I’m on the hunt for new PC games for mrs simo to enjoy as shes going through an ADHD phase of not enjoying anything. Her favourite is Bloons TD 6 (2600 hours!).
She doesn’t really like heavy games like FPS, RTS, ARPGs or anything toooo involved. She’ll try something for 10 minutes and that’s the window for hit or miss [sadly in most cases].
Historically old school Pokemon games and those RPGmaker style games are good if they are well put together and have a nice story (such as Little Witch in the woods, Cult of the Lamb). Siralim Ultimate was good for a while - hopefully that gives an idea of rough genres for suggestions.
Oh and we had a good little run with Vampire Survivors and Army of Ruin too.
For whatever reason Bloons TD6 was a massive hit, and she recently got bluestacks to try some PVZ 2 again, as that was her previous ‘bloons’ hook. I think it’s the nature of the Games as a service, with the weekly battles n unlocks and stuff. Granted, that game is really good too.
Hoping other people who struggle to ‘hook’ into various games on PC, or have similar ADHD spouses who go through ‘ahhh i dunno’ phases of gaming can shed some random offbeat suggestions.
Random mention: She loved elden ring! The exploring n shit was cool. Tempted to get Games Pass for Fable 2 streaming, but I think our internet will be shit and it’ll be a total bust.
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Stardew Valley would be my vote. Some others that come to mind are Slay the Spire or Skyrim. My adhd wife plays cracked sims 4 with every mod known to mankind. She doesn’t even play the game. Just creates characters and builds houses.
https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/morelike/app/960090/
Yeah, honestly Stardew should be higher up. It’s the most chill grind you can have and is perfect for ADHD as you can do so many different things: fish, forage, garden, farm, dungeon brawl, decorate and so much more. Plus all the hidden little secrets.
Stardew valley is definitely a good choice here I would think. Also Starbound, also by Chucklefish, might fit the bill too.
Vampire Survivors, Minecraft, Terraria, Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, Monster Hunter World
I see GuildWars2 I upvote. I’m a simple man.
But truth be told maybe not the best here, might be a bit on the more complex side. But absolutely worth a try. And they’ll release an expansion soon™ so it’ll be more lively during release.
You could spend hours a day managing the loot alone!
It doesn’t have to be complicated, you can just run around and explore if you want.
Some games that flip that focus switch and suck me in without heavy gameplay :
-Stardew Valley (honestly, probably the most fitting recommendation here)
-Factorio (turn off the bugs for a more casual experience), alternatively there’s Satsfactory
-OpenTTD or Transport Fever 2
Diverging from the top-down style:
-Oddly enough, Farming Simulator 22 (there’s always that next thing to do so you can build up)
-Space Engineers
-Minecraft
Started Valley, for sure.
If she wants a grundy, but casual game, get her playing a MMO like Guild Wars 2. It’s horizontal progression so you are not competing to get better gear all the time. It’s just casual grind to get fashion, new titles, achievements etc. I am sure she will be addicted.
Sadly Started Valley didn’t get started, it got the ‘meh’ treatment (Even i was surprised!). I think it may of been the heart-fuckery and talking she wasn’t too invested in, despite the game being amazing.
I actually don’t like the talking to people and offering gifts and crap… I installed a mod that’s called “part of the community”. You passively gain hearts.
The logic is, if you live near the people and do work around town and stuff, they must gain some appreciation for you. Makes the relationship grind way more bearable. (I’m diagnosed with ADHD too).
You can play the game without doing any of that friendship stuff. I do.
My time at Portia has that hook, I bet she will like that, I’ve seen slay the spire suggested too that took 500hours from me, my most played casual game is the Battlegrounds on hearthstone, it’s free too
I keep seeing My Time at Portia and think I might like it, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet.
It’s a great little game, it’s casual, charming and fun. If you enjoy it, they’ve also released My Time at Sandrock which is almost identical (gameplay wise) but with a brand new town, people etc.
My time in Sandrock is still in early access, but they expect to release in September
Maybe it’s too out of the box but cities skylines is pretty accessible but you can get lost in details when you get into it and add some mods.
