Games

Right now its stardew valley and mini motorways. Just chill games you can jump into at any time

Whatever I can hack and be a god. I have enough stress and challenge at work, I just want to come home and smite.

For me the biggest one is my current "filler MMORPG" of choice, which has been Final Fantasy XIV for the past few years.

The reason this works so well for me is:

• By and large these games allow you to invest however much (hardcore raids) or little (dailies/weeklies) brain and attention into their gameplay as you desire, which is important after work when my brain is all mush from coding.
• Light social interaction helps not completely feel like I've "shut down for the night" yet.
• If I want to I can chat about daily things with my friends/guild.

It's the right combination of ultralight gameplay and light social interaction to allow me to come down from work mode. 😁

When I saw articles about Team Fortress 2 breaking concurrent player counts, I jumped back into that. I still suck, bad. But I have played it several nights after work just to have some mindless gameplay.

Diablo 4 and Zelda ToTK

I don't even have a physically demanding job, and I'm always too tired to play games after work. But I've been on Persona 5 Royal lately.

Satisfactory for me. I like setting a small goal for myself to build a whole factory piece by piece.

I play God of War 2018 to chill out, the scenery is great and you can just vibe around.

Cannot find an artefact or realm tear in Midgard at the moment so the wandering is actually putting me off but I would highly recommend this game for a chill out session.

I haven't played the new one, maybe some day.

I think doing something twice a week makes you a regular anything. Either way, my current games after work are Warframe and The Outer Wilds. Loving both.

Red Dead redemption 2 or Noita, depending on how much time I have to play.

Trackmania, Witcher 3, City Skylines. Man I wish I had more time.

Wow.. did not expect that many responses! I have strolled through all of them. There are a lot of really nice suggestions of games. I have bookmarked some of them.

Love the Lemmy energy, except those 1-2 hardcore 'redditiers' commenting here in their usual way : ).

Thx to all of you!

Multiplayer:

-Planetside 2

-Runescape

-Minecraft

-Chess.com

-Roblox (don't judge me, I like lua)

Singleplayer:

-Fallout: New Vegas

-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series

-Skyrim

-Metro series

I used to play Europa Universalis 4 or Cities: Skylines for this purpose.

Single Player:

• tetris effect connected
• descenders
• tony hawk pro skater 1 & 2 remaster

Multiplayer with close friends:

• Risk of Rain 2
• Rocket League
• Golf with your friends
• Halo (if they get their shit together and get their player count back up)
• Fall Guys (if they get their shit together and unvault the maps)

Against The Storm, still in early access but very regular updates and fantastic team behind it.

Very fresh feeling take on rts/micromanagment game. Feels very unique in its game play loop.

Tears of the Kingdom kept me busy for a while.

Now I'm on Diablo 4 and Dave the Diver.

I hope to play Fallen Jedi next.

Always was, always will be, Sid Meyer and his Civillisations.

My jam is an indie game called Warsim! It's got a delightful arena battle minigame that you can bet on, complete with audience interference, a spike pit, and goblin streakers. After that, you can have a pint of various drinks in one of dozens of unique taverns, and round out the evening by presiding over the royal court and issuing decrees, proclamations, and dropping unruly petitioners through my personal trapdoor.

Every day after work I play Beat Saber. Usually for about half an hour--as a warmup--then I'll play again after dinner for 45 minutes to an hour or so. I've been doing this for a little over a year now and I'm still completely addicted to this game, LOL!

As much as I hate Meta Beat Saber on a Quest 2 is fantastic (if you get it modded). One of the mods (BeatLeader) uploads every successful replay (where you beat the map or your previous best score) and you can watch them on the web! It's the coolest thing! Here's an entertaining example of me playing a silly Hatsune Miku song with the Faster Song modifier enabled:

https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=7668607

Or if you prefer a more recognizable song, here's Shut Up and Dance:

https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=8047177

Since I started playing this game I've lost 15 pounds and gained a ton of stamina (and some muscle tone). Way more in shape than I used to be. Many days I'll burn 1200-1500 calories playing!

Boring meetings and/or uninspiring rote programming: Tekken 7.

Tired: Age of Wonders 4

Chill with the missus: Tears of the Kingdom / Oxenfree 2

I've mostly been wanting to play Rocket League, but I've been super stressed and for whatever reason playing against real people stresses me more. I think it's because I can't just pause the game whenever I feel like it.

So I've been mostly playing against ML bots with RLBotGui. As a gold/plat level player, it's actually a great way to practice.

I've also been playing through all of the Adventures of Lolo games(1-3 US and Japan, GB Lolo, eggerland series, plus all of the many rom hacks) on my Anbernic handheld. It's my favorite puzzle game of all time.

Honestly, right now it’s Overwatch 2. Probably Stockholm syndrome at this point, but the game can still be fun to just jump into for 30 minutes for me.

Cities Skylines. Not stressful and still interesting.

Lately ive been bouncing between my usual dailies on final fantasy 14 or a few round of battlebit remastered. Battle bit has been really great at capturing that battlefield feel

Love some "turn your brain off" kinda games. BOTW AND TOTK (altho that one is a bit more involved) are perfect for this. Also love an after work session of some Warriors (not nba) game.

System shock 2 is brilliant. Runs on a toaster too, and on GOG it's DRM free so slap that bad boy on any laptop you have.

Mostly I play No Man's Sky right now, but I occasionally go back to elite dangerous and/or Mass Effect.

Lately it's been Persona 4 Golden on the Vita and Zelda ToTK.

Zelda because you can change your play style easily, sometimes I just want to build stuff, other times I want to explore the map, fight monsters, or do side quests. Sometimes I'll sit there and spend a bunch of time preparing meals for a future play sessions.

Persona 4 I keep coming back to for the story and overall experience - music, voice acting, and even just navigating menus is so stylistic and top notch. I started my playthrough in 2019 though and am barely picking it back up.

On days I have more energy I've been playing Freedom Planet 2 for some action platforming as well.

Currently: Kenshi. Soon: Baldurs Gate 3!

MCC and Risk of Rain 2 are my co too games lately. Both have a ton of things to do and are easy to put down when it's time to pass out.

Hollow knight was my favorite

Counterstrike: counterintuitive but dealing with the toxicity and probably getting massacred by smurfing players (or cheaters) still is a good outlet for the day's stress.

Dota.

I usually play Terraria as it's one of my favorite games. I've beaten the game on three platforms. Going to play it again on a harder difficulty next time.

I find it fun since it's not a shooter so no intense rage moments that make you want to quit the game.

I generally just play whatever game I'm working through at the time. I recently replayed GTA:SA, and now am trying a new character in D:OS2 to get me by until BG3 releases from EA.

I’ve really enjoyed going through the campaign of red dead redemption 2.

Monster Hunter, I needed the fast paced action and thrill of the hunt to contrast with my slower work days..

I just downloaded Deaths Door on gamepass as I'm about to go away for a few weeks and didn't want to start anything story heavy. It's pretty straightforward and the art style is great. It's basically Tunic without needing to think about anything.

I’ve recently gotten back into the OG Guild Wars and forgot how much of a chill MMO it was when it comes to grinding and questing. The quests (at least, so far) are a bit more varied than the “get 20 of this loot” and “kill 50 creatures” borefests that most MMOs have (the game still has them, but not as much as later MMOs), but also not super stressful. It also helps that it’s pretty easy to get geared for end-game stuff, so the actual end-game grind is for fashion and cosmetics.

For a few years I played a lot of skyrim. I've done many builds and challenges to make the game harder without going to high in difficulty but I burned myself out and can't get myself to play it long term.