I’m looking for PC games that I can play while listening to podcasts- games that don’t have engaging cut scenes or important dialogue, games that honestly don’t require a lot of skill or thought.
I used to be really into things like Farm Frenzy, Rescue Team, hidden object games, that kind of thing. I got heavily into MMOs and stopped downloading casual games for a decade or so.
Now it almost feels like this sort of game isn’t made anymore? Were they completely nuked by the existence of Gacha games, P2W, and anything that earns the dev a constant income stream? I’m happy to pay for a game once, but I can’t be constantly buying booster packs.
I also don’t want to play on mobile or on a console, PC Master Race here, haha.
Power wash simulator will be your best friend. No spoken dialogue, no important cutscenes, just you and a power wash gun. The only thing you’ll miss out on listening to podcasts is the admittedly very soothing sound of PSSSSHHHHHHHHHH from the washer itself.
Great suggestion. Also, if people are into it Lawn Mowing Simulator is good as well.
I second this, it’s like listening to music or a podcast while coloring a book. It’s extremely soothing!
FTL is fun and hard.
Also mindustry
FTL is such an interesting game !
I have a Steam collection just for that purpose, called “zone-out games”:
- Factorio
- Euro Truck Simulator
- Viscera Cleanup Detail
- Satisfactory
- Space Engineers
- Hardspace Shipbreaker
- Rift Breaker
- Monster Train
- Jupiter Hell
- Vampire Survivors
- Dorf Romantik
- DOOM (any)
- Nethack
Some advice I want to give is that “games that require a lot of skill” is only a temporary blocker. If you enjoy a hard game enough to play through it repeatedly, it can become a podcast game. Many people play Bloodborne or Binding of Isaac to audiobooks, and roguelikes are generally like this.
That in mind, I have a list of games that are valid podcast games but I haven’t built enough familiarity with them yet:
- FTL
- Binding of Isaac
- Terraria
- Risk of Rain
- Against the Storm
Factorio is awesome. To make it even more chill - I turn off enemies and increase resources. Even without enemies that game gets so complex and involved. But still mindless.
Mordhau is definitely one of few casual games medieval fighting game where you can mindlessly kill other players and laugh your ass off. But at the same time its the type of game you can get really good at too. So it has a very in depth combat experience
Vampire Survivors for sure!
I love to play from time to time Banished with podcasts. Once you figure out how to survive then it’s just “how much can I build on a map before my PC explodes”.
Ostriv seems nice too, but it’s still in alpha, so weird things happen like villagers going out to buy candles or soap and returning with shoes.Many roguelites could fall into this category, and are generally cheap to boot (i.e. vampire survivors).
Came here to suggest vampire survivors. Super cheap game that you can just turn your brain off and play.
this game is pretty dangerous. i got super hooked on it. after you get better and more unlocks, each run locks you into another 30 minutes. it was pretty awesome to get sucked into.
Any other games that you recommend?
I would just look through any number of online list of “Best Swarm Survivors”. There’s dozens of different themes and tweaks from the VS formula, including boat and train varieties! I also watch the YouTube channel Never Nathaniel as he’s a pretty awesome source of both info and entertainment on the matter (as well as other games). He’s literally the only streamer I’ve watched and I couldn’t tell you why, his formula just works.
One more that is outside of the swarm survival genre, Child of Light. Though there is a fun and endearing story that irecommend, once you get through the first 20 minutes, you can kind of just not care and enjoy the simple but interesting play style of an almost-turned-based RPG.
My father really likes Mini Motorways. You could try something like that
He’s a big fan of sim cities and zoo tychoon and stuff too
Love me some mini motorways and mini metro!
Minecraft creative mode can be very relaxing but time consuming, it takes a while to build a big project but looks awesome when completed, you can go for a small hobbit home too and give in some detail, it takes your mind off of things sometimes, especially when doing the math to even builds out.
Turmoil:
It’s a 2d game where you drill for oil, then have some light logistics management to do to load it in to barrels on horse waggons and then sell it. It’s a lot of fun.
I seem to have a vague memory of playing this or something very like it long ago. As it’s F2P I’ll give it a whirl, thanks!
