Gaming

Hades - it never gets old. Its easy enough to know I'll complete a run 95% of the time, but challenging and interesting enough every time.

Brotato - this has completely replaced vampire survivors for me and is a great no brained game.

It's usually a playthrough of a Pokemon game.

Realm of the Mad God.

You can play solo, with friends, and with strangers.

You can sit at the Nexus (safe zone/central hub) all day, and talk, or trade.

You can play as casual as you’d like, or as hardcore as you’d like by entering a “realm” (world dungeon).

You can run around all day in this realm fighting random things in the overworld from weak pirate goons and little bugs, to the “Godlands” fighting the overworld Gods, and entering their more difficult “sub dungeon”.

Topping it off, it is impossible to grief, and most players are super friendly and willing to help you fight dungeons or provide starting gear for free.

It is a fun little game to pass time with.

Terraria or valhelm

Ballad of Gay Tony

Sekiro Defeating all the bosses in one playthrough is therapeutic

Stellaris is a nice low stress game for me. It's super easy to just drop into and forget about w/e is going on.

Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West. I just love being able to wander around and explore and relax while you toke.

Disgaea 1.

AC Odyssey. Just looking at the sea or sailing into it. Ramming speed just to feel the wind. Wandering into a temple and taking pictures, or taking pictures of the people going about their everyday lives.

Witcher 3

I have one of 4

Hitman 3

WWE 2k23

Lego Star Wars/Batman

Star wars Battlefront 1

Griptape Backbone. Just a game about collecting 1000 cups in a vapor wave aesthetic world with great music. Perfect for a hard day, or even just a chill, relaxed mood.

american truck simulator / ets2. Love the sceneries

It’s gotta be good ol modded Minecraft. It’s peacefully mindless.

No man’s sky. There is something so calming about drifting through space

Right now it’s risk of rain 2 :) amazing scenes, music, and game overall.

Skyrim and Hitman

Dark Souls

Based on what you like, I'd say old-school runescape is right up your alley.

Careful though, there's no escape from that escape....

I find myself always going back to any of the BioShocks. Pop my headphones in and go hangout in rapture for a bit.

I know it's getting a lot of criticism and I get why people don't like it but for me right now it's Starfield. I've spent more time just dicking around flying to planets and trying to build a great ship than actually focusing on completing the story.

The first Terromorph encounter with the distance tracker pinging constantly is fucking terrifying too.

MUDS were awesome, i had like thousands of hours that i could dedicate to studying but nooo, i had to run though imaginary forests waving a mighty stick (was a druid) and slaying anything around my level.

because i knew how addictive it was, i skipped the whole ultima online / wow stuff. skyrim was fine substitute, but kinda shallow, i quickly (~100 hrs) lost interest.

death stranding was an unexpectedly nice distraction.

now i'm finishing old games that i have in a buffer (witcher 3, amnesias, planescape torment - i WILL fucking finish it!), interleaving them with these fine remakes that came out recently (system shock - because when it came out in 199x it was like slide show on my 486sx. dead space remake was awesome) or if the game is exceptionally solid, like disco elysium.

i am eyeballing baldurs gate 3, but i feel i might get lost to family for few hundred hours :)

Civilization usually is nice easy clickathon

Snowrunner or Farming Simulator 22.

Grounded is such a fun escape.

Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, or any of the Monkey Island games. LucasArts games are like one big collection of running gags and inside jokes. The cross-platform ScummVM also makes it easy to play them on pretty much any device.

Bloons TD6

Guild Wars 2 Great World, nice story, lots to do, no fomo, no pressure, still challenging 👌🏻

Spider-Man

So, Pokémon Sapphire is my favorite game and I’ll boot up a new save whenever I’m stressed.

When I’m sick and stuck in bed I have a Minecraft world I work on. It’s nice to have some control over something in your life when you feel like garbage.

Pokemon FireRed, I played it over and over again as a kid, racking up save files in the hundreds and even thousands of hours, just to erase it and start from scratch.

The only thing that I'd put even close to it would be FFXIV

Spiritfarer

Terraria at first but now it's mostly those top-down shmup like Survivor games. First got hooked on Vampire Survivors as it's $4 for so much content. Now it's Halls of Torment and Death Must Die.

Very enjoyable gameplay loop and I can just jive to some music and smack monsters around.

Oh that would be Zelda: OoT, hands down.

I’m currently playing it to escape from shitty things in life lol

RimWorld. You can micro manage as much or as little as you want. If I just want to forget the world around me, it can completely fixate my mind, working on my base, training colonists, harvesting the map. It's my brain firing on all cylinders but doing nothing. Or you can just set all the commands and just watch it like a movie you have control over while you eat snacks.

Doom eternal or halo reach and at this point Elden ring

Probably Battletech. It's turn based, so no quick reactions. That way, I can play leaned back in my computer chair with the Pupper on my lap.

I did love my MUDs though. I eventually graduated to Gemstone 3 (and then 4) in college.

In fact Simutronics often does a month or 2 free in the summer, so I'll dust it off and play for a bit. The player base is a bit out if wack, so it's not quite the same, but I'd still recommend it if you don't mind text only, and enjoy role-playing (everyone is ALWAYS in character and you can literally go to jail if you OOC)

Factorio.

Skyrim. I played it first when I was a kid and since then it’s been a comfort for me. I know the game like the back of my hand now and though I always play the game the same way is is still fun. The mix of nostalgia, admiration, and fun makes the game something I’m always dragged back to

I'm honestly just frightened that everything will go to elder care. My Mom laughs at this and says you'll get a great inheritance, but I don't think she has even looked at the prices of what a month of elder care will cost.

The Sims. No pressure. Just murder and orgies.

Halo 3 ODST. Nothing like soothing jazz as I make my way through Mombasa streets, few things have kept me happy as this

Old school runescape

Mine is minecraft when I wanna chill

Since Skyrim stopped working on my computer without any fixes doing the trick, I've been searching for a new one, and I recently found it in the shape of No Man's Sky. I'm surprised I overlooked this game for so long, but glad looking at the troublesome launch and first few years. Now I fullheartedly believe it's one of the most interesting games ever meant. I've started making it my "job" to fix up and sell the broken down ships you can find on planets, and it's so easy to turn my brain off and farm materials to repair them, and it doesn't get boring because the environments are everchanging. One of the few games I find pretty enough to regularly take screenshits. Mix that with my favorite songs and it's perfect peace.