If she liked Vampire Survivors, check out Brotato.
I’d add 20 Minutes Till Dawn to that list as well.
Halls of torment is another good one in that genre though it’s in early access and still a little feature scarce
Slay the Spire and Monster Train get my votes. She likes strategy like BTD so I think she’ll like these ones too. I think both are free on Game Pass.
Also Monster Sanctuary is a great Pokemon -like
Oh yeah she loved StS. I think Monster Train might of been on the shit list, i’ll double check. There were some other popular pokemans rip offs too that we looked into but they were also on the shit list. It’s like trying to roll a max on d20 :P Thanks
Another card-based one that I don’t see getting a lot of attention is Cultist Simulator. I find it really fun/cool.
Every few years I download a windows 98 emulator and install my copy of the 90s Blade Runner game, and see if I can replay it. But it always crashes at the same point early on (using the “enhance!” thingy) and is unplayable. When I search it up there’s all kinds of posts of people stuck at the same point and somehow nobody has been able to find a way to fix it.
It’s too bad, that game was a lot of fun. The branching plot and randomization of who turns out to be a replicant made each playthrough unique.
Okay this is weird. This post was about a new Blade Runner game when I started typing it but it turned into someone asking about grindy games for his wife? Is Lemmy like hogwarts staircases?
Blade Runner was re-released with two versions not too long ago.
The Enhanced Edition:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1678420/Blade_Runner_Enhanced_Edition/Largely disliked by the community because they changed too much.
The Original Version:
https://www.gog.com/en/game/blade_runnerThe original version is the same old game that you remember but now powered by ScummVM, so no more loading up emulators.
I can’t speak to the portal that brought you here, but the Blade Runner PC game was a formative experience in my life, so we can agree on loving it, wherever it is you’re from/supposed to be.
Might take a look at Temtem and Cassette Beasts to get that Pokemon fix.
The Creeper World series, or Kingdom Rush for tower defense a la Bloons… possibly Mindustry or Factorio as well. Start with Mindustry and if it does it for her then you can grab Factorio as well.
She might also vibe with roguelikes considering she liked Vampire Survivors so Enter the Gungeon, Binding of Isaac, Realm of the Mad God, Slay the Spire, or 20xx/30xx might be up her alley as well.
My suggestion, since you mentioned classic Pokemon and RPG Maker, is Pokemon Infinite Fusion, a fan made Pokemon game.
It is mostly a remake of the plot of the first games (Red/Blue/Yellow) but with a twist that you can now fuse any two Pokemon into one. For example, you could fuse your Bulbasaur and a Pidgey to make a new single Pokemon called Bulbagey, a flying grass type that has all the moves of both Pokemon, and can even evolve!
It is available for free and runs on PC, or with some effort it can run on Mac or Android.
Yeah, I’ve got it working on Android, but not very well. It crashes 100% of the time when a water battle starts (such as when surfing or fishing) maybe I’ll try futzing around some more and patch it up a little more, but I have other fan games to play on my phone.
Shin Megami Tensei / Persona are like a dark themed Pokemon.
If she likes old-school and RPGs, check out Another Eden, by Masato Kato the scenario screen-writer for the beloved cult classic Chrono Trigger. The latter is one of if not THE best RPG games of all time (the art was pixellated but it was in the 90s and also a stylistic choice even at that time), while the former is a mobile game (there’s a Steam version but it… is not as easy to work with). A warning that the installer craps out most of the time but maybe try to not download everything at once to begin with anyway if you aren’t sure about it, and once you get past that, it’s a GREAT game!:-P
It offers a gorgeous graphics & sountrack especially: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx-WenrEI-8.
Try Graveyard Keeper https://store.steampowered.com/app/599140/Graveyard_Keeper/ and it’s only $7 right now
Might not quite be the grind she’s looking for but I can’t enough of stardew valley lately.
Bought DiabloIV played for a week, my gf convinced me to go StardewValley and I haven’t touched Diablo since… 70€ well spent.
