Nintendo Switch: 5 chill games to play for stress relief

Donut County

Donut County is such a bizarre game in every regard. It somehow takes a story about raccoons rising up, destroying everyone’s home and turning everything to trash while condemning the other citizens of the local area to a subterranean existence all through the process of controlling a remote control hole that gradually gets bigger the more things fall into it.

It’s a process not unlike Katamari Damacy where the more things you collect, the bigger your receptacle to gather things get except without the overbearing time limit and the abusive father.

Each stage gives you a small setting and through carefully figuring out what you can make fall, you can start the process of turning everything in the area into an abandoned lot. Eventually you’ll ever make your way to the main labs of the raccoons where you can turn the tables on them via their own bizarre trash tech.

While this may not sound like the most calming of experiences, it’s the pacing and the interactions between NPCs that completely change the mood of the game. As more characters find themselves in the pit, they make their way to a survivor camp of animal people hanging around a campfire in a little kingdom of tents.

Conflicting personalities bring new sides to the town you wouldn’t have previously realized. Likewise, you come to learn everyone’s story and watch as different people, who have lives near each other for years, help each other out and learn about each other through the bizarre and shared experience.

Casually moving through the game and trying new things and taking breaks to listen to some campfire chat is so weirdly relaxing and an absolute joy. The humourous dialogue mixed with the go-at-your-own-pace gameplay equals a nice chill day on the couch.