Sable is a coming of age journey about a young person and their hover bike exploring the world, helping people, and discovering who they are and want to be.
Another Crab's Treasure, ocean-themed sardonic eco-conscious Souls-like/3D Platformer that just came out. I've been absolutely loving it thus far. might not be comfy, but it's definitely cute (and has basically ecoterrorism).
Katamari Damacy is very cute game about a tiny prince that ralls up stuff into a ball and pretty much a stress ball in video game form. The soundtrack is great and there is nothing else like it.
Webbed is a very cute game about a peacock spider's journey to save her boyfriend from a bird who has captured him. Along the way she meets and befriends other cute arthropods. I found it very comfy.
Carto, is a cute puzzle game about putting maps together
Seconding @frank’s suggestions of sable, it’s not super “cute” to me anyway but it does have a really nice aesthetic that’s definitely a vibe and I loved exploring it
Stardew is an obvious choice if you haven’t played it
A short hike, is a short animal crossing looking platformer. It’s not very long but it’s cute and entertaining
Spirit farer is cool if a little repetitive but I liked it for a few hours. Something about the core loop got old for me tho
Eastshade is a morrowind inspired game but there’s no combat you just help anthropomorphic animals. The studio has a game coming soon im eagerly awaiting called songs of glimmerwick you might be interested in too
I had the same issue with Spirit Farer. The story and characters were cool but the gameplay got old.
I'm in a minority in that I find Stardew really stressful! There's so much time managment and planning and it clashes with my adhd and other issues. I've always found that funny. It's so chill and vibe infused for some people and then i'm like "oh god when did i plant the cauliflower will it be ready for harvest before the changing of the seasons? Will i go broke and lose the farm!?"
lol i saw this one girl on youtube who has a whole spreadsheets set up in notion or something like that for playing sdv.
I've been playing it with my partner this round and we both have memory issues but between the two of us we manage to get most of the stuff we intend to do done lol.
We kind of fell into a pattern of me tending to the crops and her tending to the animals every day before we go about our business and I think delineating some jobs like that helps a bit.
The story and characters were cool but the gameplay got old.
yup, i feel like that kind of "do this routine to unlock more resources to process in the same way" loop is a very delicate balance. We also played that LoL spin off game, Bandle Tale, and it suffered from the same issue but even worse. At a certain point you realize you've already seen the whole game by a quarter of the way in, it's just gonna be palette swaps of the same resources for the whole rest of it and you burn out.