19 relaxing video games to help you relieve stress

Available for:PC, iOS, Android

Desert golf is exactly what it promises, nothing more. In between there is a ball, a hole and some procedurally generated desert land. That’s it. No par, no club selection, no music, no items, no pause menu, no restarts, not even an avatar. Just pulling back a cursor determines the angle and strength of the next hit and attempt to get from A to B. Once you’ve done this, a new hole will appear and you’ll continue indefinitely. (The game technically speaking an “ending,” but God bless anyone who plays long enough to see it.)

Desert golf On paper it reads too simple, and as a sneaky criticism of time-wasting and player-damaging mobile games, it makes sense. The actual playing, however, borders on meditation. The game’s radical minimalism makes everything and nothing important at the same time. There’s a shot counter at the top, but it’s functionally meaningless and simply tells you how long you’ve been playing. You may spend 60 strokes on a hole, but there is no invisible eye judging you. Instead, you can focus on the simple pleasure of flying a ball through the air, watching it kick up sand, and finally pop in the hole. It’s more about the act of playing than the rules of the game: golfingnot golf. And when something new appears—a fountain of water, a setting sun, a cactus—it feels significant.