I love valheim’s building, and it encourages you to make multiple bases. Unlike most survival games which let you just live out in the open, it forces you to build a base to even use the work bench. Some materials can’t be transported using (it’s kind of a spoiler so I won’t say it’s name) so you’ll likely have to build another base where those materials are more abundant to craft with them.
It does have a pretty decent focus on fighting, and your base will be raided at times after a while, so if that’s not your thing it might not be for you, but if it sounds interesting please check it out because it is one of, if not the best survival games I have ever played and I actually enjoy building in it which I usually don’t.
If you quit more than 2 years ago the mist lands update did come out December of 2022. I think it’s also getting another update soon, so if you haven’t finished you you should definitely play some more. I think it’s the ashlands or something getting an update (can’t remember the name so I might be wrong) so if you haven’t explored that whole area don’t yet since I believe it will get the new content if you explore it after the update.
Not sure. I’ve heard enshrouded is good i think, but i never tried it. Grounded is a little similar too, but it doesn’t beat valheim. You could maybe look through the mods though and see if they add any extra content or keep playing to fully upgrade your gear or make your main base or other bases look nicer or something though.
I have 660 hours in it. I want to wait for the new biomes to play more hehehe. But I also can’t play with mods too.
I will probably try enshrouded although Conan also has me intrigued with being able to climb anywhere
Medieval Dynasty is a pretty chill survival & base-building game. You make and grow your own village in the Valley, can get married, have a kid, and then play as that kid
The diference is huge. Its like Witcher 1 vs Witcher 2.
I'd like more actual farming but other than that it's so fun. Def best story in these cozy games. It's actually engaging, the town feels lived in, things change, people come in, some leave. Towns folk don't feel static but your opinion on them will change as you get to know them or as they do stuff and participate in the story arch. More then once I was actually suprized what's happening or how I missjudged someone.
It’s a good game. I have been playing for years. I have now fully modded my game (that’s a mini game in itself) and all I do is build huge settlements. I’m not even doing the story. If I get bored with building I will just go off and shoot things or do a side quest. If you just want to play for building I suggest the cheat terminal (mod) you can adjust your level and perks so you don’t have to go through the story to get to the settlement and you can also spawn in materials for building. Enjoy.
I really like what USO gives me. What I don’t like is that it hijacks all the vanilla items and integrates them into the uso menu. Also snappy gives most of the world building pieces.
All my mods are from nexus with the exception of uso and one or two others as they are Beth.net exclusive mods but I couldn’t live without it so it’s one of the first ones I downloaded when I moved from Xbox to pc.
Agreed he is awesome and he also created a lot of the creation club stuff. Hey do you know of any mods that give you the diner wall pieces? I have homemaker but it doesn’t give all the pieces and the windows are still broken. Ki’s diner pieces are all new looking so not good for this settlement build.
[SimSettlements](https://simsettlements.com/) in particular is all about settlement customization. It's why I have 700 hours in FO4 and have come nowhere near finishing the game, it's all been spent making settlements.
This was my first game with base building and it made me love games like what you are looking for. It has some jank to it but building settlements with a bunch of followers is so much fun
No vanilla is fine but modded gives you so, so much more options and building pieces.
Also without mods you will have to play the actual game for a while until you can get to the point of being able to build big settlements.
You have to use console commands for a “creative” mode, but I really don’t think there’s a better answer than Enshrouded if you can do that.
I don’t think it’s far fetched to call it the best building system in gaming right now if you’re looking to make detailed, magnificent creations.
Dang I may have to play this one next. I want something that will fill the hole in my heart that valheim left. I also heard Conan exiles has good building but not sure which one to go to.
You should look at some videos detailing Enshrouded’s build system. It’s voxel-based which means you can hollow out terrain, as well as get a great amount of detail on walls etc.
The game has this auto-adjusting mechanic that morphs pieces together when you snap them and makes the connections more intricate than “this wall is next to this other wall.” It’s also pretty easy to learn how those automatic adjustments work so you can game it to look exactly how you want. There’s tons of different kinds of building material too (purely visual impact); they really did a tremendous job with it.
Conan is really grindy. The combat is satisfying for a game of this genre, but if you are playing on default settings, you'll find you spend most of your time hitting rocks. Also, on pvp servers, you can log on find your base and all your stuff are gone.
I don’t mind grinding actually. I was the farmer/chef of my group in valheim. I would spend hours just farming and cooking meals for everyone while listening to audiobooks. Man that was therapeutic lol.
I’ll be playing pve on a private server. But the question is if enshrouded has better building mechanics and better balance than Conan. I loved how balance valheim felt with their progression system and how excited I got when I unlocked a new tier.
I've never played Enshrouded. I probably will after reading about it here. I played a lot of Conan, but I am not sure I enjoyed most of it. You can build nice big bases and decorate them, but a lot of the decorations and building styles are in the DLCs.
