From 'Islanders' to 'Townscaper,' a handful of titles are designed to soothe your frazzled brain with minimalist, puzzle-like calm.

I am looking for more games like this: though this list seems like a good starting point.

Anybody have any recommendations or experiences with city builders (the less-stressful variety, not like Frostpunk or something haha)

Thanks!

  • Noit@lemm.eeEnglish
    15·
    11 months ago

    Terra Nil is mentioned in the article but I must give it a recommendation, it’s very chill and restoring a wasteland or ruined city to a thriving ecosystem is a great counterpoint to building a bustling city.

      • Noit@lemm.eeEnglish
        5·
        11 months ago

        I’ve not finished it yet due to limited gaming time but it’s clearly not that long. It feels like it should have some replayability but I don’t think it’s very unreasonably priced. Probably not ideal if you’re looking to squeeze every hour of entertainment out of your dollar though.

  • guyrocket@kbin.social
    9·
    11 months ago

    I have Dorfromantik and play it occasionally. It is very relaxing, which can be nice. And very, very simple. So simple that I sort of hesitate to call it a game. There is some sort of scoring, depending on the mode you play. But I always pretty much ignored the scoring and didn’t even want to try to understand how it worked. It is fun just to make your little town, forest, river, train track, etc. So it is more like model railroading to me than a videogame. But highly structured and guided model railroading.

    • Sas [she/her]@beehaw.org
      7·
      11 months ago

      That’s probably the better way to play that game. I kept worrying about placing the tile in the perfect place and took for ever on my turns and got stressed a lot which is probably exactly the opposite of what the devs intended. But idk my brain just sees achievements and takes the challenge and the achievements are tough and stressful challenges

      • SlikPikker@lemmy.caEnglish
        4·
        11 months ago

        I did just get invaded a little, but otherwise you spend way more time building in Stardeus…

    • EthicalAI@beehaw.org
      3·
      11 months ago

      Say no more.

      Btw I recall there were several of these developed at the same time, one by chucklefish (edit: starmancer) I think, did this one “win out”?

      • SlikPikker@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        I can’t say really, but I only just picked it up, and it’s a strong recommend from me.

  • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
    6·
    11 months ago

    If you like minimalism Mini-Metro is great

    Note: it will be stressfull in the end, still relaxing if you accept that will end after a while.

  • Deconceptualist@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    11 months ago

    Islanders is only a few bucks and very serene. You get a random island and a small palette of buildings at a time. The buildings can only go certain places (farm on a plain, quarry near stone, hunting lodge near forest). You get points for putting certain buildings together, or certain ones further apart (mostly in ways that make sense). And that’s about it. When you use up the buildings on your palette you get a new set. There’s no timer, just try to get points. When you reach the goal you can start over on a new island.

    It’s very simple. You can’t move or demolish buildings, you don’t worry about roads or infrastructure of any kind, there’s no citizen happiness or disasters or money or anything. Just relax and place little buildings on islands.

  • perviouslyiner@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    11 months ago

    “Project Highrise” is another nice calm relaxing game, although in the other dimension to most city builders

  • Beko Pharm@discuss.tchncs.de
    2·
    11 months ago

    Wasting away hours with Ostriv. Alpha/ea or not. It’s not stressing at all, in default even very slow and can be paused. Goes great with an audio book 👌

    Alas activity slowed down a lot recently. Which is not very surprising considering the dev lives in a freakin warzone :-/

  • Kaldo@kbin.social
    2·
    11 months ago

    I’ve seen Thronefall recently and it looked really cool, but it also apparently has just a few hours of content. You might enjoy it as a chill experience tho

  • wist@cdda.social
    2·
    11 months ago

    There is Godus which I always thought of as a precursor to islanders. It has more elements to interrupt the player but it has the sake overall aesthetic and feel.

    Edit:

    I played this ages ago and the reviews after some updates are very negative so it sounds like it’s no longer the game I played.

  • fuzzywolf23@beehaw.org
    2·
    11 months ago

    This past year I’ve really enjoyed The Wandering Village and Airborne Kingdom. Both are slower paced with a very unique aesthetic