Minecraft is so open-ended that it can be molded into almost any genre. But the way I play fits entirely within this.
I play in survival mode mostly to make the world feel more grounded, but I sleep every night and rarely explore caverns. The game is mostly me building living spaces, mining for supplies, mapping the world, and collecting items. It's really satisfying.
>I play in survival mode mostly to make the world feel more grounded, but I sleep every night and rarely explore caverns.
I feel like that's what makes it feel so satisfying, engaging, and "real". You sleep every night and do only the "peaceful" world-building kind of things. But even when you sleep, you know there is still a whole world of caverns and action out there happening, even as you are ignoring it, that you can glimpse into and participate in whenever you want. Which is what makes it really engaging and believable, as the world goes on even without your participation.
Imo this is the same effect that makes some movie or book universes feel more "real" (but is achieved in different ways than with videogames, due to the medium itself). Their universes are built in such a way, it makes you believe that the world out there is still going on, even after you turn the TV off or close the book.
It's interesting, for me minecraft is one of the few games that gives me a feeling of intensity, I go spelunking all night because I can't resist the temptation of more diamonds though, the punishment for death is fair but harsh enough to make it feel scary, even playing FPSes, MMOs, etc I don't get that feeling of intensity from anything except Minecraft and PUBG. I keep telling myself I'm doing it all so I can build something really great... but I never build that thing.
I think what makes minecraft great is that you can switch between spelunking, combat, farming and building so seamlessly and they all integrate with eachother well so when you get sick of one you just pick up the next.
Another genre you might like is roguelikes. Classic roguelikes have permadeath where if you die, you lose that character forever. In a role-playing game where you have invested dozens of hours in a character and may have gotten very lucky with some incredibly rare treasure, it can be a really intense feeling to be in an epic battle with losing all of that on the line.
I've had more pulse pounding game intensity in a turn-based roguelike with ASCII graphics than in any other game I've ever played.
I find death in roguelikes too punishing and unfair, it diminishes that effect for me greatly. I'll never be able to feel intensity for it because I don't feel like I ever manage to accomplish anything worth saving before I die in them so I just run headlong into combat with whatever garbage I have, die and quit out.
I'm yet to find a roguelike where I can feel like I made serious progress without dumping many hours into learning all the mechanics. It's a fairly narrow window of punishing but fair that allows me to feel any intensity at all from games, most I just feel are too easy or too hard to produce it.
I can enjoy the crap out of easy ones, just not for the intensity, but hard ones like roguelikes I just give up on quickly. Dark Souls seems much less punishing to me than most roguelikes in this sense.
It's only about 10% exploration for me. I rarely venture anywhere without a map.
I have a very bad sense of direction in real life, and that applies to 3D games as well. I don't know if you've ever been lost before, like really lost lost. It is a panic-inducing experience. Most 3D games trigger that same sensation in me and are just totally unfun to play.
When I play Minecraft, I obsessively map the area, and I keep a textfile with coordinates of interesting places I find. Even so, I still spend like 90% of my time right around my main building or in the mine below it.
I used to play Minecraft when it was released in ~2010, before there were maps or beds.
I remember building pillars in my constructions and other interesting places so I would be able to spot them from afar. It felt like a nice way to not get lost while still feeling like part of the game.
Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "mapping the world"? I haven't played Minecraft in a very long time, but I thought there was a built in map of some sort? I'd like to hear more as it sounds like we have similar play styles!
Zelda: Breath of the Wild has strong elements of Iyashikei. I picked this up recently after years of no video games. And I find myself just wandering around marveling at the sights and sounds. I mostly avoid conflict while performing the more ancillary quests. It's just so much more relaxing than the platform/shooter games I grew up with.
Ive been goofing around in gta, by following traffic laws. Very relaxing, and just observing the natural chaos and beautiful setting. Put some tunes on and it reminds me of the old outrun games.
This reminds of an online I loved called The Quest for the Rest. It was a Flash game featuring soundtrack by the Polyphonic Spree. Actually, I think it may have been designed to promote the release of one of their albums.
Such a sweet little game. I imagine you can still find it online and play it (if your browser supports Flash). Here's a Youtube run-through of it:
The main draw for the original Golden Sun games (Broken Seal and The Lost Age) for me was to just explore the world and talk to people and see how they felt about things. Helps that the game is really pretty and Sakuraba's music is amazing.
