Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is in These Lists
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 Everybody's Gone to the Rapture in the following lists:
Cottagecore is an online term celebrating an idealised rural life. Although games are usually considered to be hard, harsh and technological, many of them play to this aesthetic that is sentimental about traditional skills and crafts such as foraging, baking, and pottery.
Games sometimes use these rural pursuits as play mechanics, like Stardew Valley, Potion Craft, Terraria and Fantasy Life. Others use cottagecore as a guide to how they look and feel, like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Stillness of the Wind and Mutazione.
However it plays out in the game, cottagecore aims to satisfy a desire for aspirational nostalgia and an escape from stress or trauma. The New York Times described it as a reaction to hustle culture and the advent of personal branding. The Guardian called it a "visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors."
These games emphasize simplicity and the slow pace of pastoral life as an escape from the modern world in favour of the bucolic. Unsurprisingly this has become more popular on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. In some ways the resurgence of retro games could be seen in a similar light, although here the sentimental nostalgia is for virtual entertainment rather than rural lifestyle.
Video games create spaces for us to go and play. These spaces are sometimes an escape from the real world. Equally, games can help us revel and celebrate the real world.
Inspired by an
article written by Keith Stuart about autumnal games, this is a list of games that are played while the leaves are falling.
These games offer, rather than escapism, unique ways to appreciate the season we are living in. They are an exercise in the present moment, where we find writ large, the joys of harvesting apples, warm fires, crisp walks and the breathing in before the long dark of winter.
Video games are known for high-octane, adrenaline-fuelled entertainment, but there are many that address the player’s emotions as much as their dexterity. Often overlooked by younger or more competitive players, these experiences can provide a helpful variety in the diet of games your family enjoys.
The games selected below create emotionally rich spaces in which to explore scenarios with feelings rather than facts. In some games this is achieved with beautiful or soothing interactive visuals; others create charged relationships and settings that invite players to take a role in processing these emotions.
In a culture that often assumes that the route to happiness is with another person, it can benefit us to acknowledge that being alone is not always a bad thing. We teamed up with Courtney Garcia’s
Screen Therapy channel to curate a list of games that give us a chance to experience being alone in different ways.
Garcia’s
Screen Therapy project employs Positive Media Psychology research to highlight and interpret meaningful experiences with games and movies. “With mindfulness, there are even more benefits to gain from intentional consumption of media,” she says, “games can be tools we use to recover or grow, psychologically, and our time with them isn't wasted if they provide us insights or rest we need.”
This list was inspired by the experience of playing the unusually solitary (and long) game The Longing and the
Twitter thread that followed. In it, you spend 400 elapsed days waiting for the King to wake up and living at a slow pace. The other games offer their own lens on loneliness and solitary seasons of life. These games offer us insight into the benefits of appreciating time alone, such as opportunities for self-reflection, self-discovery, and the chance to curate enriching experiences or environments for ourselves.
Some of the games, like Never Alone, Journey and The Long Dark place you in a harsh environment that emphasises your diminutive size when faced with the expanse of nature. Other games in the list, like Thomas Was Alone and Bird Alone offer you the chance to reflect on friendship and the need to nurture relationships. Then there are games we included like Shadow of the Colossus that let you get lost in the vastness of its landscape. Finally, a few of the games like The First Tree and Sunlight invite you to make a connection to other players, once you have come to terms with a journey on your own.
There are 2,277 active games companies in the UK employing 20,430 people. The biggest concentration spread through the country in cities and towns like London, Manchester, Brighton, Guildford, Aldershot, Bristol, Sheffield, Glasgow and Liverpool. The UK market for video games reached a record £7bn in 2020.
Many of the biggest video game franchises have been created in the UK.
Grand Theft Auto,
Tomb Raider,
Football Manager,
Elite Beat Agents,
Fable and
Batman: Arkham Asylum. But along with these well-known titles are some amazing games for families and children.
There are some amazing (and huge) series of games made in the UK that are perfect for families.
Forza Horizon,
Lego Games,
Fall Guys,
LittleBigPlanet and
Viva Pinata. Then there are games from smaller and independent UK game studios:
Overcooked,
Wilmot’s Warehouse,
TerraTech,
Phogs,
Snake Pass and
Chime to name a few.
Like a good crime drama or whodunnit novel, solving mysteries and puzzles is a good way to engage in a story. However, rather than just watching these mysteries while someone else does the heavy lifting, these video games place you firmly in the role of the detective. Gathering statements, sifting evidence and making intelligent leaps of deduction requires care and attention. These investigations makes these games slower than others, but it’s worth the effort each time you find the correct conclusion and move the story on.
These games present you with a mysterious scenario to be solved. Whether with direct puzzles, locations to investigate or crime scenarios to deduce, they offer a unique, first-hand sleuthing challenge.
