Searching for relaxing, adventurous games - help me out

[76561198433919911]

Hey,

Ever since I quit CS:GO because of the community's toxic and immature behaviour I've been searching for more Casual, Relaxing and Adventurous games, as I've noticed that Competitive games put a lot of stress on me - which leads to not having as much/any fun, stress issues, even sadness.

So, could anyone recommend a few simple, relaxing games on Steam like Slime Rancher or The Long Dark? Prefferably they would be offline and free, as I'm broke as of now.

Thanks in advance!

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Saira is free, about exploring, and non-combat.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/48900/

Eternal Senia is free and is story-centric and emotional.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/351640

Khimera is an action game but pretty casual. Good if you want something more fast-paced.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/467380/Khimera_Destroy_All_Monster_Girls/

Also try GOG's[www.gog.com] free games. Of them I highly recommend Treasure Adventure Game, an action-adventure game in the "metroidvania" style whose generic-sounding title belies its setting and narrative depth. Other games there include point-and-click adventures, a shmup, and an old WRPG.

Do you have a budget, before I rec non-free games to you?

[76561198433919911]

Mischievous Protagonist Quint eredeti hozzászólása:

Saira is free, about exploring, and non-combat.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/48900/

Eternal Senia is free and is story-centric and emotional.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/351640

Khimera is an action game but pretty casual. Good if you want something more fast-paced.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/467380/Khimera_Destroy_All_Monster_Girls/

Also try {HIVATKOZÁS TÖRÖLVE}GOG's free games. Of them I highly recommend Treasure Adventure Game, an action-adventure game in the "metroidvania" style whose generic-sounding title belies its setting and narrative depth. Other games there include point-and-click adventures, a shmup, and an old WRPG.

Do you have a budget, before I rec non-free games to you?

Hi, thanks for the reply!

No, currently I don't have a proper budget, but as I said I'm pretty low on cash right now, but I guess I wouldn't mind spending 5-10$ for a game that will keep me playing.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Aloha eredeti hozzászólása:

Hi, thanks for the reply!

No, currently I don't have a proper budget, but as I said I'm pretty low on cash right now, but I guess I wouldn't mind spending 5-10$ for a game that will keep me playing.

Hm. I know of a lot of games within that price range, especially during a sales event. (Yes, that's my personal curation list, and I have played far more Steam games than what's on that list anyway.)

Might be better for me to ask, though, what do you like about Slime Rancher and The Long Dark? I don't know either of those games well.

[76561198433919911]

Hm. I know of a lot of games within that price range, especially during a sales event. (Yes, that's my personal curation list, and I have played far more Steam games than what's on that list anyway.)

Might be better for me to ask, though, what do you like about Slime Rancher and The Long Dark? I don't know either of those games well.

Well, what I like about The Long Dark is it's adventurous, story-driven and survival setting. You start in a forest in the middle of the winter and you gotta make your way from there. Very my type of game.

Slime Rancher on the other hand, is the fact that I can play anytime, casually without any thinking, to calm my mind. Nothing to worry about, just enjoy the game. Turn down the difficulty and get into it. I like having that choice of sitting down and doing whatever I want without any consequences whatsoever. Basically a free-roam game to mess around, or take it a tiny bit more seriously if you want.

[Hosscatt]

Something that might be good to have on your wishlist is Valley. Very fun and relaxing exploration game. Not free but it goes on sale for pretty good.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Aloha eredeti hozzászólása:

Hm. I know of a lot of games within that price range, especially during a sales event. (Yes, that's my personal curation list, and I have played far more Steam games than what's on that list anyway.)

Might be better for me to ask, though, what do you like about Slime Rancher and The Long Dark? I don't know either of those games well.

Well, what I like about The Long Dark is it's adventurous, story-driven and survival setting. You start in a forest in the middle of the winter and you gotta make your way from there. Very my type of game.

Slime Rancher on the other hand, is the fact that I can play anytime, casually without any thinking, to calm my mind. Nothing to worry about, just enjoy the game. Turn down the difficulty and get into it. I like having that choice of sitting down and doing whatever I want without any consequences whatsoever. Basically a free-roam game to mess around, or take it a tiny bit more seriously if you want.

I wonder if you might enjoy Spelunky.

You can't really go wrong with downloading the free version. I've played it for way too long (like several thousand starts I think, most of which ended within 5 minutes because I just play it to do crazy stuff). (I played version 0.99.9, specifically for certain mechanics I didn't like 1.0 taking out, but honestly, the higher-numbers versions are generally improvements.)

It's not free-roam, but there's certainly a lot of room for creativity and problem-solving, and it's certainly adventurous and has a lot of unpredictable elements to keep things exciting and fresh. And if all you want is a quick fix, do a few daring runs and see how far you can get after robbing every shop and murdering every shopkeeper. Make your way to the Black Market and see if you can survive that. The only downside is that if you actually want to go for a proper score run and do get lucky on early equipment finds to be able to get really good stuff like a jetpack, clearing out the City of Gold and also farming corpse blood to feed the Kalpala and waiting for the final boss to clear the whole arena and free as much of the treasure as possible can take upwards of 20 minutes depending on how thorough you are.

