I thought we had a thread for these but I couldn’t find it in a search, basically what games do you keep within arm’s reach of your bed for when you feel too hopeless to leave it?
I tend to gravitate towards easy, feel-good Nintendo games like:
Puyo Puyo eSports
Caves of Qud
Spelunky
Tekken 7
Downwell
Cave Story
Dragon Quest XI
Mario Maker 2
When I’m depressed I can’t play anything. Which probably, at least in part, explains my backlog.
depression for me means playing a habit game and not enjoying it in the slightest
For me it’s really more of a bootstrapping thing. If I accomplish something in a game, no matter how trivial, I can convince myself that maybe I can also accomplish something IRL and it gets easier to get out of bed instead of just laying there
Destiny 2 honestly it’s become my flopbag game
Lie sort of prone and make things go pop
yeah final fantasy xiv and really any unending game can lock me into a depressive cycle for sure
a big obvious one is clickers and free puzzle games on mobile
like if im painting by number for two hours something’s not right
i play a lot of doom 2 when im depressed. imo its one of those perfectly designed games and it probably reminds me of hiding myself in my room as a kid while my shithead parents fought each other and playing the DOS version on an old laptop my dad stole from work
minecraft
just hours and hours of bap-bap-bap-chik bap-bap-bap-chik and not having to think or exist
When I first read this title, I imagined what games would match your mood, sort of like how one might listen to emotional music when they are sad (I definitely listen to like bedroom electronic music (World of Echo!) when I’m feeling alone). Then I realized that it’s rare to sync up to games like that. Rare, but it’s happened to me.
For years I hadn’t played Gone Home or Kentucky Route Zero because I knew I wanted to be in the right contemplative mood. That mood came when I was living overseas for the third time, shakily trying again after experiencing what felt like a huge personal failure.
I have used also used Fumito Ueda’s games in the exact same way that I use My Bloody Valentine.
Destiny is good for wringing out every last drop of good chemicals your brain can muster
I think I just get bogged down in phone games when I’m depressed these days, but I legit think Skyrim saved my life back in college by being so goddamn steady and predictable.
my theory has been for years that people put like 800 hours into bethesda games even though they hate them because they are the ultimate depression game. the only reason i put so much time into fallout 4 was because it was better than the alternative at the time lmao
When i got fired from my job a couple years back, Destiny 2 was all I did for a summer. It worked pretty well to distract my brain from the dread of not having any income aside from unemployment.
STGs also work really well for this when I figure out that I am depressed and need something.
Of course, Gran Turismo was my depression game for a long time in its various iterations, which I have said on this board before.
When I was real young, it was NES Super Dodge Ball.
My mom’s depression game has always be any version of Civ she can run.
final fantasy innit
and outrun 2
One of the darkest periods of my life involved playing through three Assassin’s Creeds back to back.
I almost 100%ed AssCreed 2 during the worst year of my life, come to think of it.
…Dota 2
heroes
of
the
storm
monster hunters (in a bad way)