Whether you are diligently cleaning someone's empty flat as in Sunset, setting up a farm after retiring from your adventures in Littlewood, reconnecting with grown-up children in The Stillness of The Wind, nurturing a musical garden in Mutazione, establishing a coffee shop in Coffee Talk or even eeking out provisions while you care for children in This War Of Mine all these games have something to tend to and people to get to know while you do it. So slow, in fact, that it sometimes feels like it should be an idle game and I have to fight the urge to tab away and check back later.
The games collected in this list each offer the chance to escape and absorb yourself tending to a plot of land and nurturing often surprisingly moving relationships. They offer an escape to simpler times, that provides meaningful work along with the possibility of also working at friendships. These games, like Animal Crossing, present an 'ambience of bucolic' and a 'reassuring mix of the pastoral and the industrial,' wrote Simon Parkin recently. Recently I've been noticing games that combine the stewardship of the land and the nurturing of resources.
As regular readers will know, there are video games about everything. Video games are usually thought to be about fighting, shooting and adrenaline.