Video Games to Relax
Video Games to Relax
Video Games to Relax
By Julie Muncy
November 14, 2020
Summary
Video games don't have a reputation for offering tranquility.
Although the neuroscience of video gaming is not conclusive, there may be evidence that the benefits are not just in your head. Recently, a group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California, Irvine developed Tenacity, a game with the goal of increasing mindfulness.
In a small study published in the journal Nature last December, they found that, over the course of several weeks, the game could subtly increase connectivity between several brain regions associated with attention.
The game is open-ended; you can farm by yourself or with your friends or, in the course of gameplay, take down the villain, a superstore-hawking mega-corporation.
In the process, the game becomes a peaceful place to just think lovingly about the world around you.
A hand-painted puzzle game, Gorogoa is the result of years of work by Jason Roberts, a software engineer who quit his job in his 40s to devote himself to creating this game.
Every frame is painstakingly detailed; the landscapes, bedrooms and skies in the game, which takes the form of a surreal journey through the tumult of the 20th century, reveal themselves in bits and pieces.
It's a golfing game set in the most inhospitable golfing environment imaginable: a vast, Ozymandias-like desert.
Golf balls do not thrive in sand, and the game takes that seriously.
So why is this game on the list? Because, look: there's no one else here.
Reference
Muncy, J. (2020, November 14). Take the Edge Off With Video Games. Retrieved November 26, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/14/at-home/soothing-video-games.html