There is beauty in ordinary online games

Online games are a great way to escape from everyday life. Sometimes we need ‘time for me’, whether it’s 30 minutes or 3 hours. But escaping life through a game doesn’t necessarily mean you have to get lost in another world or on a new planet. There is beauty in the mundane, which is why we’ve seen an increase in simulation games based on everyday tasks. Of course, these types of games have been around for quite some time. We all remember The Sims, don’t we? The principle was to build a house, to go to work, to found a family. And people were obsessed with it until advanced games took over, and many forgot that mundane games are just as appealing.

There are several reasons why mundane games are appealing, the most obvious being that there is a sense of satisfaction in doing a job. It’s like how social media platforms have redefined mental gratification. You post a photo, someone likes it, and your mood improves. When you play mundane games like Airport CEO, where you are the CEO of an airport, you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes and perform basic tasks that lead to their success. If you finish the job, you feel good. Maybe you even want to show your loved ones the airport you have built.

But if we dig deeper, it’s in our nature to enjoy games like Airport CEO and Happy Farm, where you grow crops and sell them. Ditto with The Stanley Parable, a game in which the player acts like an employee in a bland office building who is tasked with monitoring data. In psychology, there is a phenomenon called the simple exposure effect. He describes how people develop a preference for things because they know them well.

As fun as killing dragons can be, we’re not familiar with it other than seeing it happen on shows like Games of Thrones. However, we are familiar with day-to-day tasks such as construction and management, which is the premise of games like Parkitect, and zoning and taxation, which you need to control when playing Cities: Skylines. Others

It doesn’t mean just because a game is trivial that it isn’t considered a fantasy game. There are many subsections of the genre, and this is just one end of the spectrum. Halfway you have some fantastic games like the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy, and on the other side you have some fantastic slots games like Dragon’s fire and Space Digger. These games allow you to escape life like in Airport CEO, but this time you do so in a futuristic setting or by interacting with reels that have fire breathing dragons. There is something to be said for the variety of games available with slots, and it looks like no theme will remain intact. It is more than likely that your favorite genre will be covered, be it horror or fantasy.

You don’t have to escape life by slaying dragons, or maybe you do; it’s up to you. The thing to remember is that you have options, and if you want to waste track of time growing crops, chopping wood like a lumberjack, or running an airport, you can. Familiarity can also be a fantasy. It just depends on what you’re trying to get lost in.

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