When it comes to relaxing games, you probably already have a reasonably sound idea of what these might look like and entail. Perhaps it’s a jaunty farm sim like Stardew Valley or Story of Seasons, a laid-back puzzler like Unpacking, or even a cute adventure like A Short Hike. The point is that many of us have preconceived notions of what a relaxing game should look like, but if Ryan Janes’ ‘The Most Relaxing Video Games’ book is anything to go by, then blissful relaxation can potentially be found in the most unlikely genres imaginable.
Published by White Owl, an imprint of Pen & Sword Books (which has also published books from the likes of Kirk McKeand and Chris Scullion), ‘The Most Relaxing Video Games’ immediately struck us as being geared toward those who perhaps don’t consider gaming to be their primary hobby. Indeed, for those of us at Nintendo Life, our first glimpse of the book consisted of casually flicking through the pages while muttering “Yep… Yep…” under our breath as we cross checked each entry with our own internally curated list.
Even now and then, however, we would pause and raise our eyebrows at some of the entries included. There are certainly games here that we would consider ‘obvious’ choices like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep, but Donkey Kong Country? Forza Horizon 5? The Quarry? These probably aren’t the kind of games that would immediately come to mind when you want something relaxing, but when we read the accompanying text for each entry, we couldn’t help but thoughtfully stroke our chins and think “Actually yeah, that makes sense”.
This is ultimately why having a carefully curated list by someone who quite clearly ‘gets’ video games is so important. Janes prefaces the book with an introduction that provides meaningful context behind his choices, delving into his introduction to gaming with the SNES, his struggles with anxiety and OCD during adulthood, and how games have been instrumental in helping him cope with life’s many steep obstacles. It’s a refreshingly open and honest approach that makes the book feel like more than just a straightforward “These games are meant to be quite relaxing, y’know” list. You can tell he’s played each and every one of them.
This is key when it comes to those more surprising entries we mentioned earlier. Janes does a commendable job at explaining why each game could be considered relaxing, so while something like The Quarry might sound like the most stressful experience imaginable for some, there are others - this writer included - who can easily find relaxation in what is ultimately an elaborate interactive movie inspired by the likes of Scream and Friday the 13th.
See, that’s the thing with games. They’re all relaxing to some degree depending on who you are as a person. Yes, the book leans heavily on titles that would fit neatly into a box labelled ‘Cute, Cosy Games for All Ages’, but its inclusion of titles that are a bit more unexpected is very much appreciated. What’s nice is that each entry also includes short ‘Did You Know’ facts that may well be common knowledge to those who frequently visit our humble website (thanks, by the way), but could prove to be brand new information for many readers.
As for the book itself, like many of White Owl’s published works, it’s a solid hardback filled with 207 high-quality, glossy A4 pages. Images included are of similar quality, and the formatting is easy to parse, with each entry including a short list of key information including the year of release, publisher, developer, genre, and available platforms. Some sort of outro would have been welcome, or at least something to close out the book neatly, but we also understand that the primary aim is to simply present a clear list of relaxing games, and in that respect, we’d say it’s a resounding success.
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