What are the games you like to play when you can feel your mental health starting to take a dive?
My good friend Gem from ABC Gamer posed this question on her Twitter last week, and I thought it was quite a good one.
I suppose you could file these under comfort games, but I find, at least for myself, that’s not quite what we’re talking about here. When I want to play a comfort game, I tend to play something I love. I’ve gone back to games like The Witcher 3 on multiple occasions in moments where I’ve needed the comfort of familiarity. But when the ol’ MH is taking a noticeable dip, my brain cries out for something different.
It wants job sims. The more banal, the better.
In 2022, I spent a non-trivial amount of Bad Mental Health Days grinding away at Arcade Paradise. I quite liked it, but it’s very much cut from a Groundhog Day design style. Your character wakes up, opens their little laundromat arcade hybrid, and moves through their daily tasks. You collect the rubbish and throw it in the dumpster. You put dirty washing into the washers as it arrives and transfer it to the dryers when ready. At the end of the day, you go around all your machines and empty the coin hoppers. With the proceeds, you upgrade and expand the arcade until it finally devours the last of the laundromat. It served me well. I liked the predictable, circular nature of each in-game day, but once you’ve completed the game’s campaign, there’s not a lot of reason to go back.
That’s why more traditional job sims have become my bread-and-butter when looking for something to ride out a bad mental health day.
Power Wash Simulator has become a go-to in the last year, mostly because it’s quite replayable, and the team have added new maps to keep it fresh. In many ways, it’s the platonic ideal of a No Thoughts, Head Empty game. You just take a hose and spray stuff with it until the game tells you it’s been cleaned. Some of these projects take a minute to complete. Some will take you a full morning of concerted, diligent work. And then you get a lovely little timelapse at the end that shows the space going from filthy to sparkling clean in about ten seconds. It’s like having someone give you a head massage in extremely slow motion. I can put a podcast or some music on and drift away.
I’ve also been known to load up Beam.ng or American Truck Simulator just to drive around. I’ve tipped hours into House Flipper and Car Mechanic Simulator. I never play these kinds of games when I’m in a good place, mentally. I only play them when I need to turn my brain off, but still keep my hands active.
I turn the question over to you, dear reader, because I’m interested in seeing how other people tackle this. Do you have any games you turn to when you can feel your mental health beginning to turn? Something you know you can turn to when you need to ride out a low day or week? It doesn’t matter what they are; I’d just like to hear about ’em. Maybe you don’t play any games at all! Get in the comments down below and let me know.
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