2023 has been quite the year for casual gamers like you and me. While there have been an amazing number of stunning, easygoing titles, here are some of my favorites and highest rated from this year.
Top 20 Casual Games of 2023
Coral Island
Coral Island is a farming life simulation title in the style of Disney cartoons. While it was released in Early Access last year, it finally got its 1.0 release in November 2023. If you are looking for a farming simulation with little pressure and a massive array of romanceable characters, Coral Island is a great pick.
Dave the Diver
Dave the Diver is all about a guy named Dave, tricked into spending his vacation days scuba diving for fish and his vacation nights serving at a new sushi restaurant. You'll need to battle fish underwater before keeping up with the demands of food service. Dave the Diver is a fun, casual mix of pixel art, restaurant simulation, and epic fish battles.
Fae Farm
Azoria is a magical land filled to the brim with all sorts of spells, animals, and friends. This multiplayer farming and life sim is highly rated for its adorable graphics, cross-platform multiplayer, and tons of romanceable NPCs. It's the perfect Stardew Valley-like game for 2023.
Pikmin 4
The Pikmin series is a goofy set of games about tiny critters that you control. It has big Lemming vibes; you'll need to crowd control a whole bunch of weird little plant-like friends to solve puzzles, defeat enemies, and swarm over treasures.
Chants of Sennaar
Chants of Sennaar is a casual game that requires a lot of puzzle-solving skills. You must move through the world, chatting with strangers in order to learn their languages, solve puzzles, and uncover the truth of a strange, mystical tower.
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Cocoon
You are a beetle, small but strong that carries worlds on its back. This single-player puzzle game is all about hopping between tiny worlds that you carry around and figuring out how the universe is put together.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a multiplayer platformer that is incredibly family-friendly and has a ton of playable characters. You can play online, solo, or even have some fun together in couch co-op. Much like most of its predecessors, this Mario title is polished, beautiful, and filled with interesting platforming puzzles for the whole family.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
This official Sonic game is probably one of the best Sonic titles ever created. Released on April Fools' Day, this surprise visual novel puzzle game about the death of the blue hedgehog has delighted fans all over. It's weird, free-to-play, and is 100% worth a playthrough.
Station to Station
It's easy to tell when a game is a passion project; Station to Station was lovingly rendered brick-by-brick by a real fan of trains. This Steam Next Fest hit was released to a whole lot of fanfare; it's a beautiful Voxel art game about connecting trains from one town, fishing spot, farm, or other supplier to another with the fewest number of rails.
Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly
Coffee Talk was a massive indie sensation, and Episode 2 is just as worthy of the hype as the first. Part barista simulation and part visual novel Hibiscus and Butterfly is the continuation of this fantasy coffee shop in the middle of a bustling city.
Connections
The New York Times Games is known for a lot of little daily games like Wordle, Spelling Bee, and one of the most popular Crosswords. The newspaper giant added yet another game to the lineup in 2023: Connections. It's a word puzzle game that gives you sixteen words. Each word belongs in only one of four mystery categories, and you'll have to suss out what those are all on your own.
Dordogne
Dordogne is a visual novel and puzzle game in a beautiful, watercolor style. It's a bittersweet tale of love, loss, and forgiveness, told through the lens of a woman returning to the site of something important from her childhood. The tale unfolds as she slowly remembers everything that had been deeply buried under a thick layer of time and trauma.
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Suika: The Watermelon Game
While Suika or the Watermelon Game was not released in 2023, it certainly went viral this year. For quite a long time, it was nearly impossible to turn on any Twitch stream from Japan without seeing it. It was so popular that it began to bleed into streams from other countries, and it was finally released on the Nintendo Switch in the US and the EU in Fall 2023.
Yeah! You Want "Those Games," Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let's See You Clear Them!
I can't tell you the number of times I've seen ads for these types of games. Part of their marketing is all about doing the puzzle as poorly as possible to make you mad and want to complete it yourself. But then, when you download it, it is so filled with ads and microtransactions that it's basically unplayable. So, a clever developer took all Those Games and put them into one title: Yeah! You Want "Those Games," Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let's See You Clear Them!
Hello Kitty Island Adventure
Hello Kitty Island Adventure is a kind of Animal Crossing-like game for Apple Arcade. You'll need to get around town, meet Sanrio characters, complete quests, and collect items in this highly-rated and massively adorable phone title.
Venba
Venba is a short, narrative cooking game about how food can bring people together. This immigrant family is tied to their homeland by the recipes they brought with them, and the mother of the family is determined to keep her Indian heritage alive even as everyone is uprooted to move to Canada.
Videoverse
Videoverse is a decision-based narrative adventure all about old-school video games that were tied closely to their online communities. Meet friends, battle enemies in the game, and find love in this ode to the days of "Miiverse, MSN messenger, early internet forums and 00’s technology." It's nostalgia for old-school video games mixed with social media in its earliest forms.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
Some of the developers who worked on Dragon Age: Inquisition put together this wild ride of a musical called Stray Gods. You play as Grace, a woman who has been made into a Greek God and accused of murder, all in the same night. Take on your new powers as a muse to force a large cast of god and goddess-like characters to sing, getting closer and closer to the truth of who killed the muse before you. It's beautiful, filled with amazing songs, and is probably one of the best visual novels I have ever played.
Slay the Princess
Instead of saving her, you'll need to Slay the Princess in this horror visual novel adventure game. She's evil, I think. Or is she? Can you escape the clutches of this woman who will do or say anything to survive, even if it means killing you over, and over, and over...?
Spirittea
Spirittea is a genre-bending game about serving tea to different spirits. You have a tea shop, and the surrounding town is filled to the brim with ghosts. All these spirits might need a little tea and a long soak in the hot springs to calm their nerves. This game looks a lot like Stardew Valley, plays like a business sim, but also has an almost Pokemon-like spirit collection system.
For more casual games lists, check out Casual games that are perfect to pick up and play on Pro Game Guides.
Published: Nov 23, 2023 02:00 pm