Do you have any recommendations for casual games?

Stardew Valley is the embodiment of chill

This really depends on the type of person you are. I find with the time pressure each in-game day that every time I launch it I get caught up in a mess of wiki pages and spreadsheets figuring out the ideal crops to plant and when, what gifts people like and when to gift them, etcetera etcetera. It became stressful and I stopped playing it after finishing most of the main objectives.
- You can play it, at your rythm,
  Performance isnt mandatory,
  
  You can learn the game before going "meta", discovering things by yourself, etc.
  Do not compare yourself to others or directly going on a wiki, to start paying it..
  
  Perfection is fun with time. Its a solo game, why you should run it for real ?
As long as you realize you don't have to eat and the time constraints aren't as tough as it first seems.
Seconded
As long as you have enough monitors for all the spreadsheets and wiki pages you need to consult!

Dave the Diver. I had put down gaming because of tiredness and this game was such an unexpected joy of exploration and cute story for me. Easy to pick up and do a quick dive, decent progression based on a mix of skill and leveling up your character, and the writing was excellent. First game I 100% in forever and it was while playing it 30 minutes at a time.

It’s the perfect combo of cozy but not zero challenge - this would be my pick in op’s shoes
- Yeah. I would probably start with Dave the Diver, in their case.
  
  It's so good. Decently chill. Great vibe throughout. The Boss fights each have a simple gimmick to win, and they don't try to be clever about it. (Nothing pisses me off like "we changed the pattern of interaction five to turn a narrow victory win into a loss". Game designers need to cut that out.) Thankfully Dave the Diver has the classic two patterns per battle, and aims for predictable fun. And the Boss fights are rare, anyway.
Sounds chill.

How has noone mentioned Powerwash Simulator yet. There is no pressure (pun not intended), you just walk around dirty scenes and start cleaning them. The amount of satisfaction this produces is incredible. This is mostly because the dirt is actually fairly accurate and washing does not feel like brushing dirt of where the only options is 100% dirt or 0% dirt. All of the intermediates and the complex geometry of the objects makes cleaning a really chilling experience.

im not trying to be provocative

but have you ever considered actually cleaning things

you can get paid to do this

irl power washwers are fun
- Same could be said for any game. The value mostly of a game is the controlled progression with little impact. If I go start power washing the driveway and then stop at a moments notice to go take a shower and head to work I'm gonna leave a giant mess laying around and a half done driveway.
- Yeah I can see that, but currently that's not a viable line in my career to take
I will also add both of the House Flipper games!

Enter the Gungeon is another good bullet hell game. Slay the Spire if you like deck building. Both easy to pick up and stop.

Gungeon is not casual though, one of the hardest games I've played!
Balatro in addition to Slay the Spire, gaming crack (and game of the year).
Hard as shit and also my favorite musical artist ever

I asked a similar question quite a while back. What ended up feeling good for me from the recommendations was Oxygen Not Included surprisingly. I thought it would be too much but just trying to figure things out on my own was fun, and I found myself falling asleep to thoughts of plans for my colony. Surprisingly addictive and chill, maybe because I could pause and think anytime things started going wrong.

But I also gotta recommend Outer Wilds if you haven't played it already. Exploration, mystery solving in a chill solar system environment. Go in blind is the best advice for that game but I found it super chill and relaxing.

I used to love this game but later I found myself optimising little things too much and my PC couldn't keep up with a well grown colony
- Yeah, for me I always end up starting a new colony after getting to rockets. It's my brain that can't keep up with the colony past that point
- Yeah mid game the cpu load gets bad. Some tips.
  
  Cleaning up debris into piles to simplify physics calculations.
  
  Removing gasses you don't need that are floating around the map.
  
  Walling off sections of the map with only one door to simplify path planning.
  
  Killing off or consolidating the wild creatures.
  
  Setting dups (like cooks) that don't need to leave your base to not be able to leave.

Stardew valley just the most super comfy game I’ve ever played.

Time Management: The Game

Probably the most valuable IRL skill you can learn in a game. Or you can just chill and fish for a whole year, no one's gonna judge you.
I tried liking this game but its just not my taste.

Halls of Torment and Brotato are both similar to Vampire Survivors, but better in my opinion. Great art styles and the weapon system in Brotato is really fun.

Casual-wise, story-based games are nice, like Frog Detective, Florence and the like.

UFO 50

If you enjoyed arcade or NES style games

UFO50

Casual

NO

I play Hardspace Shipbreaker when I want to relax.

