Summary
Most gamers garnered their love for video games when they were young and free from the responsibilities of being an adult. Those grown-ups with full-time jobs to occupy, kids to raise, taxes to file, or an endless amount of content to scroll through may find that they just don’t have enough time (or, at the end of a long day at work, brainpower) for the wondrous hobby that once enamored them in childhood. And others may have the time but lack the physical dexterity required to navigate those virtual worlds.
Luckily, there is now a plethora of games that remove thosetime-consuming inputsand decision-making moments usually required for the experience by simplyplaying themselves. Whether they only need the occasional nudge once in a while or play out totally independently of the player, gamers without the time or wherewithal to get through even a game a year can experience something resembling the medium without taking their hands off the wheel.
Some of the more cynical gamers will outright dismiss some RPGs and MMOs as being jobs in themselves that often require spreadsheets to play effectively. However,Progress Questtakes away all the work of grinding (and, indeed, playing the game altogether) by taking away all actions and choices as soon as the player is done with character creation. After this, it locks them into a staring competition with what may as well be accounting software.
The player is simply treated to a series of progress bars with which they can monitor their avatar’s journey through the game and the number of monsters they killed out in the wild (where monsters inevitably wander around for adventures todispatch for experience points). The game is clearly a parody of MMORPG cliches, but it managed to capture an audience for the genre all the same.
Mountainis a game about a mountain that floats in a great void. That’s about it. Players have nothing to really do with it besides rotate it to get a better look, but otherwise, they play the role of an indirect observer. As time passes, things might change on the floating landmass. The weather might alter, life might spontaneously emerge (or not), and trinkets might drop onto the surface.
The only skill required to playMountainis patience. Perhaps another would be imagination. It is perhaps an artistic meditation on the nature of the universe, or perhaps it provides the most accurate representation of passive divinity, which observes and never interrupts the natural course of the cosmos. Either way, it probably wouldn’t make good material for aTwitch stream Let’s Play.
There is significantly more of an input requirement from players for this game, but in terms of grinding enemies,Final Fantasy 12only really asks the player to move the directional stick in the direction of enemies and their drops. Figuring out which tactics work for each area, exploring, setting up equipment, and buying skills and spells all require a little brainpower.
It’s an interesting take on theclassicFinal Fantasybattle encounter, even if it’s not a fan favorite. Once the player sets up their moves and AI with the gambit system, the party will be able to pretty much take care of themselves, except for boss fights, which can require a little micromanagement to beat.
The beauty of this game (besides its newfangled graphics) is that it can beplayed in a number of ways: story generator, construction and management simulator, colony management, and RPG. In most cases, however, the player is free to release their fingers from the keyboard and mouse and just let the world play out without them. Since everything is simulated, from emotions to the cleanliness of the floor and grand political movements, there is always something interesting to be seen.
In fact, one way that someDwarf Fortressfans play the game is by opening up Legends Mode, letting it generate a fictional story with AI and a little RNG for good measure, and then simply reading about it in a long lore text log. There’s so much detail and fascinating twists and turns that a whole evening can go by from just taking in an overview of the various wars, marriages, and cultural events from the dwarves' rise to their ruin throughout the world’s history.
Some hapless survivors wake up in a nightmare with only primitiveweapons to defend themselves against mean old monsters. As the player indirectly helps them progress throughoutDespot’s Game, they’ll earn upgrades and choose from a range of fantasy classes to improve their survival odds.
Despot’s Gamestrikes a nice balance between a traditional auto-battler and a strategy roguelike, all the while presenting the player withpretty pixels and animations. While fights are basically decided by the roll of the dice and the stats of the RNG equipment gained throughout the run, there are a few choices to be made between encounters regarding obtaining supplies and weapons.
Although there are plenty of cookie-cutter idle games (in which the player initially performs a single action to “make line go up” before automating the process after so long),Cookie Clickermight have been the one to click the whole thing off, becoming the most famous and perhaps most popular incremental game around.
The player starts out making cookies by clicking the big one in the middle of the screen. Before they know it,thousands of hours have passed, and the game now involves managing a whole nation’s worth of factories, banks, farms, mines, and, of course, grandmas. While they manage their chocolate chip empire, players can also bop out to the tunes between clicks.
For the most part,The Simsseries was designed for players to be able to watch and occasionally intervene when they saw fit to make a change. Each sim’s AI would take care of their needs just enough to survive, assuming the correct facilities were around to provide for them.
Without the player’s input, sims will rarely progress independently and simply live out their lives in a hazy state. As they go through the motions and do the bare minimum to get by, they will miss out on seeing what the world can really offer and fail to achieve any of their dreams. That said, watching a sim interact with the world on their own is enjoyable in itself.
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