The British Academy Games Awards are presented annually to recognise, honour and reward outstanding creative achievement in Games. The awards categories reflect the wealth and diversity of the games sector.
The awards started in 2004 and are presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). For parents, they are a great way of discovering brilliant games to play in their family. The games included here are from these categories:
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The Family Games Award highlights games that will work really well for parents and children. These often include multiplayer features and feature a cast of family-friendly characters.
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The Games Beyond Entertainment award is also of interest as this highlights more unusual games with an emphasis on storytelling that addresses topics that parents may find appealing themselves.
While a significant portion of video games focus on combat and competition, these titles offer a less aggressive way to progress and win. None of these games enable or require the player to cause harm to another living thing -- even Mario's merciless campaign to stomp on every Goomba he meets bars him from this list. Or then there's catching and selling fish in Animal Crossing that rule that one out.
Many of them are aimed at children and families, but you'll be surprised how many explore deeper, more mature themes in their narratives, or require just as much skill as a fast-paced first-person shooter. This means there's plenty of offer for parents who might lack the reflexes (or interest) to survive a round of Fortnite.
We've focused on the games you might not expect to be played non-violently here, but you can find the full list at
Non-Violent Games Of the Day curated by James Batchelor.
Time in video games is a valuable thing. Unlike in the real world where it proceeds in a linear fashion, in a game it may speed up, slow down or even go backwards. There are some games where controlling time becomes a crucial and fascinating game mechanic. The best of these integrate your time travelling powers with both characters and narrative to create a compelling experience.
While some video games revel in the density and effort required to discover the narrative in their virtual worlds, others want to make it as easy and accessible to make their story your own.
Two things come together in these games. Characters are fully voiced by actors. Choices have a tangible effect on how things turn out. For former reduces friction for the player. The latter increases engagement.
Games like the
Frog's Princess,
King of Dragon Pass and
Call of the Sea offer a story-book feel with branching narrative that can be a novel way for younger players to discover the joy of stories.
Other games like
South of the Circle,
Before Your Eyes,
Firewatch and
It Takes Two offer fully voiced experiences with choices that don't create new endings but still add a sense of involvement.
Then there are games for older players like
Detroit: Become Human,
Last Stop,
Grand Theft Auto,
Twelve Minutes and
Heavy Rain combine branching stories and fully voiced characters. These games use the immersion of the human voice and branching stories to create engaging experiences.
Voices and choices are a large part of what it means to be human. The games in this list use these two things to create experiences that engage on a deeper level.
Video games aren't high on the list of most people's spiritual spaces. However, many games offer experiences that invite you to explore buildings, worlds, cities and the countryside full of potential for spiritual reflection.
Games offer a unique way to encounter what is beyond us: other people, the world and possibly even the divine. They include themes of hope, loss and love. They invite us to reconsider how we see the outsider and the marginalised. They offer a chance for response and emotion to grow.
The games in this list have been the subject of a series of articles I have written about video games and faith. Firstly, from 2013-2015 for
ThirdWay magazine, and more recently for
Youth and Children's Work (YCW) magazine.
These are two publications for Christian audiences, that have invited me to shed light on what a range of video games might mean for those communities. I aim to make connections with faith, the bible and the experience of these video games. This is one way to interpret them which of course invites further and possibly counter interpretations from other perspectives.
YCW articles:
Firewatch |
Everything |
Bury Me My Love |
Abzu |
Wilmot's WarehouseThirdway Articles:
Proteus |
Joust |
Uncharted 3 |
Alan Wake |
This War of Mine |
Journey |
Limbo |
Spaceteam |
A Dark Room |
Altos Adventure |
A Year Walk |
Bioshock Infinite |
The Last of Us |
Disney Infinity |
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture |
That Dragon Cancer |
Spec Ops The Line |
Papo and Yo The spaces and places that video games create are often designed with a particular interaction or way to progress through them. However, because games are open to the player, how you play, the direction you move and what you do in the game is up to you.
This means that you can often put video games to unusual uses. Photography is one aspect of this as Paul Buttle recently
highlight on Twitter. All modern video game consoles enable you to capture an image of the screen. At a rudimentary level this allows you to take pictures of your adventures. Beyond this, many games offer a Photo mode that allows you to freeze the action and take control of the camera -- even letting you control effects, depth of field and shutter speed in some cases.
This means you can take really beautiful and engaging pictures in the games you play. Some families have tasked their expert players with capturing a certain type of photograph as they play:
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Portraiture - capture images of the people you meet.
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Photojournalism - create a photo diary of the events of the game to be annotated later.
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Fashion - document the different outfits and wardrobe styles your character chooses.
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Sports - capture sporting moments, including not only players, but the crowd and coaches.
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Still Life - capture the inanimate, mundane and overlooked elements that make the game world what it is.
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Architectural - find ways to photograph the buildings in various states of build, decay and renewal.
Some examples of these projects include:
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