You are a worker in a spacedock and dismantle ships with a cutting and grappling tool and divide the components into resource bins. It has a chill soundtrack and it's fun to float around with thrusters and figure out how to separate the different parts.

I started this game but got bored a couple hours in and I can't really explain why. In theory it felt like a game I should really like but maybe something about the pacing? Do you think it takes a while to get really good and maybe I should try putting more time in or is the way it is at the start pretty much the same the whole way through?
- This is really hard to answer, because I think it highly depends what kind of player you are.
  
  I don't play optimally. Yes, it's fun to haul yourself around with the grappler at breakneck speeds and stop just in time not to get squished, but I'm not that good at it. I also don't limit myself to the most valuable parts and move on to another ship, but collect the last metal frame. I would make more money in less time, but don't like the idea.
  
  Overall the game stays the same with a few mechanics that get added (explosive charges and something that screws with your salvage and has to be solved first). The system in the ships get more complicated and you need to solve several steps before you can "solve" a problem.
- it gets more complex and fiddly, and your upgrades make you faster and more nimble, but the fundamentals are the same through to the end. did you get to the bigger reactors and cutting coolant lines? because if so you've seen more than half of the game and it's fair to say it didn't grab you.
  
  also a thought; did you play with or without the time limit? because i feel like the timer helped me stay motivated.
This one is such a gem.

Balatro. Can get it on your phone, Switch, Steam Deck. It's the poker-based rougelite. Sounds weird, but it works, and super easy to pick up for a hand or two and then back to work.

My only complain about Balatro and being available in multiple media is that (AFAIK) the progress doesn't sync, does it?

If I were to buy it I'd get it for mobile.
- I don't think it does. A lot of memes when the phone version came out of people who have already mastered the game sitting through the tutorial.

Factorio, it can be casual, but eventually it will steal your sleep

factorio is not casual. now that i have space age, I actually haven't played because i know ill be sucked in.

I'm going to give a possibly controversial opinion. But my favorite casual game to play is Rogue Legacy.

If you accept that you know you'll die a lot, it's a lot less stressful. Outside of that, it's extremely player friendly. It's not too complicated. There's progression. You have runs that end and give you a place to stop. You can turn it off anytime without needing to worry too much about losing progress. It has platforming.

This is how I learned to like shadowbane and elden ring. Death is just a mechanic.
I love Rogue Legacy as a casual game. In the early game, it's decidedly not cozy, due to missing mechanics and how common unwinnable rooms are.

Rogue Legacy 2 fixes these issues, and adds a ton of difficulty sliders, and can be tuned to be fantasticly cozy,
- I kind of love the early game. If I see a particularly difficult room, usually it's a treasure room and you can back out or take the challenge. The two real objectives are get gold or kill a boss.
  
  RL2 feels a lot bigger and more dependent on longer marathon runs and more strategic builds. For me it's still a lot of fun, but not nearly the same cozy feel. Plus there are other challenges that seem mandatory for progression. Having said that, I have not touched the difficulty sliders.

I am in a similar situation, I get home tired from work and don't have much time to myself, I can pick up my steam deck for half an hour or so but not long enough to get very involved with something. I've been playing doom 2016, you don't have to commit much time to it at once. I'm pretty shit at it though.

Dredge has been one of my favourites. Just be aware that the game starts harder than when it ends.

I tried playing it last night, and I really reaaaaally wanted to play through it. It's really fun and original, but boy, does it stir up some primal fear in me when the fog rolled in. Also, it doesn't help that murky water and things in said water just absolutely fuck me up. So, needless to say, I can't play it unless I have people around me because my anxiety goes from 0 when I'm fishing and 100 when it gets spooky.

First thing's first: you're allowed to play on easy mode if you want. Took me too long to realize this.

Emulators let you save anywhere, so if you wanna play Crono Trigger or Donkey Kong Country, go for it!

Holocure is a free bullet heaven with lots of characters to unlock. Recommend boosting your coins first.

Terra Nil (it's like an anti Sim City) is only as stressful as you make it. Clean the planet and max out the flora and fauna, or just vibe. It even has an appreciation option once you've cleansed the area, zooming in to certain sections and letting you see the animals.

Try some cozy games, like Animal Crossing, or any of the dozens of other farming / crafting games. If you want 3D, Slime Rancher is a good option in this category.

Destide has already mentioned Stardew Valley, which is also a great choice.

You can also try some not-difficult side-scrolling game, like Rayman Legends, it has some difficult levels, but most of the game is very chill.

Peggle

peglin as well.
- Pegging as well... Wait, what?

