Alt+Home: Press Any Key for Care

Gravity Ghost by Erin Robinson, Ben Prunty, and Michael Stevenson

In Gravity Ghost, you are the titular character: a ghostly girl who drifts through a stylized, two-dimensional solar system, pulled around by the gravity of planetoids in a tiny, stylized and brightly-colored solar system, leaving a trail of your own long, leaf-adorned hair in your wake. You’ll do some light puzzle solving, but the selling points of the game are its satisfying physics-based gameplay, adorable graphics (which combine glowing vector artwork with seemingly hand-drawn, textured pastel illustrations) and a spacey electronic soundtrack. There is also a sock-wearing space deer.

Why is it good for self-care? As billed on the game’s official website, Gravity Ghost is “a game to soothe your senses. There's no killing. No dying. No way to fail.” There are some puzzles to solve, but you can take your time and zone out as long as you want; there are no time restrictions. The ambient, spacey electronic soundtrack by Ben Prunty (of FTL fame) eases you into a quiet state of mind. Note: This game has some rapidly flashing colors in a few places

Care & Control by Arielle Grimes & Ryan Roth

You’re a pink, orblike creature with a long, rainbow-striped tail who flies effortlessly around a tiny planet while the mottled purple and black void of space fluxes in response to your every movement. You’ll encounter small green seeds drifting lazily through the atmosphere, which you can nurture into gorgeous pink-petaled flowers that float freely around the globe at their whim. Once they’ve blossomed, you can harvest them for small yellow seeds that you’ll use to cultivate larger purple flowers that will stay in one place and await your attention.

Why is it good for self-care? The droning, ambient soundtrack and self-motivated pace of this beautifully strange flower-growing simulator gives you a purpose, but lets you choose how and when to approach the goals set by the game. Even after you’ve harvested the seeds from the little green pods, they don’t disappear, but merely return to their original state, ready to bloom once again at your touch. There’s also a strong sense of creation through play, but it’s creation that only requires that you provide attention and support to the living things that inhabit the world.

Take Care by Merritt Kopas

From the game’s description: “A spell reaches across the world and finds you; provide comfort & calm as best you can.” This is a game whose entire premise is providing support for someone in emotional turmoil. Through simple mouse movements, you’ll care for a friend in need through gentle touch and reassuring whispers.

Why is it good for self-care? For some, the easiest way to find peace is to help others find the same. Take Care simulates that opportunity in a controlled space, accompanied by a lulling cascade of white noise. The actual gameplay is based on simply moving the cursor around the distraught character in front of you and finding out how best to help them find peace.

Proteus by Ed Key and David Kanaga

You come ashore of a hilly island full of colorful, abstracted trees and small animals, all of which respond to your presence by producing musical interludes that modulate and change as you approach. Your only means of interacting with the world is discovering it. As you explore, the sun begins to set; as night falls over this paradise, the environment changes and new stimuli are born around you. There are layers upon layers of delightful surprises to uncover as you experience the game.

Why is it good for self-care? This is pure exploration and discovery. There is an end state to the game, but you can take as much time as you want to arrive there. There’s no text to read, no speech, no enemies to fight, or hazards to avoid. Immerse yourself in it, let yourself drift through its days and nights and seasons.

Botanicula by Amanita Design

Your task in this point-and-click adventure game is to guide five small plant-like creatures on a quest to rescue the last seed of your tree home from menacing spidery creatures. You’ll solve lots of environmental and incidental puzzles along the way, using each character’s unique abilities to progress through the game’s impossibly fantastic world.

Why is it good for self-care? Besides its relaxed pace, eclectic instrumental soundtrack and organic, seemingly hand-painted art style, *Botanicula is absolutely adorable. Though there is no dialogue or narrative at all, each character takes on a life of its own through the game’s lovingly-crafted animations and sound effects (the latter of which are produced almost entirely using the voice actors’ mouths). Like Amanita Design’s other works, much of the game’s charm comes from the unexpected ways in which characters and objects interact, and from the process of discovering those interactions little by little.

Based in New York City, Kent Sheely is an intermedia artist operating at the intersection of video games, art, and pop culture. His work is an eclectic blend that includes game modifications, machinima, interactive works, glitch art, and live performance.

Raised by MS-DOS and Atari, Kent has been playing games for most of his life. While attending school for art, he realized he could combine his hobby with his creative work and enjoy both simultaneously. These days he is more inclined to play and write about alternative and experimental independent games, but still very much enjoys all forms of interactive entertainment.

When he’s not in front of a computer screen (as rare as that may be), Kent likes to read and watch all manner of science fiction, go hiking/camping, and hunt for hidden objects in the woods using GPS. Videogametourism has featured Kent's work here and here (German).