I'm making a tool to easily create your own RPG's. In true MVP sense, my old version was missing combat. This didn't stop my users (mainly teenagers) to create their own games, which of course were more or less 'Iyashikei' because of this missing feature.
For example one of those games is Baby Quest, where you are a baby that can explore the town (https://rpgplayground.com/most-played/). You can find plenty more of such games on my website.
But since I support combat now, most of the newer games are not like this anymore, although there are exceptions.
>Iyashikei games, shows, and movies are “healing” because they help us celebrate the ordinary parts of everyday life
I'm really not sold about the game part. Like Shenmue is pretty much the quintessential ordinary life simulator but I'd not call it a iyashikei. Same with Ni No Kuni and Yokai Watch. Sure for Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon but once battle and fight involved then personally I think it's already another genre. And people wouldn't call Pokemon a iyashikei either yet Yokai is 'just' a more modern 'clone' of that
Trying to assign strict genre labels to games is probably not the right approach here.
Many games contain aspects of 'iyashikei' games. Persona 5 is a good example. Half of the game is spent doing 'ordinary life simulation' activities - meeting friends, eating out at restaurants, going on dates, etc. This part of the game is focused on story-driven events, many of which could be classified as iyashikei (although there are certainly darker elements mixed in). The other half of the game is spent on RPG turn-based battles and puzzles.
The Shenmue series is the same. A lot of it is iyashikei - wandering around, talking to people, enjoying the sights. Along with that are battles and stressful mini-games.
In Animal Crossing there are two battles, wasp and tarantulas. Both have something at stake with both a win and loss condition.
In Harvest Moon you also have a battle against limits. Most of them don't have any sort of enemy units, but you do have tasks and you are doing them in a time limit where there is a failure condition (either running out of stamina or time), and in some cases there can be a big cost to failure (especially around harvesting crops right as the seasons change).
One game I think interesting to consider is Minecraft. There are three different takes.
* Normal (with Easy and Hard included) which has enemy mobs you must fight against and environmental traps.
* Peaceful, where there are no enemy mobs but environmental traps still pose a risk (though less of one).
* Creative, where you are fully immune even to lava or falling.
Each step down is progressively more relaxing as it removes even more conflicts from the equation. But even in creative, you can still have a conflict with the game rules or within yourself (consider someone trying to design some redstone contraption and getting frustrated that their design isn't functioning correctly).
I'm drawn to thinking about the following web comic on conflict in literature and how it parallels the different conflicts and battles that can occur in games and how some of these might not be possible to remove.
> Both have something at stake with both a win and loss condition.
All that's at stake is you fainting and respawning in front of your house. The only thing that's lost is your opportunity to catch the tarantula that time.
But that opportunity is rare enough, at least for some (in my time playing I've only seen two, though I did capture one so I don't need it for the museum). It is also surprising enough of an occurrence that it can cause stress. There are studies monitoring cortisol levels when a person hears their phone make a normal noise (incoming call and incoming text). Those create a noticeable spike in cortisol. While I haven't seen the same testing done for Animal Crossing, I would expect the sound indicating wasp falling out of trees does the same.
If one were to take pokemon, it would be reduced to much the same where the penalty for loss is fainting and in rare cases losing a chance to catch a rare pokemon.
Even if one were to take something like Path of Exile, any failure only costs some amount of time to restore from that failure. Some cost more (a death on hardcore can mean dozens of hours while a death on normal can be recovered in minutes). In general, I think you can reduce most game conflicts/battles down to a time cost in the case of failure, with a few games introducing horror as the main alternative cost (any game where death involves a jump scare).
If I spend 3 hours looking for a tarantula and it wins, that is a cost of 3 hours compared to many games were losing a battle cost only a minute or two.
Dark Souls style games are another interesting look into this, as the first death generally has low cost (you have to go pick up the dropped souls), but if you die a second time before you pick them up, the cost is much heavier (the souls dropped are permanently lost). I notice when playing that I am more on edge when I'm trying to recover dropped souls than when I am not.
> If I spend 3 hours looking for a tarantula and it wins, that is a cost of 3 hours compared to many games were losing a battle cost only a minute or two.
Why just the tarantula, then? If you see a rare beetle on a stump, you can re-interpret trying to catch it as a "battle" with a "winner" and a "loser".