There's a paid version that remakes the game, adds more features, and even lets you do multiplayer. I have it on GOG but I haven't tried it yet.

For something that's less of a quick thrill but more of a calm chill (lol rhymes), I've lately picked up a game called Mini Metro. You can play it in short bursts for the challenge of normal mode but it's also got an "endless mode" which allows you to engage more creative freedom to try to find the most efficient setup (as well as an extreme mode which is even more unforgiving than normal mode). So you can play it with a "zen" feel and leave it running for hours like it's a decorative water fountain, except with interactivity, or work on playing (and then beating with special achievements) each city on each difficulty, or do daily leaderboard challenges. A typical (non-endless) game only takes like 10-20 minutes.

Castle in the Darkness is also a nice choice for something that's both challenging and fast-paced. And it's sorta like an open world because it's a metroidvania, though it has a clearly-defined plot. (But with lots of areas that are optional to the plot, so there's lots of rewarding exploration.) The difficulty comes from it being pretty easy to die, but you also respawn quickly, so you can very easily learn from your mistakes. Also there are specific things that you can get access to in a second playthrough.

Mutant Mudds isn't fast-paced but is a challenge platformer (especially in later levels) that comes in small bits. It's got 80 levels, some of which are gated by collectibles, so it provides a lot of content to chew on within its relatively simple framework, and each level you finish gives a nice sense of accomplishment. Great chiptune soundtrack too.

One Way Heroics is a game with a roguelike design through procedural generation from seed codes, and it's got both a basic win condition which is achieveable relatively easily as well as a broader underlying plot that makes use of the fact that you can carry over some things after every time you play the game -- even if you die. So you've got two levels of story, plus some bonus features to uncover. A single playthrough my take as little as a few minutes to an hour, depending on what and how well you do, yet it also contributes to an underlying "meta" advancement.

Also, for quick and gratifying gameplay, there are shmups. These are games that are designed such that a complete playthrough takes only like 10-30 minutes at most, usually, but the road to being able to do that is fun...and then the road after that is to get even better so you can finish in one life (sometimes being rewarded with extra bosses), top leaderboards with score, or even do self-imposed challenges (e.g. trying to "time out" bosses). There are a huge variety, with cinematic ones like Astebreed and Ether Vapor, multiplayer indie offerings like Jamestown, classic arcade games like Raiden III, really flashy score-bomb ones like The Hurricane of the Varstray, more focused bullet-hells like eXceed 3rd (which has insanely awesome music, though shmups in general tend to be a good excuse for cool music), and a number with various distinctive mechanics such as RefleX or Sora. You can go for a full playthrough, but in many shmups you can also choose to score-attack or practice each stage by itself, which means you can kinda choose how long you'll be playing depending on how free your schedule is and whether you're in the mood to see how far you can go vs. perfecting your technique in a familiar setting.

For a more relaxing adventure in a Zelda-like format, but with far more emphasis on puzzles than combat, there's Ittle Dew. Not open-world either (sorry, I don't play that many open-world games!), but certainly entertaining and amusing. (The humor is worth it, even if you're bad at puzzles...like me!)

[StickyPawz]

Look no further for relaxing exploration:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/301860/Submerged/

Some more …

http://store.steampowered.com/app/323320/Grow_Home/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/227080/Papo__Y

http://store.steampowered.com/app/327860/Salt/

[shiel]

Firewatch

[BossGalaga]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/221910/The_Stanley_Parable/

[76561198433919911]

Thanks for the replies everyone! :)
I'm definitely gonna buy some of these games before the sale ends, any other suggestions? :)

[Donna Pinciotti]

I think stardew Valley is one of the most relaxing games I've ever played. Don't know if that's the style you are looking for though, and it's not free.

[Lost Instrument]

Starbound or Terraria maybe?
Deus Ex, Fable or Overlord for a little more (Singleplayer) action.

I also recommend previously named games, like Firewatch or Stardew Valley.

Age of Empires 2, Stronghold Crusader or Pharao+Cleopatra for a little retro strategy flashback.

I could go on, but these games relax me whenever i want to come down from a hard day.

Cheers.

[don]

Train simulator is always very chill.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

A game that's both relaxing and has exploring, within a surrealist, dream-like world, with top-down Zelda-style gameplay and significant postgame content: Anodyne

A metroidvania (2D platformer) with a generally dark atmosphere: Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
(Momodora III is split into levels though it still does have some exploring)

[76561198433919911]

Hey,

Thanks for all the replies again :)
I'm satisfied with all the sugesstions and will try a lot of those games out in my free time :)