19 relaxing video games to help you destress

Available for: PC, iOS, Android

Deserted Gulf it is exactly what it says on the tin, and nothing more. There’s a ball, a hole, and some procedurally generated desert land in between. Here we go. No par, no club selection, no music, no items, no pause menu, no restart, not even an avatar. Just dragging a cursor back to determine the angle and power of the next shot, and an attempt to get A to B. Once you do, a new hole appears, and away you go, endlessly. (The game technically it has an “ending,” but God bless whoever plays long enough to see it.)

Deserted Gulf it reads as too simple on paper, and makes sense as a sneaky critique of time-sucking, player-undermining mobile games. Actually playing, however, borders on meditation. The game’s radical minimalism makes everything and nothing matter at once. There’s a hit counter at the top, but it’s functionally meaningless, meaning only how long you’ve played. You can spend 60 shots on a hole, but there is no invisible eye that will judge you. Instead, you are allowed to focus entirely on the simple pleasure of throwing a ball in the air, seeing it fall out of the sand and eventually. bit in the hole. It’s about the act of playing more than the rules of a game: golfEngnot golf. And when something new appears – a well of water, a setting sun, a cactus – it feels momentous.