Turmoil is not free but it was at least at one point included in Amazon Gaming for Prime subscribers, for a temporary giveaway window.
Thanks for the Turmoil tip! That’s going in my wishlist straightaway.
Mine is currently Civilization 6 and I don’t think I have anything else that could possibly fit; I occasionally have to step back and decide what to do next as it still is a strategy game, but since turns can take awhile (especially in late game since the AIs have to take their turns), having something else to pass the time helps. The dialogue is pretty inconsequential, and turning the game’s sound off won’t really change anything. I usually have music/podcasts going while I play.
Just wondering if you think any of the DLC is worth it? I bought it awhile back before they had DLC and I was curious if there were any you liked. I know you said they are skippable but idk just wondering.
I’d say the biggest two DLC packs (Rise and Fall, Gathering Storm) can be worth it; though only on sale. They add a new era score system, natural disasters, and global warming. I bought Civ 6 in its platinum bundle (more than half off), while I like having them had I paid full price I wouldn’t have been happy. If you don’t want to play with them after you get them, you can still toggle them off at the beginning of a game. Then there’s individual civilization packs; if there’s some that interest you/come in a pack, that’s great, but you’re just getting one or two new civs to play with there. Don’t have the New Frontier or Leader Pass stuff, that’s in the anthology, but I’ve heard the Leader Pass doesn’t even run right on Mac or Linux. Hope this helps you out, definitely wait for the summer sale though!
The entire Civ series are great for this, and have a lot of replay value, especially if you add mods for more wonders to tweaking the tech trees or whatever.
I also want to suggest Stellaris. It’s not as brain-free as Civ because at times things can happen fast and there are often largish chunks of flavour text to read so it might not be ideal for podcasts, but music absolutely.
It’s not clear to me that I could ever listen to podcasts while playing most of my library, but I’ll do my best to list some with which I might try:
- Euro Truck Simulator 2 (and, by corollary, American Truck Simulator). If you can listen to podcasts in your car, this is basically a similar experience :)
- Super Hexagon. This is not a game about making conscious decisions, it’s too fast for that. You’d have to turn off the music, and determine whether you can retain stuff you’re listening to at the same time.
- Race The Sun. This is somewhere in the middle of the above two.
- Solace Crafting. This is a relatively bare-bones sandbox RPG with harvesting, crafting, and building elements, that doesn’t require all that much decision making, and can be played at any pace.
- Minecraft (the Java edition). You’ve probably heard of it! I recommend the Java edition due to the rich modding ecosystem; you can usually find a flavor of content that suits any purpose.
- Cities: Skylines (and, by corollary, SimCity 4). These are both world-class genre-defining city builders, which can be played at your own pace, don’t require a whole lot of active involvement, and pair well with background listening of your choice.
Path of Exile
Just pull up a build guide and zone out :)
This season’s mechanic is neat! For those not in the know, it basically gives weapons a passive skill tree that’s randomly generated per item, that you get experience by charging up and then activating pillars that spawn monsters.
The season mechanics can be pretty hit or miss but as long as they spawn a bunch of monsters people tend to be happy enough with them lol
deleted by creator
I’d also throw Train Sim World into the list. Idk why I enjoy it so much lmao
The truck sims are so good
Terraria may be fun for you. It’s actiony but very explore oriented and at your own pace.
Goat simulator is a blast.
This is my exact genre of choice. I’m only gonna list the games I play, because I can’t name them all.
Just about any sandbox survival game will fit the bill:
- Minecraft (obvi, but needs another mention)
- Satisfactory
- Rust
- Valheim
- Raft (there’s some story to read if you want to actually complete the game)
Then you have the simulators:
- Dreamlight Valley (a lot of story in this one, but once you get past the dialogue and tutorials it’s basically fetch quests and farming)
- My Time at Portia (same with this)
- Car Mechanic Simulator 2021
- House Flipper
- The Sims
- TABS (honourable mention; whimsical battle sandbox with some customisability)
A Short Hike has dialog and a shorter play time but you can just ignore that and soar around the island. It’s got an isometric view with a pixel art style. I really enjoy it. I play it when I’m hung over.
