load of shite, build bigger mines, build a large unwieldy structure to live in, etc. Doesn't look like there's any real peril to it either, apart from the occasional thing needing to be repaired.

Might be a smidge complicated for true mellowness, but if it's not too expensive I might give it a go.

[Johnny Textface]

Exo one is great with a bong.

[FalknerHinton]

PC Building Simulator is pretty mellow, Art of Rally can be, particularly in free roam, though it can have sudden moments of driving you up the wall in the career mode. I find Railway Empire relaxing, and I usually hate business/empire games, and Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is like walking around an episode of the Archers, but with no people. It has a fantastic score, too.

[Stigdu]

Unpacking is an award-winning game, supposed to be relaxing as well as some gaming review sites' game of the year.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Been playing Lake as it's on Xbox Game Pass and it's a lovely little relaxing game. You play a burnt-out city dweller who takes a sabbatical to deliver the post in the slow little town she grew up in.

You just drive around in your little van, taking in the scenery, dropping off parcels and letters and meeting people. The stakes are low and the people interesting enough. Properly got me out of my Sunday night dread last weekend although

Spoiler alert

Can't believe the video shop woman was just stringing me along to get me to deliver movie boxes for free. Fucking nerve of it. If I'm not scissoring her raw by the end of the second week, I'll be very disappointed.

[close]

[Jerzy Bondov]

Alba: a Wildlife Adventure is a lovely game where you go round a nice island taking pictures of birds, and thwarting unscrupulous property developers. Really nice atmosphere, just a great place to spend some time

[Pink Gregory]

Alba: a Wildlife Adventure is a lovely game where you go round a nice island taking pictures of birds, and thwarting unscrupulous property developers. Really nice atmosphere, just a great place to spend some time

love that you have to manually nod or shake your head when talking to people

[The Crumb]

It's a more structured game overall, but you can have a lovely chill time in Okami restoring trees, feeding animals and barking at people or encouraging them to pet you.