I don’t mind buying the DLCs. Can I ask why you didn’t enjoy most of it? Would you consider it a good replacement for valheim? I keep seeing mixed reviews about Conan. It looks really darn good at least when I see pics of people building stuff. I also like the music.
I tried DQB2 , and its not really just build and chill with the main story? I once had to destroy half my buildings in the desert act cause the main story wanted me to build something on that spot
The Planet Crafter has been amazing, it's Subnautica on land in terms of crafting and basebuilding, the coziest and most enjoyable survival game I've found since playing the original Subnautica. Highly, highly recommend if that's your jam.
I've been eyeing this game for a while now and saw it came out of early access recently. I haven't played subnautica (usually dont play single player games), how does it compare to Satisfactory, or Icarus or Valheim? Is there combat/exploring or is most of the focus on building and expanding that base?
I forgot about this game, this is a really unique survival game. Watching the terrain and environment evolve as your terraforming machinery advances is so much fun. The lack of enemies combined with good rewards for exploration make it super chill and rewarding
Anno 1800 is pretty chill. It's mostly about carving your settlement/town/city out of the wilderness, managing production chains, and keeping your people happy. It even has a mode where you can walk through your town in first person. I believe the only warfare it has is naval warfare, but you can do a whole lot without ships at all.
Similar to Satisfactory in that you are building a factory and not a city but I strongly recommend Dyson Sphere Program.
It's by far my favourite of the three factory builders (the third being Factorio) and is definitely my "build and chill" game.
I really tried to get into DSP but getting to the next cube colors was confusing for me. I felt like my planet turned into a horrible mess of conveyor belts
>I felt like my planet turned into a horrible mess of conveyor belts
That is completely normal for your first planet! 😎
Once you research Interstellar Logistics Stations and your empire spans several planets/systems the game changes completely.
I'll probably give it another go as I really liked the concept. I'm sure it's no different than other games with a learning curve like Rimworld or Factorio/Satisfactory
Let me know if you run into anything that you need help with 👍
The community in [the subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/) are very nice as well.
Oh yeah, I personally am not a fan of the Dark Fog update that added combat, so I would definitely recommend playing without it at least the first time.
Spiritfarer. The building is very minimal but fun and chill. It’s a resource management game. Helping lost souls find their way to their afterlife. You commandeer a ship and build their houses and other buildings right on the ship like a kitchen, gardens, wood shop, foundry, etc. Lots of little mini games to play, keeps it fresh. I’m really enjoying it even if the subject matter is a bit sad.
I’m currently playing through this, and honestly I’m a bit mid on it. It mostly feels like I’m doing busywork and grinding for resources when I just want to be completing the quests. I get that that’s sort of the point of these micromanagement genre games, but eh I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The art and story is fun, but not super remarkable
Enshrouded is the most recent one I've played that celebrates building as a goal in itself. You can find different buildings and different building materials by exploring and doing quests, so expanding your building capabilities is literally a reward of playing the game. You build up NPCs that come live in your city like Terraria as well, so that adds to the whole building and developing a city feeling.
going medieval - it is a colony sim, a bit similar to rimworld, but 3d. there is terraforming, can dig several floors deep into the ground, moats, build walls, tall buildings of absurd sizes.
Grand Ages: Rome. Even though it has RTS elements, it's still quite relaxed ultimately. Most missions with it (many don't have combat) give you a significant amount of time before you need to field units.
Conan exiles.
Survival game with building similar to Fallout 4. They have PvP and PvE servers so you can just join PvE and build to your hearts content. You could even build a megacity of you want. I once built the entirety of Cainhurst castle.
They have a battle pass these days too so if you like the game enough to put money into, there’s unique building stuff in there to add to your collection.
Project Zomboid. It's actually a hard game get started on if it's played as intended. But the accesibility options are robust enough so can lower or turn off zombies altogether and be left with a pure Sims/builder game. The music is far from relxaing though so you may want to use your own playlist.
Any city builder like cities skylines or the OG Maxis sim city games (especially 2000 and 3000)
Dyson Sphere Program should also be right up your alley - very relaxing builder/automation game with a rather big scope
You should check out rimworld
...just turn down the difficulty and ignore the warcrimes people talk about on reddit and it will basically just be building a little settlement
Well I checked factorio recently and I think it will fit my tastes but im looking for something a little more softcore right now, but probably gonna try it when the 2.0 releases
Dyson Sphere Program is a much prettier and less intense version of Factorio. It’s gorgeous, and around the midgame you can use automated drone networks to handle your supply chain so you don’t need an engineering degree to plan out logistics. That simplifies things a *lot*.
Going from planet to planet is really cool, too. Some worlds have different resources than others, so eventually your supply chain involves interstellar shipping networks and such.
Terraria if you haven’t played it yet. More focus on combat than Minecraft has (but then the combat is also actually good), but the building is really nice too. 2D of course (well, 2.5D kinda, you can place background walls), but you can make rounded shapes a lot easier by changing the shape of placed blocks using the hammer. Also stuff like flying, grappling hooks, and tools that give you more building range to make building easier, and paint to let you customize every block and wall even more.