I will always recommend Into The Breach to everyone. Perfect mechanics, easy to jump in and out of, satisfying aesthetics, balanced difficulty

Loved FTL, hated ITB.
- I'm in the same boat. FTL is where it's at (for me).
- Same. Losing felt quite arbitrary and random to me.
Isn't that quite the hard game though?
Yeah. The Breach is fantastic. Ready to pick up and set down. Utterly fantastic tactical gameplay. Cool tech, interesting progression options.

All that said, it's not my go-to cozy game, because it's atmosphere is too well done.

They only thing about "The Breach" is that it's so dang well done that I can't take a turn not seriously. It regularly makes me make movie heroism level of decisions. Do I make the safe play, or try to save everyone? Am I willing to sacrifice my pilot for this win?

The vibe is fantastic, but decidedly not cozy.

Tetris :)

I am running Tetris for the PSP on my Steam Deck and I love it!

Snowrunner! Take everything at your own pace, drive around in some beautiful and horrible to drive in sceneries, get paid and upgrade and buy more trucks

One Finger Death Punch 2. You get two buttons & a solid upgrade path for endless kung fu.

I think Burnout Paradise can be good for this, you can just start the game, drive around, have fun and leave whenever you want.

Jumping off Vampire Survivor I highly recommend Halls of Torment! Similar vibe, easier, very satisfying. The aesthetic is very similar to Diablo 1 but with vampire survivor gameplay. I'm in love with it

bloons td 6 and super auto pets (on mobile and PC)

also mindustry

Here's a slightly different spin on "computer games"

I have Boardgamearena.com in the background of my browser. I often have a few board games going at once. You take your turn, and it alerts you when it's your turn again. There are also games you can play solo if you don't wait to wait around for others.

Voices of the Void has been my go to time waster for a couple years now. Dev is a little weird, but the game is amazingly well done and gets somewhat regular updates that expand the story and add new content. You are essentially a scientist sent to work at a SETI-like site in Switzerland. Your job is to maintain the site and search for signals in space, analyze them, and then ship them out to your colleagues, for which you get paid to buy supplies and other things. As you play, random events occur, some funny, some scary. There's tons of items to buy and decorate your base with. Lots of locations to discover. Sooooooo many secrets to find. I'm constantly impressed by all the work they've done with a very small team.

My only complaint is having to reset my save when an update comes out. It's generally worth it, as there's usually new events that you'll miss otherwise, but having to redecorate the base and lose collectables you've spent hours on is a bummer... That and I hate the new drive storage rack. I wish they'd bring back then old one as an additional storage item.

Also, the whole damn game is free.

I aprove this message.

Lots of options already shared it so I am just gonna say that I find easier to play older games that I have already played/beaten.

Personal examples:

Super Mario 64 and Toy Story 2.

The huge benefit of older games is that they are just quick and play, no updates no DLCs just fire it up and play, if emulated you even got save states and all those thingys.

This is a dangerous thing to me though, as it discourages me to try out new games, yeah, but after a tiring day I find myself more comfortable getting into these kinds of games than other options.

Funny that you mentioned Vampire Survivors as I was planning to get it for Android haha.

Slice and dice, a rogurlite played with dice. Huge amount of modes like "demo mode" that makes each run like 40% shorter.
Not only can a run go by pretty fast they last roughly as long as a vs run.

Puzzles games could be really great here. The Case of the Golden Idol

Any City Building game

Sounds like you're ready for the wonderful universe of TBS games (Turn Based Strategy). There a soo many sub genres but you can filter the steam shop for turn-based and read reviews and recommendations. Some personal highlights:

Civilization (5 and 6)
Heroes of Might and Magic (get HoMM 3 on GOG!)
Old World
Battle Brothers
Dorfromantik
Magic: The Gathering Arena
RimWorld (with pause)
Cities Skylines 2 (not rly TBS but you can pause)
For The King
Total War: Warhammer III (I do auto battles)
Wartales
The Last Spell
Stoneshard
Age of Wonders 4
Mechabellum (semi TBS)

Is Rimworld chill though? It's been sitting on my waitlist for a while, but I'm still a bit...afraid. Doesn't each colony ultimately go to shit?
- Things can get rough but I play mostly to have thriving communities with social drama. Deaths happen but that's part of the challenge. Turn down the difficulty and play it like The Sims, it's surprisingly chill.
- There is an end goal apparently. But in my 40+ hrs played, never been able to build a spaceship. So In practice, yea that's about right.
- It can be. Lower difficulty and phoebe chillax as the storyteller. I highly recommend modding the game. Both the common QOL mods and tweaks to what you don't like.
- I found the game really boring personally. But its a cool game.

