In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Coffee Talk in the following lists:
Games that embed a sense of hope by playing them. Sometimes a hopeful story, sometimes a hopeful interaction, and sometimes just an uplifting aesthetic to spend time in. These are games that leave you with an uplifted spirit, maybe not immediately (like
Horizon Zero Dawn) but by the time you have finished them.
There is something innocent and childlike in play, and video games each have a slice of that in different ways. Sometimes simple and sometimes complex, games can help us return to the hope we had as children, or call us on to the wisdom and perspective of older years.
All games offer you agency. You can win or lose. You can complete them or stop at any time. But there are some games that offer a story that genuinely branches. Where you end up will be different from other players. This not only makes your actions really matter but also gives you a reason to play them again.
Setting aside games that evolve through simulation, or games where once you die it's game over, these branching narrative games tell a story that ends in a certain way because of the choices you made.
Video games are usually thought to be about fighting, shooting and adrenaline. As regular readers will know, there are video games about everything. Recently I've been noticing games that combine the stewardship of the land and the nurturing of resources.
These games, like
Animal Crossing, present an "ambience of bucolic" and a "reassuring mix of the pastoral and the industrial," wrote
Simon Parkin recently. They offer an escape to simpler times, that provides meaningful work along with the possibility of also working at friendships.
The games collected in this list each offer the chance to escape and absorb yourself tending to a plot of land and nurturing often surprisingly moving relationships. Whether you are diligently cleaning someone's empty flat as in
Sunset, setting up a farm after retiring from your adventures in
Littlewood, reconnecting with grown-up children in
The Stillness of The Wind, nurturing a musical garden in
Mutazione, establishing a coffee shop in
Coffee Talk or even eeking out provisions while you care for children in
This War Of Mine all these games have something to tend to and people to get to know while you do it.
Video games and work don’t usually go together. Not, that is, unless you work in the video game industry. The
Safe In Our World charity addresses this world of work and video games to foster positive mental health wellbeing and deliver support for players, developers, publishers and retailers.
“The worlds we create are a refuge for many,” they say about video games, to highlight the importance of also looking after those people who make these amazing spaces. They have some excellent resources available for free and global helplines for a range of emotions and stresses people might be feeling, not to mention some great training resources for companies. Most recent is their
Level Up campaign that challenges businesses within the video games industry to unite and commit to change.
The games in this list offer space to reflect and escape work for a while. But not only to get some distance, but to play something that shines a light on why we do what we do. Some address the world of work directly, while others enable us to consider our choices about how we spend our working hours.
Whether it’s escaping for a lunchtime walk with A Short Hike. Trying to manage crunch time with Going Under, or not succumbing to Tom Nook’s invitation for ever bigger mortgages in Animal Crossing, there are lots of games that can help us find some balance.
Other games, like Coffee Talk and Neo Cab help us consider the people we serve at work. This might be conversations with customers, but also the other people we work with in the office or workplace we find ourselves in. Like the game Good Job encourages us to do.
Then there are games that make us aware of our co-workers. Whether it’s collaborating to identify and store stock in Wilmot’s Warehouse or getting the furniture into the van neatly in Moving Out, how we work together and treat the people around us is important.
For those learning to read, or learning to read English as a second language, video games offer an opportunity play and interact with the meaning of words. Many games include written dialogue or subtitles of the spoken performances, but more interesting in this context are games that use words and sentences as the form of interaction.
There are games like A Dark Room, that offer nouns and verbs as the means of interacting with the world. There are games like Scribblenauts, that let the player enter words to conjure items to solve problems. There are games like Nanotale where you need to enter words to record items in your catalogue and advance the story.
Other games are also useful to those learning English as a second language as you easily can switch between different languages. Also you can play dialogue heavy games at your own pace as the action won’t advance without you.
