Therapy Games Vol. 1
Ever since I learned that yes, I too can play video games, I have been sifting through recommendations and enjoying this new type of media. Some games I enjoy for their intensity and story-rich play, but there's a type of game I've come to rely on as an aid to getting through difficult stretches of time. Whether it's an insomnia night or I'm riding a multi-hour panic attack or I just can't make myself do anything worthwhile because the depression is weighing everything down, therapy games have been invaluable help over the last few years.
I judge a game on its therapeutic value based a few things. The visuals must calming and peaceful. The game has to engage me enough to pull me away from myself. There can be conflict and even battle in such a game, but said conflict must not be the focal point of the game (I would not, for example, put Skyrim on this list). For me, personally, games that focus on exploration and harvesting tend to give the best results.
In no particular order, here are the therapeutic games I've played so far. I recommend any of these for rough days or nights.
Title: Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, WIIU
Story: Link awakens after a hundred-year healing coma to a land ravaged by his greatest foe. Princess Zelda is currenty the only force restraining the evil Ganon. In order to face Ganon and save Zelda and the realm, Link must explore, train, and regain his memories of what happened before he was injured. Story-rich and lore-heavy game.
Therapeutic Aspects: This is a breathtakingly beautiful game to play. You are heavily encouraged to explore and map your surroundings. It is so open-world-exploration heavy that I can climb pretty much any surface in the entire game as long as it's not raining (or specifically made of an unclimbable material. I'm glaring at you, Temples). You can swim anywhere. You can harvest anything from mushrooms to fruit to insects to lizards to crabs to fish to ores to gems and more. You can hunt game (which immediately poofs into component meats). There are nearly a thousand optional hidden puzzles and games to find that reward you for looking at the game a certain way. You have INFINITE inventory space for components (limits on weapons, shields, and cooked meals) so you could harvest forever and a day. Whether you go on foot through the game or learn to ride a horse, the landscape will give you hours of beauty to roam through with gentle piano music in the background.
Conflicts or Peril: Various monster-type enemies (and wolves) will attack you if they see or hear you. At night, monsters may appear in skeleton form and pop out of the ground. There's an entire traitorous tribe of people out to kill Link who appear as innocuous travelers until spoken to. All slain enemies are revived once per "blood moon" which is an intense scene. You must face lesser versions of Ganon's spirit at 4 different intervals in the story. At the end you have to face legions of mechanical "guardians" and the big boss, Ganon. Still, you can spread out your confrontations as much as you want. You get to pick when and where you have your battles, as long as you keep your eyes open, and none of them is particularly scary.
Title: Subnautica
Platforms: IOS, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, XONE
Story: You are traveling through space when your ship is shot down from the surface of a nearby planet. You enter an escape pod and descend to the watery planet that attacked your ship. Alone and with minimal supplies, you work to collect resources and explore your surroundings. You try to piece together what happened and how you might leave the planet.
Therapeutic Aspects: Heavy on the open-world and foraging aspects. The flora and fauna are uniquely designed and lovely to look at. It is very satisfying when you finally gather enough materials to creatre/upgrade your base/device/vehicle/etc. You can scan any plant or animal for more information on them, and sometimes doing so will give you new blueprints. Water is a calming thing for me, and this underwater environment is incredible. Clearly a lot of thought and design work went into this game.
Conflicts or Peril: You have to contend with your air supply, which is your perpetual timer. You also have to deal with your water and food needs as your secondary timers. You're dropped into an easy area, but once you start exploring there are predators of increasing difficulty to contend with. The really big ones will chomp you once and you're done for. There are smaller, eyeball-crab kind of creatures that try to bite you on land that are pretty disturbing. Once you descend into the deepest caves, the story and the music get more intense. Down there, there is one giant enemy and a couple teleporting types, but no horror elements that I could see.
Title: Slime Rancher 1 & 2
Platforms: #1 available on Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, LNX, PS4, and XONE. #2 only available on XBSX and PC.
Story: In both games, you are dropped off on a planet whose wildlife consists of a variety of slimes (little happy looking blobs of various colors and shapes). These slimes--once fed--produce "plorts" which sell for a lot of money as vital ingredients back home. You use this money to upgrade your equipment and build a better ranch as you continue exploring the area and discovering new slimes. Every so often you encounter a message device left behind, from someone who was in this area before you...
Therapeutic Aspects: Friendly, bouncy slimes. They are cute. Endless farming and harvesting with creatures that are all too happy to stay as long as you keep them fed. Little mystery packages and blueprints left scattered around for you to find. Special slimes with unique rules for feeding or harvesting plorts. Mini-games. The slimes are cute. Exploring the landscape and collecting new slimes (and their plorts) are the focal points of the game and there is a lot of joyful, playful beauty in the environments. The. Slimes. Are. Cute.
Conflicts or Peril: Some areas have "feral" slimes that will try to chomp you, reducing your health. If you fall into the ocean, you wind up unconscious for 24 hours. At night, "Tarr slimes" which are evil, distorted slimes may spawn and try to chomp you. None of it seems too frightening and can be dealt with fairly easily by the in-game tools (running, flying, splashing water, feeding, etc). The music can get a little intense during these times but not too much so.