I think you are right. It is even less of a battle in some aspects, but at least for very rare insects it can be more of a battle in that the cost of messing up is higher.
When you break down a game into these many sorts of conflicts and see which ones the player feels joy for winning and which ones the players struggle against with no benefit even when they win, it hints at an interesting framework to evaluate games by. It feels deconstructionist almost to the point of absurdity, but so far I don't think it crosses that line.
It could be appropriate to consider them cross-genre games containing elements of both soothing-slice-of-life gameplay cycles and conflict-oriented-'normal'-game gameplay cycles. Games mixing placid, relaxing gameplay loops seem to definitely hold a different overall tone even if you can't play through them without any aggression or violence.
A pure iyashikei game feels like an aspirational ideal and fairly rare.
I concur. Iyashikei games are usually (not always; think Animal Crossing) mobile games, and games that really don't require much concentration. They're for de-stressing.
Subnautica is a wet-your-pants game of sheer terror. However, if you disable damage and aggression you can focus on beautiful and peaceful exploration and building and gardening. A very iyashikei experience for me.
a few pieces of media that fit the bill really well and are available easily in the West:
Attack of the Friday Monsters - it's a short 3DS game about children's fantasy merging their small town reality with a TV show
Barakamon - anime about a calligrapher who gets banished to a small island in the inland sea and comes to embrace rural life and playing with the local children. (Pictured but not mentioned in the article)
Rilakkuma and Kaoru - Stop motion TV show on Netflix about a woman who lives office lady life but also had two plush(?) bears and a chicken who live with her. Very relaxing.
Flying Witch - A witch goes to live in the countryside with her relatives as part of her training. Lovely world-building.
Girls' Last Tour - Two girls on a journey through a gigantic post-apocalyptic city. The setting is quite bleak but the story mostly focuses on how the main characters are finding joy in their world.
Aria - The daily lives of apprentice gondoliers in Neo-Venezia, a replica of Venice built on a terraformed Mars.
The manga and anime for all of these are available legally in English. Unfortunately you may have to jump through some hoops if you want to acquire their OSTs, which is a shame because they're all excellent.
You might also enjoy YKK (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou)[0][1], particularly the manga version, which was my introduction to the genre of slice-of-life years before the Aria seasons (which are absolutely lovely and with a great OST indeed)
Also a great guitar cover of Aria's "Rainbow"[2], most satisfying guitar tab I've had the chance to learn too.
Aria is realy nice and not well known - and that chapter/episode where they visit the onsen in an abandonned mansion that is flowing into the see - incredibly soothing & likely my favorite chapter/episode ever. :)
I'm also strongly suggest these three animes you suggested for iyashikei than moe.
Other good stuff: Yuru Camp, Is the order a rabbit?, The helpful fox Senko-san, Nekopara
Non Non Biyori is a pretty great series as well, and it really captures that wonderful everyday fun/boredom of living in the countryside where even going to buy sweets is an adventure.
A Channel is another healing anime, as is Song of the Sky. Laid-back Camp is probably the most recent and most popular healing anime out there.
Welcome to the NHK isn't one, but in the manga the game the two protagonists are working on is a healing/erogame, and the main protagonist goes into length about why he is making it.
Do you mean "Sound of the Sky", the post-apocalyptic Iyashikei?
EDIT: The anime community sometimes sticks with the Japanese title in Romanji, calling it "Sora no Woto". Same show, but depends on how various people feel like translating the title.
Yuri Camp is one of my favourites, it really does capture that wonderful tranquil feeling of being outdoors. And it has introduced me to a number of great new winter foods from Japan too!
It's Yuru Camp, not yuri camp, that's... something else, but it's definitely a great relaxing show with seriously impressive background art and real locations.
I keep a copy of Jiro Taniguchi's The Walking Man [0] in my room at all times. It's about slowing down and appreciating the small things in life: the birds, the water, the leaves, the weather.
I haven't read the extended edition, but anyway you can get this manga in your hands without breaking the bank is worth it. I had to find my copy at a second hand book store.
This reminds me of BBC's article[0] last month focusing on games as a form of mediation. For many of us, gaming is an effective social platform and escape tool during quarantine, but games have rarely been built with mindfulness at the center from day one. Hopefully, we can get more titles in the genre.
