Screw anyone who says Stardew Valley is a cozy game. If I don’t water my plants they die! If I stay up too late I’ll lose money! I can’t get the fish I need unless I fish at 6pm in the mountain lake on a rainy Tuesday in winter! Abigail has once again dominated me at the egg hunt! Ahhhhh!
I say this with all the kindness in my heart. If stardew valley estresses you out, then the problem is not the videogame. Your perfectionism and minmaxing POV might be what’s causing the anxiety and you would feel anxious and estressed in most other activities as well.
I have had many thoughts along the lines of “how can I fully optimise my cellar” and “dino eggs are worth more money than dino mayo” and it just sucks all the wonder out of the game
We call those intrusive thoughts. The answers are literally meaningless. There’s no punishment or failure state on stardew valley, it cannot hurt you. Full optimization is not something that exist in or has any impact on the game at all.
Personally, I’ve been enjoying cozy games like Dorfromantik, Rail Route, or even Transport Fever 2 (I just play with unlimited money and build great transit networks that I wish existed in my home country.)
To be honest, most of the games I’ve played in the past 5+ years since I’ve started to get back into the hobby are stressful in various ways. That doesn’t mean they aren’t “quelling” stress and anxiety for me, just that when I’m playing them, they stress me out and give me anxiety.
Take for instance my current game du jour: Doom 2016. When battles are going, I’m for sure sweating and amped up, stressed, anxious, and what have you. It’s anything but relaxing while playing. But still quite enjoyable.
So, perhaps the “quelling” comes after? A bit like a workout, where you’re hyped up and exerting yourself, but after the fact you mellow out and relax?
I go into a meditative, Zen-like Trance playing the Doom titles.
For reference, I’ve been playing Doom since it came out in 1993, arguably, I’ve played it for more hours than possibly anyone alive on the Internet at the present moment. Maybe over a solid 128,000 hours between D1/D2/D3/D2016/D:Eternal.
I still play it, various MegaWADS featured in the CacoAwards, and whatnot, but I digress.
My feeling with this is, as they’d say:
“Your judgement for the sin of wrath is an eternity in Hell”.
“Why are you smiling? It’s supposed to be a punishment.”
“No, adjudicator, I heard you perfectly. An eternity in paradise.”
If you like the stress of combat, and as much as you say “quelling”, I must recommend Warhammer 40k Darktide. Since the last big content patch in ~October that pretty much finally brought it to 1.0, it has essentially been the roguelite, frenetic FPS I’ve been searching for. High skill ceiling, skill-based movement system, target prioritization is paramount, tons of play styles with builds and classes. Give it a shot. Do some ripping and tearing for the emperor.
There’s a lot of things that are like “duh”, but it’s good that someone writes it down so someone else later down the line will have a harder time saying “um acktually video games cause stress and anxiety, not the lower wages and hotter summers” and get a fat cheque from the Heritage Foundation.
I mean, isn’t “winding down” and having fun a main reason a lot of people play video games to start with?
There’s few things more satisfying than a well tossed stick of dynamite landing in a KKK meeting in RDR2, then cleaning up the leftovers with a shotgun.
reuters.com
Najnowsze