Games like Stardew Valley but with mouse controls?

[Ohforf]

My mother finally quit her stupid Facebook games and now I'm looking for a proper replacement without a predatory business model and endless grind.
I would recommend Stardew Valley to her, but she just can't play games with WASD controls (she tried) and using a gamepad is probably not something she wants to do while she sips on her coffee in the morning.

Is there something like this game or at least a game in which she can have a relaxed farming / harvesting / collecting experience with full mouse controls? A few keyboard hotkeys are fine, but no WASD running.

[Frandez]

It may not accurate as your wish, but I'll just recommend some title games for u.
- Available on Steam:
1.) Farm Frenzy
I used to like this game

2.) The Sims
I guess u already know this game? Series 2-4, and yeah The Sims 4 & its DLC have ridiculous price, just bought it on sale

3.) Delicious - Emily's
This is Time Management games, if your mom have a good gaming skill, better try on the oldest series, because on latest series, game difficulty is for a kid in my opinion . But unfortunately the older series not available on steam, maybe u could check on GameHouse site. The oldest series on steam are "Delicious - Emily's New Beginning"

4.) The Tenants
I never tried it, but I watched someone on youtube play it. I guess the gameplay is to build or decorate the rooms and try to build high class apartment.

- Not available on Steam:
1.) Artist Colony
This is on BigFishGames .com, but I don't know if it still compatible on current PC, cause someone mentioned it crash during startup.

2.) World of Zellians
The gameplay is to restore kingdom.

3.) Sally's Saloon or Sally's Spa
Well I love Time Management genre, u run a saloon or spa business.

[Frandez]

Well I looking into the mod recently and I see this one maybe a solution for u (If u don't mind about mods).
Mouse Move Mode [www.nexusmods.com]
Never tried it though.

[Ohforf]

Originally posted by Jin the Silver Knight:

4.) The Tenants
I never tried it, but I watched someone on youtube play it. I guess the gameplay is to build or decorate the rooms and try to build high class apartment.

This game looks promising, I will show her a gameplay video. Thanks!

Originally posted by Jin the Silver Knight:

Well I looking into the mod recently and I see this one maybe a solution for u (If u don't mind about mods).
Mouse Move Mode [www.nexusmods.com]
Never tried it though.

I will check out the mod, thank you!

[DaBa]

I think a bigger barrier will be for your mother to actually understand all the basics about video games that we all take for granted because we are used to them. That facebook game definitely did not prepare her for that. Some examples:

- The idea of inventory and a hotbar
- Switching zones by walking to the edge of the screen
- The idea of a health and energy bar
- Understanding and manouvering in a top down perspective
- Interpreting pixel art
- Fighting enemies
- Fishing minigame
- Many many MANY more things

All of these things sound super obvious to us and you may immediately think "what do you mean, these are just the things, how can you not understand them?". Do not forget, you probably had YEARS to learn the language of video games, and you learned it when you were still very young and your brain was a sponge. I don't actually know how much your mother knows about proper video games and her experience with them, but if all she did was facebook games, then trying to play something like stardew valley without some good guidence will feel like she is staring at a plane console with dozens of buttons and screens.

[Ohforf]

Originally posted by DaBa:

I think a bigger barrier will be for your mother to actually understand all the basics about video games that we all take for granted because we are used to them.

My mother used to play quite a few regular video games before she got addicted to the Facebook crap. She played point-and-click adventures like the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle and a few others. She also played The Sims 1 and 2 and some Anno game. Video games in general are not the issue here, but she seems to be unable to get used to the concept of WASD movement. I saw her trying it. Letting your hand rest on the keyboard while pressing one key and then adding another ... that's too strange to her.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Ohforf:

Originally posted by DaBa:

I think a bigger barrier will be for your mother to actually understand all the basics about video games that we all take for granted because we are used to them.

My mother used to play quite a few regular video games before she got addicted to the Facebook crap. She played point-and-click adventures like the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle and a few others. She also played The Sims 1 and 2 and some Anno game. Video games in general are not the issue here, but she seems to be unable to get used to the concept of WASD movement. I saw her trying it. Letting your hand rest on the keyboard while pressing one key and then adding another ... that's too strange to her.

I see, got it. Nice to have a gamer mom! Also good job pulling her away from those facebook games.

