Gaming

A Short Hike might be my favorite peacefull one. Or death stranding on a lower difficulty.

Oddly enough I go through phases where I just level up a character on WoW. It's mindless for me and I can just zone out and watch TV while playing.

Just cruising around some cars listening to the radio in Forza Horizon. Fishing in Shadowprey Village in World of Warcraft. Improving flow of traffic in City Skylines or Transport Fever 2.

Used to be Destiny, lately it's been "No Man's Sky". I just get lost there.

It's very short, but if you need a small (big) dosage of weirdness - try The Good Time Garden. It's an experience that I like to go back to from time to time, always gets some chuckles out of me!

Everquest, Rimworld and Final Fantasy Tactics.

Knytt Underground

You play as a little Sprite with two fairy companions. You're left to explore 1000 rooms of a sprawling underground labyrinth, discovering all sorts of secrets that humanity left behind.

Haven't put any time into it for a little while, but TF2 (the one with the hats) has always been my go-to.

A great deal of SNES games do this for me. Super Mario RPG, Mega Man X, Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2, Chrono Trigger, even the Mario All-Star games to a point. It's all likely because it's such a great system and developers really hit their stride with what they could do with 16-bit gaming on that console.

Believe it or not, Warcraft 2. There are three scenarios I like to play through. They are pretty mindless, have varying degrees of challenge, and are very low stress.

I have several comfort games to put my mind at ease sometimes.

At least once a year it is Skyrim with mods to improve the scenery.

But I love playing the Atelier series too. Crafting and optimizing stuff in these games is great.

And then there are puzzle games like Baba is You where I often just close the game and think about solving the problems for a long time. Helps to keep your mind occupied.

For me, for some strange reason, any resource management/city building game really soothes me. There is something about making thing ‘balanced’ and ‘streamlined’ that really puts my mind at ease and can distract me from just about anything.

Every few months, I will do a randomizer run of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I've played it so much that it's like taking a relaxing walk through a familiar neighborhood. It also has a great soundtrack.

Fallout 76. Nice community, and I really enjoy the open world game and the dark humor that's Fallout.

Probably World of Warcraft for. Feels like pulling on a pair of worn comfortable jeans when you haven't touched it in ages.

World of Warships. It is the game I play for years with friends. In times that is hard for us to meet face to face we jump on the game for some battles, during which we share our news and chat. It's almost like a coffee or a beer.

Farm Simulator. I have no idea why, either. But when friends are raging about cheaters/bots/whatever I can tell them that I've never yelled at Farm Simulator

Streets of Rogue.. I don't know what it is about that game, but I always find myself picking back up and getting lost in all the different ways you can play. I can't wait for the sequel, definitely, the game I am anticipating the most.

A Short Hike had that effect on me, the re-playability isn't really there though, but for a one-off burst of peace and quite it will do.

Picking some goofy off-role champ in a /muteall draft game of League can also work, but the experience is highly rng based.

Edit: I forgot Trackmania both the latest polished release with its whimsical environments and the historical custom madness that was/is Trackmania: nation. I genuinely hate grinding (be it mmorpgs or soullike) but once I start a track in those I'm hooked for a couple of hours mesmerized by the smooth effect of my growing skills.

Factorio. The base must grow

Nostalgia helps, but I guess any Mario or even a Street Fighter would work on my end. Easy to pick, nothing to remember really. I bought an arcade cab recently with Batocera, and that’s the perfect solution to have a good moment (especially with my kids).

Im barely on Reddit anyway but when I do replys always feel like they take ages

So this is a pleasent surprise already here on the lemmyverse