Lately I have been playing Crypt of the Necrodancer. It was quite chill until I reached zone 4. It doesn’t get me worked up or anything, but the last level of zone 4 does get me a bit tense with the speed.
In general, Deep Rock Galactic is pretty chill. If I really just want to take it easy I can pick up a mission on Hazard 3 or 4.
4GB ram with Windows11 is going to be practically unusable. Even for Windows 7 4GB would be rough just for basic browsing and Zoom. Installing older Windows on a laptop is possible and generally pretty easy, but you might to check there win7 drivers available for the hardware. I don’t think it’s worth it with laptop specs you provided though.
What should I look for in terms of RAM for a Windows 10 notebook? Others are suggesting refurbs. Looks like some 8gb and 16gb refurbs at NewEgg are within our price range.
8GB is OK for browsing, zoom and such, but if there’s 16GB (or even 12GB) option that’s in the price range, I would personally go with that. Otherwise you would want it come with SSD, not HDD, rest of the specs shouldn’t really matter for your use case. Unlikely that there would be much if any HDD options anyway, but mentioning it just in case.
Noita is a good chill game. You will lose, and you will die a horrible death in the process, but if you can accept that, the journey to death is a fun one.
I’ve just become aware of Noita recently. It looks kind of insane in a good way, but looks really hectic and anxiety inducing. But what you’ve said is pretty convincing, maybe I can make the journey to death fun.
It’s not for everyone, but I absolutely adore it. It’s incredibly hard, but once you get the idea of what’s going on, if it’s still too hard I highly recommend checking out the steam workshop. I tend to play with a couple mods to make it a bit easier and then go wild with mods for spells, enemies, world gen, etc. Even without mods every single run is wildly different.
Anyway, again it’s not for everyone, but the combination of a simulating every pixel, endless spell combinations, and the hilarity that ensues because I tried something new that I thought was safe, well, it’s a recipe for either a really good time or throwing a controller at the wall. For me, good times. And I say that when I loathe games that are too hard for me most of the time.
The Talos Principle (+ DLC) and its just-released sequel really fit this niche for me. I’m fighting severe burnout and was specifically looking for a game without time pressure, reflex-based gameplay, or (because I keep bouncing off of turn-based strategy games even though I believe that I love them) complicated stats-based systems.
TTP is about first-person puzzles in the vein of Portal. While some of the puzzles can be difficult, you can work through them at your own pace. The level structure makes it easy to drop in and out of the game whenever, and the gorgeous environments and soundtrack make the world just a generally soothing and immersive place to walk around in.
Try Noita by the same company who did Baba then. It’s one of those games that leaves you with “oh holy shit what the fuck just happened… Oh, that was my fault. Oops.” in an endless loop. I’m up to like 400 hours and have never gotten anywhere near that many hours out of another game. Not even FF7 (the OG, of course)
cyberpunk is actually great for that. Sometimes if I don’t wanna do anything in particular I’ll just… fight the police, lol. Or just randomly do some open world stuff, like drive around the badlands. Then if I’m feeling like doing something more “meaningful” I’ll jump into an actual story quest
I like it, it’s open world so you can grind or play as casually as you can. I like to explore the maps and kill enemies on my way. Some days I grind somedays I just chill.
Edit: I believe North and south Elsweyr are not in The base game. It’s available as a subscription to ESO+
After the mildly stressful intro (which isn’t bad, just uses more sticks than carrots in the tutorial section), you basically just pick a direction and go.
If you wanna quest, there are quests available in (almost) every system.
If you wanna farm, pick a nice planet and get to building.
If you wanna fight, go find a planet with hostile Sentinel presence.
There’s always something interesting to do, but you can also just find a nice view on some planet, build a couch and just watch the iridescent grass blow in the wind for a bit.
The more I hear about No Man’s Sky now the more I’m thinking that perhaps this will be one of the games I can chill out to. I generally love space games, and the idea of just kinda flying around doing random stuff is already appealing.
As someone with almost 500h in NMS, get in fully aware that things get repetitive fast. Once you get off planet and can visit other stars the first time, it’ll likely take 2 hours to see all different kinds of planets.
Unlocking (“learning”) the 3 aliens’ languages is the absolute worst slog in the whole game.
Another ultra tedious chore is doing the daily missions for Quicksilver (special currency) to unlock some nifty cosmetics.
Also, combat sucks. It just plain sucks. The most annoying thing to me is: if you don’t fire your weapon for 1 or 2 seconds, your dude will put it down, which will create a small time window where you’ll have a significant delay between pressing the fire button and actually firing, because of the animation.
I know for some people it’s super relaxing. I tried playing the free tetris on the official website recently, was into it until it started getting fast. I am not much of a quick reflex gamer
It helps me focus my mind into one thing. With just some minutes, all the noise on my head goes away, and even when I lose, the frustration does not build up, all there is on my mind is the current game.
The only con is that if I play to much I start seeing blocks falling when I try to fall sleep.
It might not be for you, but it got me at a young age and you do get used to it. There really is a “flow state” to Tetris, where it can feel like you’re just noticing the pieces and they’re almost moving on their own.
I play high intensity first person shooters, mostly Battlefield, to unwind.
The faster paced the better because it allows me to escape.
It used to be I’d get so worked up over competitive games. I had to be doing PvE to relax. Not so any more.
Weirdly, this happened after I had a completely horrible medical experience that left me with permanent (figurative) scars on my nervous system. Like, I still have stress problems four years after the event.
But at that moment, suddenly competitive games became refreshing to me.
The best advice here is to just not buy new. You can get a refurbished laptop from trusted sellers that will definitely exceed the requirements for under $200. If you are willing to spend up to $300 then there is literally no concerns.
For example here is a DELL Latitude 7490 Laptop Intel Core i5 8th Gen 8250U (1.60GHz) 16GB Memory 256 GB SSD Intel UHD Graphics 620 14.0" Windows 10 Pro for $192 on Newegg.
If you don't like Newegg there are tons of other stores that offer refurbished laptops. I assume you are in the USA and stores you can consider are Target, Walmart, Best buy.
There is very little risk with refurbished laptops. They are usually tested before being shipped out and if you buy from a legit company they usually offer some kind of store warranty. Walmart for example offers a 90 day return policy for any reason.
It's hard to make suggestions on which laptop to get since availability plays a bigger role here. So just look around at your desired budget and pick what you think your kid needs.
If you think your kid won't accept a laptop that has a scratch, simply look for "As New". Then there usually aren't any visible damages. But if you are fine with some cosmetic damage you can get real bargains.
Generally yes. Some refurbished laptops are literally brand new and have never been used before. And if there is an issue, you just return it and try out a different one.
Depending on the model, you can also just buy a replacement battery and it can still be cheaper than anything comparable new.
Great! That’s the sort of advice I was hoping to hear, so thank you. She won’t care about a scratch or a scuff or whatever. Even if she does, she’s not the one paying for it and she’s 13, so she’ll have to take what she can get. Again, I really appreciate it!
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