Euro Truck Simulator 2 / American Truck Simulator for me.
Rimworld. It’s like having a fishtank, but with really sociopathic fish. Only game I can think of where the #1 enemy you struggle with, that which shapes your core strategy and approach to every problem, is its single threaded performance.
I really don’t mean this as a dunk on Rimworld, but as is tradition with most things in Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress did it first. “FPS Death” was a common end condition for resilient forts. If natural dangers or greed didn’t kill you first, boredom would as your FPS crawled down into the single digits or, if you were really dedicated, this could become seconds per frame.
Rimworld has kind of done it’s own thing now with the third or fourth DLC expansion but for a majority of its lifespan so far it could charitably be called a DF clone with a readable UI. Now DF has its own readable UI and Rimworld has cybernetics and psychic magic so they’ve sort of both become individual titans of their own genre.
Er… isn’t DF multithreaded (now)?
But anyways: while Dwarf Fortress isn’t quite Zork I in terms of influence, there’s a good reason people are pushing to have it added to the game canon. Tynan has never denied that Tam Adams was an inspiration, or tried to hide the influence DF had on Rimworld’s development (hell, the highest difficulty in Rimworld has always been called ‘losing is fun’). And while the two games are clearly similar, the core design philosophy is pretty different. Rimworld’s goal has always been a compelling story through fairly structured gameplay, where DF has always emphasized emergent gameplay and adherence to the simulation. I’ve played both since pretty much they came out (oh fuck I’m old…), but rimworld’s gameplay loop, core modability and not-awful-UI really won me over for casual gameplay. In their current incarnations, both are amazing games, but the question was “comfort game”, and this is my answer.
Nitpick
I really don’t mean this as a dunk on Rimworld, but
(slightly-patronizingly-phrased linguistic tip: including the ‘but’ there is an implied contradiction that severely undercuts the sincerity of the preceding sentiment. I believe your sincerity, many people just don’t know about that weird semantic quirk.)
(And in a ‘hey dude’ moment, FPS death was a thing way way before DF. I remember it killing my cities in SimCity 2000, for example.)
Alright fair point on the nitpick. I meant that less as an attack on Rimworld and more of an expression of respect to Dwarf Fortress. That’s where that load-bearing “but” came in to play. Point taken though. I have great respect for both games and the developers of them. I admit I am on Team Dwarf if we come to blows though, I played that one first and it is, to date, one of the most genuinely incredible pieces of software I’ve ever encountered.
Absolutely no hate for Rimworld though. It’s a good game through and through.
Spending a week installing Skyrim mods and playing the actual game for a week before running into a game-breaking bug that I cannot get around.
Slay the Spire, on ascension 20, I lose most runs… I think I enjoy torturing myself
You’re better than I for even getting that high up. I gave up somewhere around A7. Now, I enjoy watching streamers play StS, but almost never play it anymore, myself.
Slay the Spire
Scrolled too far down to find one of my favorite comfort games… bought it multiple times so I can play it on every device I own. Works perfectly on everything from my smartphone over my netbook, laptop to my SteamDeck. Just brilliant game design and I am looking forward to part 2! :-)
One more vote for the original Doom, running in a modern engine with some of the colossal WADs released over the years.
It loads instantly, gets you fighting in no time. You know the rules, yet you still get surprised by one of these guys with a machine gun.
Compare that to a modern game, where you have to wait for it to update, compile shaders, the studio logo video, the proprietary launcher and the main menu before you are allowed to do anything.
Never got into Doom, but man I love me a game that has no prep lag. Open game, start playing. Glorious
Ditto for ETS2 / ATS. I don’t play them enough. With the Road Trip update coming out soon, it’ll be even better. I’ve been craving a solid driving sim that’s not racing. A leisurely drive through the Nordic landscape would be great.
Other than that, if I have the energy and wherewithal to stand, Skyrim VR, sometimes it’s nice to wander without worry.
Angry Birds
Sudoku, Picross, and the solitaire from Shenzhen IO
Lately, it’s been Hell Divers. Used to be Mario Kart.
I can Hell Dive for hours if I’m feeling shitty or for just one mission if I just need a quick escape. I feel like I’ve gotten an insane amount of value out of it.
Super Metroid, especially on a dark and rainy day
Hell Divers 2. Used to be Mario Kart kind of, although I do get competitive there. Also Muse Dash.
Project zomboid: walk around, bash heads in, gather stuff for a base you will never build.
I play with infection disabled though - so not to restart after one biteThis is kind of my answer too. 7 days to die with the difficulty turned down, dying light, last stand aftermath. Still looking for my white whale, someone please come make a non-scam version of The Day Before!
Half-Life 2 and the Bungie era Halo games. I normally replay them all at least once a year. Steam workshop support for both of them has also been great.
You might like ADACA. Its got two campaigns, one inspired by Half Life 1/2 and early Halo and the other inspired by STALKER.
Its one of the few games that I would consider to actually be Half-Life 2 -like in the same way that so many indie shooters now are Quake, DOOM, or Build-engine -like.
The only unfortunate thing about it is that its from the era where 3D indie games had no textures (think SUPERHOT almost, but not as extreme), but you can eventually get used to that and look past it.
That’s a great suggestion. I actually already have ADACA but haven’t played it much. Something else must have taken my attention away from it at the time.
Thanks for the reminder, though. I’ll need to get back to it!
Oldschool runescape
Hell yeah. I wish the Lemmy community was bigger for osrs.
Elden Ring. Somehow failing my way forward helps. Also, going back and slaughtering creatures that used to one shot me