Title: Katamari Damacy
Platforms: Nintentdo Switch, PC, PS2, PS4, STA, XBSX, XONE
Story: The King of all the Universe destroyed all the stars in the sky for... unknown reasons?... and you, his son the prince, must help create more stars. You do this by going down to Earth and rolling around your tiny little Katamari ball, which only attaches to items as small as the ball or smaller. As you increase the size of your Katamari by rolling up smaller items, you get to roll up larger items. You move from pennies and stamps all the way up to land-masses in this utterly ridiculous game. It is not story-rich, but what story there is is farcical.
Therapeutic Aspects: Visuals are simple. It's so stupid it's hysterical. Everything has a light-hearted tone, even when people scream and run it's not meant to be taken seriously. The sorts of things you have to roll up range from regular (pennies, candy) to ridiculous (giraffes, man riding a bike, Jumbotrons broadcasting your progress). The music is upbeat and encouraging. It's very satisfying, after you've been stuck at one size for a while, to finally break through to the next size you were aiming for.
Conflicts or Peril: This entirely depends on your definition of conflict and peril. The premise is so ridiculous that it makes it hard to take it seriously even as you roll up people, skyscrapers, and land-masses. Yes, you get mass screaming, but it's so cartoonish you just know nobody is actually being hurt. I'd say no real peril, but certainly people don't enjoy being rolled up. There is an added stress factor that most levels have a mandatory timer on them, but if approached the right way this can be a fun (if sometimes frustrating) challenge to overcome. If you fail to get the correct size in time, you are reprimanded by the King (again, to melodramatic and comedic effect).
Title: Untitled Goose Game
Platforms: Mac, Nintentdo Switch, PC, PS4, XONE
Story: It's a beautiful day and you're a horrible goose. I kid, but not by much. You are a goose, and you have a to-do list that requires you to complete several tasks, inevitably disrupting the lives of the townsfolk. Some of them find you amusing. Some of them find you annoying. Some of them are scared to death of you. All in all, you are a terrible nuisance, but no more so than any curious, mild-natured goose with the intelligence of a gamer behind it.
Therapeutic Aspects: Very simple designs and animation, but it's calming to look at. There's no real danger and you just walk around trying to complete your tasks and generally causing minor havoc. Lots of fun and laughs to be had. All-around delightful.
Conflicts or Peril: No real peril at all. You're underfoot and in the way and ruining things all the time, but in the way that a very smart and determined pet would. You make a mess of things, but goshdarnit if you aren't the most adorable thing around.
Title: Unpacking
Platforms: LNX, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, XONE
Story: A story told entirely through unpacking your possessions. You wouldn't think that tells you anything, but it can actually tell you quite a lot if you're paying attention. Every detail is important, from what your possessions are to how they change over time. Whether your items are in the correct place or what your new environment is will give you some clues, while whether or not you can move other peoples' things tells you even more about what is happening in this person's life. I would call this story-rich in a unique way.
Therapeutic Aspects: You see no people, not even yourself. You simply organize your belongings at various stages of life. As long as the category of item is in the matching category of room (or storage container), you can organize it however you want. You do have to work within the constraints of space and category, and figuring that sort of puzzle out can be fun. Tracing this person's progress through life is also interesting. Visuals are simple (pixel based) and music is calm. You are occasionally rewarded with bright stickers when you fulfill unlisted requirements.
Conflicts or Peril: Inferred conflict only. As your environment changes you can tell more or less what has happened and understand you-the-protagonist have been through a rough patch, but there is no direct conflict or peril to deal with.
Title: Pokemon Snap
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Story: You are called to a research station that has discovered a new type of glowing Pokemon called Illumina Pokemon. You are tasked with trying to photograph anything and everything you can, and you are graded based on every aspect of your best photos of each Pokemon. You do not need to be familiar with the Pokemon lore to play, which is a plus for me. This game barely has story.
Therapeutic Aspects: There is zero conflict. Your goal is to coax Pokemon into new behaviors to photograph and to capture their best angles. Something slightly different happens nearly every time you enter a level. It's beautiful to see, and the interactions between Pokemon can be very funny. Some interactions are miniature stories unto themselves. It's like being on a safari of otherworldly creatures doing regular animal things.
Conflicts or Peril: Zero. I haven't finished it yet but there is not one single aspect of peril or stress I can see in this game. There's not even an antagonist. It is the only game I've ever seen with zero conflict that is this engrossing and delightful. The only "timer" you have is your limited number of photos per level, and reaching the end of your designated track.
Title: Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Story: Kirby is sucked into an alternate realm where cute little friends called Waddle-dees are being kidnapped for unknown reasons. Kirby must find and save as many Waddle-dees as possible.
Therapeutic Aspects: Very cheerful. The mechanics are unique and delightful (I've never played a Kirby game before). The game on regular mode is easy enough that I don't have to struggle much, which is nice if I'm having trouble or have limited patience. You get to help rebuild the Waddle-dees' town through your efforts so that is a nice visual progress marker. The realms you visit and their unique challenges (both stated and hidden) are fun to figure out. Mostly up-beat music and you get to inhale your enemies to steal their abilities which is weird and fun.
Conflicts or Peril: Some levels have timers. There are always enemies to dodge (or inhale, or combat) but unless you set the difficulty higher they're not that hard to overcome once you get the hang of the game. The final boss is a real challenge and is a little visually disturbing in some of its iterations. Some of the landscape is more hostile-looking with more intense music than others (see the volcano area in particular).