I’m looking for PC games that I can play while listening to podcasts- games that don’t have engaging cut scenes or important dialogue, games that honestly don’t require a lot of skill or thought.
I used to be really into things like Farm Frenzy, Rescue Team, hidden object games, that kind of thing. I got heavily into MMOs and stopped downloading casual games for a decade or so.
Now it almost feels like this sort of game isn’t made anymore? Were they completely nuked by the existence of Gacha games, P2W, and anything that earns the dev a constant income stream? I’m happy to pay for a game once, but I can’t be constantly buying booster packs.
I also don’t want to play on mobile or on a console, PC Master Race here, haha.
Many roguelites could fall into this category, and are generally cheap to boot (i.e. vampire survivors).
Any other games that you recommend?
I would just look through any number of online list of “Best Swarm Survivors”. There’s dozens of different themes and tweaks from the VS formula, including boat and train varieties! I also watch the YouTube channel Never Nathaniel as he’s a pretty awesome source of both info and entertainment on the matter (as well as other games). He’s literally the only streamer I’ve watched and I couldn’t tell you why, his formula just works.
One more that is outside of the swarm survival genre, Child of Light. Though there is a fun and endearing story that irecommend, once you get through the first 20 minutes, you can kind of just not care and enjoy the simple but interesting play style of an almost-turned-based RPG.
Stardew Valley is a really chill and fun game. You can talk to the towns people but don’t have to and the dialogue is all very short if you do.
Yeah, I’ve played that game to death at this point, I’m afraid.
I’ll also add Urbek City Builder. It’s a city building game but it’s a more simplified one. Resource management is very easy and you can build your city as fast or as slow as you need.
Dorfromantik is a very chill puzzle game that runs great on Steam Deck if that’s your thing, a favourite of mine while the TV is going in the background.
If you’re into factory games I 1000% recommend Shapez, which is a shape-building game that doesn’t have the notion of grinding or currency or running out of resources. It’s immensely satisfying when you get the perfect mechanism together and you’re churning out shapes. Definitely one for mouse and keyboard though.
Definitely recommend Dorfromantik! Islanders is another super chill casual game (and also a builder) that I started and fell in love with the other day.
