Center Yourself
By Playing
Video Games
TAKE A DEEPbreath. Hold it for
five seconds. Exhale. Breathe in
for three seconds. Repeat. How
does that feel? A little better?
Good. We’re living in stressful
times, and any moment of calm is
welcome.
Video games don’t have a repu-
tation for offering tranquility.
People tend to think of them as
more likely to give a stress-addled
adult a headache than lead them
into a zen state of relaxation. But
reputations can be deceiving.
When developers simplify the
controls, and weave in beautiful
music and relaxing visuals, video
games can open up spaces for
peace and focus, like silent re-
treats on a screen. They can rest
your mind by letting you occupy a
new world and reshaping the way
you think.
Although the neuroscience of
video gaming is not conclusive,
there may be evidence that the
benefits are not (pardon the
phrase) just in your head. Re-
cently, a group of researcherss at
the University of Wisconsin, Madi-
son and the University of Califor-
nia, Irvine developed Tenacity, a
game with the goal of increasing
mindfulness. In a small study
published in the journal Nature
last December, they found that,
over the course of several weeks,
the game could subtly increase
connectivity between several
brain regions associated with
attention.
Fortunately, you don’t need an
expensive console to play. Here
are a few to try, all available as
smartphone apps for $5 or less.STARDEW VALLEY (2016)How about a getaway? Fleeing
the tumult of the city and starting
a new life in a small town isn’t the
sort of thing that often works out
the way you’d expect it to in real
life. But Stardew Valley gets it just
right. You begin as a character of
your own design, moving to the
valley to take over your late
grandfather’s overgrown home-
stead. You find an idyllic small
town in a patch of nature that feels
as if it comes out of a storybook:
wholesome, magical. The game is
open-ended; you can farm by
yourself or with your friends or, in
the course of gameplay, take downthe villain, a superstore-hawking
mega-corporation. That last one
may not sound so relaxing, but it
all adds up to a fantasy of escape
from the stress of postmodern life,
a cottagecore paradise.PRUNE (2015)But maybe that sounds too much
like work. In that case, try Prune.
The title says it all: With a touch
here, a touch there, you gently
nudge a tree to flourish. This is a
minimal, painterly game, an exer-
cise in contemplating the beauty
of nature itself. According to its
App Store page, it is a “love letter
to trees,” and it has all the joy and
warmth you would expect of the
best love letters.VIGNETTES (2019)
This is a simple puzzle game
about objects, in their most ab-
stract and aesthetically appealing
sense: a lantern, a music box, a
watch, a pocketbook. Turn it, prod
it, see what happens. The right
movement causes each object to
blossom like a flower, twisting and
transforming into something else.
It’s a dance, in color and shape,
through the world of stuff. In the
process, the game becomes apeaceful place to just think lov-
ingly about the world around you.
Isn’t that lamp in the corner
pretty? Did you ever notice all the
contours that can hold the light in
that briefcase, that jar?GOROGOA (2017)A hand-painted puzzle game,
Gorogoa is the result of years of
work by Jason Roberts, a software
engineer who quit his job in his
40s to devote himself to creating
this game. And the effort shows.
Every frame is painstakingly
detailed; the landscapes, bed-
rooms and skies in the game,
which takes the form of a surreal
journey through the tumult of the
20th century, reveal themselves in
bits and pieces. This is a game
about learning to see well. Picking
out the fine details helps you
solve puzzles, and when you solve
puzzles, the perspective shifts,
and you begin to understand how
limited your view of the world
really is — a nice lesson in humil-
ity.DESERT GOLFING (2014)This game plays a bit differently
from the others on this list. It’s a
golfing game set in the most in-
hospitable golfing environmentimaginable: a vast, Ozymandias-
like desert. Golf balls do not thrive
in sand, and the game takes that
seriously. Each putt is a chance for
surprise and struggle, and to
make progress you will have to
learn a whole new world of ball
physics. So why is this game on
the list? Because, look: There’s no
one else here. There’s just you,
and that ball, and one hole after
another, and the beauty of the
desert in the twilight. Everything
drowned in orange and red. The
score is only a formality. And all
you’ll find out in the desert is
yourself.MOUNTAIN (2014)
If you are the right age, you might
remember the Tamagotchi craze,
those little companion monsters
you took care of, a cute pet you
kept in your pocket. Mountain is
the outsider art version of that.
Your digital companion is, as the
name implies, a mountain. You
watch it grow, take shape, accu-
mulate things and occasionally
interact with you. Yes, interact:
Every now and then, it tells you its
odd, mountain thoughts. Devel-
oped by David O’Reilly, who de-
signed the digital interfaces the
characters interact with in the
movie “Her,” this is a game best
left running in the background.
Open it up periodically for a quick
check-up on geology in progress.Find calmness and clarity by golfing in the
desert or talking to a mountain.
BY JULIE MUNCY
THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020 D 7"IT'S BEEN 72 YEARS
SINCE 2020, AND THE
BEST THING I REMEMBER
IS OUR FAMILY TRIP TO
KISSIMMEE, FLORIDA."