Understanding the pull of 'undemanding' games

I think I'm afraid of commitment. When I was a child, it was a small matter to sit in front of the Nintendo 64 for hours. Time meant nothing to me; now, it's all I think about. I look at upcoming games, at the hundreds of hours of playtime required, and I cannot fathom where to find time to actually play videogames.

It's ironic, then, that my solution to the resulting crippling inertia is to sink over a hundred hours in Islanders. This is a game that makes no demands on my time, in which the only aim is to slide buildings, Tetris-like, against each other to create dense and tranquil cities.

It's part of a growing trend in casual games. While blockbuster titles become bigger, brighter, and more bombastic, these games – appropriately – gently slide into the mainstream to offer a less demanding alternative. It was an ascendency cemented when Unpacking beat games like Deathloop and Metroid Dread to be named BAFTA game of the year back in April.

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