Transcendental Mode: Games That Make Us Happy
So, the other day I found myself wanting to bang my head against the wall until my face scraped off (as is wont to happen), but knowing that would be a bad choice I opted to play a little Loco Roco instead. Soon enough I was bopping my noggin and bouncing around for all the world like a limbless sack of glee. This got me thinking (also wont to happen, though perhaps more infrequently), forget all this violence-in-gaming bedlam, what about harmony-in-gaming? I was inspired to drum up a partial list of the games that have moved me in ways subtler than the fragalicious murderdance we all know and love.
For myself it was 1991’s Heaven & Earth that towed me into the gentler waters of zen gaming. This blissful puzzle game (which is now available for free on both PC and Mac) presented different types of relaxing but challenging enigmas, from swirling a pendulum over a bowl of stars to a building objects using trompe l’oeil blocks. Heaven & Earth also offered a “story mode” that combined all of its magical elements in an increasingly difficult climb to paradise, or Shangri-La. To this day, Heaven & Earth remains the oldest piece of living software on my hard drive, and I’m glad for it.
Let’s hold hands and make the jump together, shall we?
Since those good old days other games have dropped by, changed into comfortable shoes and a clean cardigan, and sat down to be my neighbor for a spell. Myst, of course (and her descendants to varying degrees of success), was a secret garden of point-and-click fun while acting as a psychic balm. Similarly, The Longest Journey and its recent sequel Dreamfall took me out of myself while letting my imagination wander across strange shores.
More recently the puzzle genre has rediscovered its surreal roots with games like Lumines and Meteos and even, in an oddly self-competitive way, Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. I’ve kept it copacetic with Hexic HD, too, when zombie genocide wore me down and Frank West’s cross-dressing got boring.
But it isn’t only adventure and puzzle games that can act like a big warm shot of benzodiazepenes. I bliss out during Guild Wars solo play, farming scourgestones in World of Warcraft or painting death and blossoms across the dreamscape of Okami. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to bloody my knuckles pounding out chords in Guitar Hero II or cut up hookers in whatever American McGee or Rockstar Games has in store for us next, but I’m taking a moment to appreciate the games that have made me happy rather than amped, and we’d love to hear about your “zen games” too. What keeps you from going postal, lowers your blood pressure, or simply chills you out? Let us know.
tiny dancer
Posted to Video Games on 5 October 2006
Other stuff like this: dreamfall, heaven & earth, loco roco, lumines, meteos, myst, the longest journey, zen games