I would also add Minecraft, I spent a lot of time just mining and building while listening to audio-books at the same time. I preferred survival but it has a creative mode and options to turn off hostiles.
I actually stopped playing Stardew Valley because of the mining. At some point to progress meaningfully you gotta mine. I found that part very stressful and not fun, especially once you get to the mine in the desert.
Given the mechanics, seeing mining as the main game isn't unreasonable. Most progression hinges on it. Unfortunately I find the fighting part not well done and quite punishing given how bad the gameplay of the fighting is.
All the fighting in the mines also makes it clearly not a experience that fits the type of game we are discussing here.
My Summer Car. I know it gets rep for being a frustrating unforgiving game but that’s only part of it the other part is an excellent virtual remote Finnish village, saunas, fishing, trips to the pub, downloading Finnish shareware games from bbs.
Weirdly enough, some older MMOs (OSRS, to a lesser extent WoW Classic) fill that need for me. Sometimes, the repetitiveness of really simple grinding (think click tree, click inventory to drop log, click tree) lends itself to falling into a meditative state, especially when you have muscle memory built up for a particular action/click pattern.
I started playing this game called "It's literally just mowing"[1] and I would say it's in this genre. I've been playing it a little bit each day and have my found my stress level goes down when I do.
I somehow read "literally just meowing" and was very confused about how that was a game. I bet it would still reduce stress, though.
I find it soothing to do almost any well-defined task with well-defined progress (with bonus points if it's tactile). A lot of us have jobs where all of those properties are in short supply. Certainly most of my stress is due to uncertainty. My guess is that game works by giving you a nice well-defined task you can definitely accomplish.
You can also try paper planes, or origami in general. I find it's just enough challenge to get me to focus for a little bit. :)
It takes a little getting used to, but I would honestly say Kerbal Space Program fits into this genre for me, its like adult legos.
I mostly just build different little planes and fly them around or stay in low kerbin (earth) orbit and near the mun, but its just a very relaxing simple game with as much complexity as you want to add.
I don't think KSP would fall under Iyashikei. It seems to me (I'm not Japanese though) that Iyashikei is a celebration of normality.
"The Sims" and "Sim City" would fall under Iyashikei. But most people aren't space astronauts. So KSP can't celebrate normalcy because you're pretending to be something you're not.
Persona 5 has Iyashikei elements, as the main character interacts with day-to-day school life. Even if there's an element of supernatural / battling involved, there's an Iyashikei part of the game. Most people have been a student at school. And that's the "celebration of normalcy" that Persona 5 brings forth.
> Japan loves making shows and games about childhood. Specifically about childhood summers spent catching bugs, fishing, going to festivals, sharing meals with family, and, of course, trips to the beach.
These things are present in "The Sims". But not KSP. If you watch a lot of Iyashikei anime, you'll know what this article is going for. KSP doesn't seem to be in that direction.
This is fantastic!
I had no idea about Iyashikei as a genre, I knew it existed but had no idea that it had a name. I am particularly happy about this as I am just finishing my own Iyashikei game called Kanso.
Does anyone know of any good resources for Iyashikei? I'd like to dig deeper.
Especially considering how unforgiving the battles can be at times. The slapdash "throw every mechanic in" gameplay design and stair-step leveling curve makes for an ever-repeating swing between complete invulnerability and intense frustration.
These pictures all make me want to play these games REALLY BAD.
Anyone know the easiest way for a non-gamer without a console system in the USA to get any of em, that might be figure-out-able for a non-Japanese speaker?
Buy a console. Most of these games are widely available from game stores.
Animal Crossing is Nintendo's take on the genre, and is popular right now. For PC gamers, Stardew Valley is English-native, but based on the Harvest Moon series (which is almost certainly Iyashikei).
If you dial the stress up a bit, there's Yoshi Woolly world, and a few others of that type. Its more traditional video game with dangers, but its low-stress compared to most video games.
Don't confuse the static, hand-drawn artwork with the actual games. In my experience, Iyashikei games are overly cartoony, and often low-polygon count, to focus on the simplistic nature of the game. Its rare for this genre to really blow me away with their graphics... but the simple cel-shaded cartoon style (or low-poly style, in the case of Animal Crossing) gets the job done.
