19 relaxing video games that help you de-stress

Available for: personal computer, iOS, Android

Desert golf It is exactly what it says on the tin, and nothing more. There’s a ball, a hole, and some procedurally generated desert land in between. That’s it. There is no parity, no club selection, no music, no items, no pause menu, no replay, not even an avatar. Simply drag the cursor back to set the angle and power of the next shot, and try to get from A to B. Once you do, a new gap appears, and you keep going indefinitely. (The game Technically it has “The End”, but God bless anyone who plays long enough to see it.)

Desert golf It reads as too simple on paper, and it makes sense as a disingenuous critique of mobile games that suck up time and degrade players. However, actually playing it verges on meditation. The radical simplicity of the game makes everything and nothing important at once. There’s a shot counter at the top, but it’s functionally meaningless, it just indicates how long you’ve played. You may spend 60 shots on one hole, but there is no invisible eye judging you. Instead, you are allowed to focus entirely on the simple pleasure of curving the ball through the air, watching it kick up the sand and eventually plonk In the hole. It’s more about the gameplay than the rules of the game: golfa jobNot golf. When something new appears – a waterhole, a sunset, a cactus – it seems momentous.