One last thing you could try: have you considered having her try out a controller? Stardew controls pretty well with a controller, and they are more natural and comfortable to use than mouse and keyboard. Might be just what she needs. However, that mouse control mod above does look very neat, provided it works well with everything.

[Ohforf]

Originally posted by DaBa:

I see, got it. Nice to have a gamer mom!

It wasn't always so nice for my older brothers. Our mother would always "borrow" their Game Boy and use up the batteries.

Originally posted by DaBa:

One last thing you could try: have you considered having her try out a controller?

That's one thing I considered. I guess I will bring my xbox 360 controller when I visit her the next time. Thats probably far more intuitive for her than WASD. But still, it's probably not the laid-back gaming experience she is used to. We will see.

Until then I'm still looking for great games with mouse controls. I sent her a review for The Tenants, maybe she likes it. She always loved the building and decorating part of The Sims.

[Nakos]

Um ... hmm..

My time At Portia maybe? That's mostly mouse controls.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/666140/My_Time_At_Portia/

(There's also My Time At Sandrock, but that's still in Early Access. It's very similar, but isn't really done yet).

There's Strange Horticulture:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1574580/Strange_Horticulture/

There's Sable (which is a bit more on the SF side, but is a vast world to explore with keyboard and mouse): https://store.steampowered.com/app/757310/Sable/


Oh, and Potion Craft might be something she'd enjoy too: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1210320/Potion_Craft_Alchemist_Simulator/


There's a lot of games that have a similar sort of relaxed, adventure style format (similar to Stardew Valley), but a lot of them do use WASD (or the equivalent).

Starbound and Graveyard Keeper both come to mind. I've played both of those, they're a bit more grindy than SDV, but still pretty good.

There's Moonlighter and Sunhaven too, although I haven't played either.

There's Witchbrook, which isn't out yet. No idea what the controls are like on that one (obviously).

There's Wytchwood, don't know much about it, but it looks cool and has been on my wishlist for a while: https://store.steampowered.com/app/729000/Wytchwood/

Depends on your mother really, there's lots of games with fairly simple controls, but they may not be to her taste. Darkest Dungeon comes to mind, it's a quite a simple, turn-based interface, but it's also a game about fighting Lovecraftian horrors and collapsing from stress, so that might not be something she'd enjoy.

Umm.... The Long Dark is pretty much all mouse based movement as I recall.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/305620/The_Long_Dark/

There's Townscaper. That's ... less of a game, and more of a toy, but she still might enjoy it, and the controls are all mouseclicks. There's a version for the Switch too I think.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1291340/Townscaper/

[Cat on Linux]

Originally posted by DaBa:

One last thing you could try: have you considered having her try out a controller? Stardew controls pretty well with a controller, and they are more natural and comfortable to use than mouse and keyboard.

I can second that. give your mom some lightweight controller for female hand (good generic one or old PS2/3 would do. xbox probably not - it's heavy and square, no female would enjoy that brick in their hands). Planting, harvesting and watering is a nightmare with controller tho, will have to switch to kb/mouse for that task. Managing inventory, resource gathering, fighting is good, fishing is even better with controller because instead of jamming mouse button you press controller button and it feels more responsive.
game has obvious flaws with wonky controls and stun locking during combat, where your char starts to face random direction but it happens with controller and with mouse, so it's not worse than with kb/mouse.
I play with controller myself, much better for wrists.

my Time at Portia is similar to SW but in 3d and it's basically cheap knock off of SW, gets very hectic and feels like FB game for no reason (waiting times, very limited space in your yard etc). I'd suggest to go with demo to see if it's not too boring.

[Necrisha]

If she doesn't mind gaming on a cellphone/tablet the mobile port of Stardew Valley is pretty decent. Granted the 1.5 update isn't available to the form but it can be an alright alternative. the other option is that the WASD key are programmable and can easily be switched over to the keyboard directional keys if that clicks with your mom a little bit better.

[Kedzie]

Have you thought about some of the old school 'tycoon' style games? Those were what a lot of the Facebook games were modeled after, so they'd be familiar. Honestly.....little embarrassing.but I tried the same thing with my mom at one point and ended up playing the balls outta one of those games myself. Silly fudging game....Fairy Godmother Tycoon I think it was.


....
I may also have gotten a hand cramp playing too much Chocolatier....