Neko Atsume is on Play Store and App Store. Animal Crossing on Switch is being sold and trending worldwide to the point Financial Times had a short article on bank interest rate in the game as well
a nintendo handheld can be cracked by following a guide, to then play any game released for it. this will require a $100-200 console.
for older consoles like the nintendo ds, you can emulate, like dolphin emulator for pc. i can even emulate a ps2 on my beefed up gaming pc. nevermind that though, any modern laptop or pc should be able to handle nintendo ds games on an emulator. i think that'd be a good start for you. in fact, even android phones can emulate it.
> nevermind that though, any modern laptop or pc should be able to handle nintendo ds games on an emulator
Laptops in general are prone to overheating which leads to lower performance. Mine has an i7-8750H CPU and it can't play many Nintendo DS games. RetroArch and its A/V synchronization contribute to the CPU load as well.
Perhaps a small form factor PC would be best suited for this purpose.
The “downtime” of many RPGs (which perhaps not coincidentally are Japanese) seems to fit this category beautifully. Think walking through towns aimlessly talking to strangers in Final Fantasy VII and VIII, or playing with chickens in Zelda Ocarina of Time.
It depends on the situation. It's almost a teenage meme at this point but I don't know how many problems in my professional life (for example, coding problems) that I've solved just stopping work and taking a walk where my mind is free to relax and then approach something anew. Just grinding all day doesn't always work.
I agree. Though, what you are doing is no "kitsch". I'd rather call it "getting off the hook". The "kitsch", for me, is those overly idyllic Japanese anime characters and stereotypes.
You can't face every issue, because some issues are larger than you or simply final. I think it's no surprise that this genre rose to prominence in Japan earlier than in the US or Europe because the idea that you can roll your sleeves up and fight everything is a pretty stereotypical Western attitude.
During this pandemic many people are for the first time faced with the fact that, after taking precautions and staying healthy, nothing is to be done other than sit it out, healing does indeed simply take time and waiting and not doing anything.
I think these games remind people of that fact. If someone you know dies you can run a hundred laps and read 15 self-help books, but at the end of the day recovering just takes time and doesn't involve 'doing' anything. In that sense those games are just like meditating and being mindful.
You've never stopped at an inn to restore your party to full health, o weary traveller? It's hard to learn to swim if you're too busy drowning. There's nothing wrong with enjoying relaxing and aesthetically pleasing mediums before hopping back into the fight.
In America at least, the term is mostly used for anime / manga that matches the category. This is the first time I've seen the term applied to video games. Most video games have conflict, and conflict is stress.
However, there are many video games that have Iyashikei elements. Even the quintessential "save the world epic" Final Fantasy has Iyashikei elements. With FF-VII Cloud Strife playing video games at the Golden Saucer, or FF-XV having a road-trip with bros. Some of the most celebrated parts of the games are Iyashikei, the low-stress parts of the game that were in-between the battle sequences.
Leaving Square/Enix for a second... there's also Nintendo's "Fire Emblem" series. The characters always talk about their personal life. And the player plays matchmaker, trying to get different characters to talk with each other, to discover their personalities. The most recent Fire Emblem: Three Houses, has an entire School-simulator where you set up the curriculum of your students.
Almost all Japanese stories seem to have a part where Iyashikei comes out to destress the main character (and the player).
So the question is, are you interested in games with Iyashikei elements (which IMO, includes almost all Japanese games worth talking about...), or are you interested in games that solely are Iyashikei? The genre exists on a spectrum, from games like Animal Crossing (mostly Iyashikei), to Atelier Sophie (More Iyashikei than not), to Fire Emblem / Final Fantasy ("save the world" epic plot lines, that visit Iyashikei at certain parts of the plot).
I think the Yakuza series might be a good example of a game of the "with some Iyashikei" category, while still having a solid core story and gameplay to lure you in to karaoke and Mahjong.
Also I think Skyrim fits a similar bill, with most of what people enjoy seemingly being the wandering around and taking in the world.
Yakuza series has great substories. It's easy to forget about the main story and explore the city instead. The healing disappears precisely when the game starts demanding stuff like high scores. It suddenly ceases to be a stress-free experience when the player is required to achieve a 95% score in a karaoke rhythm game.
I play in survival mode mostly to make the world feel more grounded, but I sleep every night and rarely explore caverns. The game is mostly me building living spaces, mining for supplies, mapping the world, and collecting items. It's really satisfying.