#chill gaming

[roddytherogue]

All my love to sweet Moss Druid absolute favorite npc in the game (after Sherma, of course)

[dreamingofutopia]

Fanart of Penny and Finley nature sprites, protagonists of the Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar game developed by Marvelous

[mothdiarysky]

I found the labyrinth in Sky!

A labyrinth and a maze are not the same thing. In a labyrinth, there is a single path that leads you to the center, and the very same path also leads you back out. It’s often used as a meditative tool, and in some traditions it even has a sacred meaning. It’s worth looking it up online (for example: 7-circle labyrinth — there’s also an 11-circle version, and many other variations).

Walking a labyrinth is often suggested in a three-part structure. One common approach is: the past you walk in with, the present you experience in the center, and the future you walk out with.

I’ve walked a real labyrinth once in my life, so I was genuinely happy when I discovered one in Sky’s meditation space. It’s true that it’s not completely accurate - in a traditional labyrinth you usually start by walking the third ring first, and only later reach the outer circle - but I was still really glad it had a place in the game.

When I tried a labyrinth in real life, I also wanted this past–present–future framework. But what it brought up in me was something quite different: on the way in, I walked with regret and loss; in the center, I experienced emptiness; and on the way out, I met my child self - which felt incredibly freeing. Of course, labyrinth walking has many more layers that I don’t fully know, and my personal experience also has layers that can’t really be put into words. It’s not necessarily a good experience for everyone, and it doesn’t always have to be deep - sometimes it’s simply a pleasant walk.

The guide who led us through the labyrinth said something that stayed with me: “Be open to anything while you’re in the labyrinth.” Even to the possibility that nothing happens. That has its place too. I think this mindset fits the game beautifully. Sometimes nothing happens - and that’s completely okay. In Sky, and in life as well. There are periods when nothing happens, and those periods matter too.

I also really love the other elements of Sky’s meditation space. When I first found this place, it really clicked for me how strongly this game focuses on mental health.

Have you ever walked a real labyrinth?

[bad-shepherd-gaming]

View of the great wall in the Green Hills County of Ascalon.

🎮 Guild Wars Prophecies

follow along on #YouTube for more

Alt: Scenery from the game Guild Wars Prophecies showing a view from under a large tree, looking out over a lake towards a tall stone wall built over rocks, hills, and waterfalls

State by state and community by community, Working Families Party is building a political home for all of us who see bigotry, bailouts, and business as usual in our political system and ask, “Is that the best we can do?”

https://workingfamilies.org/

[jakemyler]

The chill menu screen I made for my game! I’ve been working on this for a few months haha.

[n64styleindiegames]

GROUNDSKEEPER by cathroon

The flowers call.

A chill game about growing flowers.

[wtzwblaze]

TL;DR, Found a game about cleaning up magic books, ended up accidentally speedrunning it.

About a month ago, a tiny little game called Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! released on Steam. It’s a silly little game where you’re stuck in a wizard’s library that’s been tossed around by a fairy, and you have to use all the magical and organizational tools at your disposal to put all the books back on all the shelves, sorted by category, shelved with the rest of their series, in order.

I got this game 3 days ago. In that time, I have played through the game’s experience twice.

The first time was an exercise in discovery. Learning all the sections, all the spell abilities, realizing 10 minutes from the end that there’s a whole slew of minor abilities that would have saved me hours of trekking to the one staircase over and over again…

That first run took me nearly 5 hours, split over 2 nights. It was kinda fun, it scratched my brain a little. A lot, actually. It scratched my brain a lot, and I couldn’t explain it.

I also couldn’t explain why I couldn’t stop thinking about how much faster I could go. Well, besides the achievement daring me to do it in less than 3 hours.

During my exploratory run, I’d been learning which abilities were most useful. There was a spell, Assemble, that would bring matching books straight to my hand that I hadn’t invested enough levels (yes, there’s a level-up mechanic) into to realize how essential it was until I was a decent way through. Once I had that, I had been flying.

So I decided to prioritize that. I would go into my completed library, and research the 3-book series, the smallest ones, but the hardest to find. The thought was that if I could rush these in the beginning, when I had no abilities, it would be easier to level, to dump all my points into strengthening Assemble, use it to fill out larger and larger book sets until it was fully leveled, go on to max out Auto-Shelve (you can imagine what that does), and fly through it at lightning speed.

The strategy didn’t go perfectly, I hadn’t researched the 3-sets well enough, and it was hard to use them to start me off because they were so rare, but I would put books from incomplete 3-sets in a little pile, and once I had the levels I needed to do even the most basic casts of Assemble, it was just enough to take 2 books I’d already found and complete the set, which would get me more levels, an so on, and so forth…

…And so the engine ran. I was all over the library. I was weaving manual collection of small sets in during the cooldown after using Assemble for one of the larger 10-book series. Once I had my setup, I whittled away at the challenge with all the efficiency I could muster.

I didn’t make it in 3 hours. I blew past it, and finished with a time of 1:54:55.

And I know I could have been faster.

I’m not a speedrunner; This isn’t how I usually think about games, but somehow, the combination of quick play time, low skill floor, room for improvement, incentive to succeed, and just overall game vibe made something click.

I will probably be doing at least one more run of this. I hope to get a sub-1:30:00, but we’ll see how it goes.