Project Highrise might fit the bill - it's pretty relaxed, and lasts forever.

Depending on what you mean by casual, I consider Dead Cells a casual game, because whenever I'm bored I pick it up and play for a while, but it's one of the hardest games I've played, however because it's rogue like it doesn't matter if you die a lot. Another similar example would be Factorio with enemies turned off, just go there, fix something, add something new and quit the game near the next thing you want to do so you remember it next time.

If you're looking for a more traditional definition of casual games I tend to play those in the phone, I really like mini metro and super hexagon (although again, this one might not fit your definition of casual)

A great auto-battler released just this year named The Gnorp Apologue!

Your role is relatively passive, but a little time investment is required for progress.

I played through My Friend Pedro over the weekend when I had a few hours to chill. I can't promise that it'll keep you preoccupied for long but I really enjoyed it

Available on PC, Steam (if you're willing to pay), and android (through F-droid, not sure about play store or any of the others):

Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Run though randomly generated dungeon floors. Every 5th floor, fight a boss. I suck at it, so I've only gotten past the 2nd boss once, but that's because I suck. Currently 5 different classes with a 6th in development (unless I'm wrong and it's already out), each playing differently for the most part. You've got a warrior, rogue, huntress, mage, and duelist, with all but warrior being locked until you do easy enough requirements to unlock them for subsequent runs.

Can pause, exit, and come back to a run whenever during a run.

Available on PC and android (both F-droid and play store);

SuperTuxKart. Cart racer with a lot of fan made content like maps and carts. Has varying difficulties, but the lower the difficulty the lower the max speed in a race, if that matters to anyone else besides me. Not exactly full-on single-player since there is the option of online play, either against friends or random players if you find an open lobby.

Can pause pretty much any time offline but backing out makes you have to restart a race from the beginning. Same thing applies to the multi-race cup things.

HoloCure is another take on Vampire Survivors genre, but with slightly more complex mechanics (closer to a twin stick shooter) and VTuber themed characters. It's also completely free on Steam as it's a fan made project, but that does not detract from its quality in any way.

The ones I've played of late are:

Disney Dreamlight Valley

Dungeons of the Endless (Casual, but a tad addictive)

Dungeon Defenders

Depending on what you mean by casual, Terraria fits the bill. I love sitting down with a journey mode character and taking the game at my own pace. For the first playthrough I would probably point people to softcore normal mode as it's the "proper" way to play, but once you've grinded out goals once then journey is a really nice way to take control of the game's difficulty on the fly.

Noita - Action 2D platformer

Ale & Tale Tavern - survival food service

Satisfactory - Open world Factory builder (my current addiction)

IMO your selections are a weird fit for the term "chill" as they seem to be more action games but the above should have a similar "intense at times, with breaks" vibe i get from yours.

If you're okay with demolition derby stuff, FlatOut 2, Ultimate Carnage, and also Wreckfest is decent arcade racer. FlatOut minigames also fun for couch play with 2-4 people.

Wrecking competitor is fun and you can set the difficulty as you wish.

Try some retro games as well, some beat 'em up & shoot 'em up games, zelda games, Shinning Soul I & II

I like TLOZ:BotW a lot. But I need to say that it is my favorite game so it could not be that relaxing for others. Forager is also a great casual game. I cab also genuinely recommend these:

Shapez.io
World Box
Spaceflight Simulator
Good Pizza Great Pizza
Surviving Mars
Before We leave (At one point it becomes very buggy and the save is basically useless)

You can't expect people to understand the acronym of a game you are just introducing :) Google tells me you mean "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild".

L4D2. simple and AMAZING arcade zombie shooter. will never be uninstalled from my computers and super cheap.

I mean cyberpunk2077 you can by and large pause at any time and you can generally save but there are sometimes where it tells you saving is not allowed. So there are certain points in the story where you can be playing for awhile without a save but its not a super lot. Can be sorta annoying though when you get to them though. Still its not much of the game. Its been awhile but I thought harry potter allowed pausing. Don't recall it putting me in a difficult position where I could not put it down. Technically elden ring has a hidden pause if you go into a menu in a menu. There are youtube videos on it. Its stressful as heck though as a game. If you quite you are by and large fine to but any enemy that is damage will be at full health when you get back but dead ones will stay dead. Its really not much of an issue except for bosses. I think baldurs gate 3 and starfield allow saving pretty much at any time as well and pause, again its been awhile.