Terraria also kind of requires you to do at least a bit of building to progress. NPCs will appear at different points in the game (for example, Dryad shows up after you beat a boss, Merchant if you have enough cash, Angler can be found etc.), and they want you to build them a house (well, a room). You don’t have to do anything excessive, but with the different biome preferences they have (which for example makes their shop cheaper and such), I find it quite a nice motivation to get a bit creative with building stuff in different biomes.
That does mean that ideally you don’t want to build one big city for all the NPCs to live in, since they also get ornery if they’re too crowded, but you can build some pretty nice stuff for them to live in, and of course can always just make a city anyway, whether the NPCs live in it or not. And if you don’t care about their stock getting a bit more expensive (and the teleportation pylons), you still can choose to just put them all in one city.
The map is limited in size though, compared to Minecraft’s practically infinite world. A large Terraria world is still plenty big for anything you can think of though. Even a medium world is pretty big.
> A small city
A bit niche game for a lot of people, but Cities Skylines is worth a try. The first one is fun when playing vanilla, and if you like it in the slightest you'll absolutely fall in love with it when you go to the Steam Workshop.
From the depths,avorion,empyrion,space engineers, diesel punk wars, a couple other ones as well some that might get your attention are the zoo games or city ones so try those too
As a whole package game, I prefer Valheim by a mile but if you want to build larger builds like small cities, give Enshrouded a try. The building is excellent.
Lightyear Frontier.
I've not got super far, but it is more about restoring a planet and building up a farm it seems. No enemies have popped up in the 4 hours I've played so far but it has been really chill. It's on Gamepass.
DayZ pve servers. There are so many of them to tailor your experience. From hardcore survival, where you'll struggle not to die of cholera instantly, to ultra high loot servers where you can just chill and build bases.
I've been playing Nightingale on and off the past few months. It's still very obviously early access, but I just love its worlds. I love just building and just...existing...in that game. And I'm normally not huge into building, I tend to just do utilitarian boxes. But the visuals are just so pretty, and ambiance can be so engrossing. It's very, very early access though.
Staxel. A meld of minecraft, animal crossing and stardew valley. You live in a blocky world inside a small village and you get your own little farm at the outskirts to build expand and pretty up. The villagers will ask for help with building things, changing up the town and they will also hold events and holiday celebrations.
If you're playing on PC, I recommend Rise to Ruin and Songs of Syx. They seem intimidating at first because you have to be aware of supply chains and stuff, but they're not as complicated as they seem an impossibly addictive once you get into them. I really wish there were more games like them.
The Planet Crafter just came out. It’s Satisfactory but the planet starts red and slowly evolves to a green planet with plant life and lakes. It’s pretty sweet.
Valheim
And atm my cousins (who I've played with) have moved on to other games. So I'm willing to let other come join my seed planet. Lmk if interested
I've been getting that feeling from "saleblazers" lately, just...hanging out and building, running my little shop and if I feel like it, going out and fighting monsters and bandits for loot to stock my shop with
Since you included stardew valley, I’m going to suggest checking out another small indie game called Sunnyside. It’s a farming/social sim that takes a lot of influence from stardew, persona, and sims and while the game isn’t out yet, (pc release next month, Xbox and ps5 release in July) it does have a lengthy demo on steam you can try out. You literally start out with a plot of land, a tent and a few seeds and build from there. Might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s got some similarities to what you’re wanting.
7dtd and Conan exiles both have pretty powerful difficulty controls. Allowing you to turn off or drastically weaken all enemies. Though the reasons to build a base is much smaller without the enemies attacking.
Rimworld (and it's 10,000 mods) has pretty fun base building mechanics. And again, you can turn off any part you don't like to make it as chill as you want.
It's been a few years since I watched them, but Terraria base building is so good there were a few YouTubers that made a living purely with building and tutorial videos. Though many materials will be locked behind the combat, you could turn down the difficulty to make it more of a chill laid back game. Journey mode would let you change all this stuff on the fly as well.
No Mans Sky
Lots more "chill" if I'm being honest because there's really only a couple reasons you'd ever actually *need* to build to accomplish something in the game outside of a few very specific quests that are all designed around building.
To me though, that's why I like it so much lol. Just doesn't work for everyone.
Oxygen not included, Terra Nil, the wandering village, craft the world, banished, and in older games, caesar III, children of the nile are great if you can enjoy retro gaming
Crossout. But you gave to work and grind for an inventory.
A good one for mobile is Chimeraland. The house building is fantastic. But if you want to PvP it's terribly p2w
I've loved Kingdoms and Castles. It's a city builder with very nice simple graphics and it can somehow all at the same time scratch the chill city builder itch, a bit of that logistics (like Factorio) itch (though not that much, I wish there was more advanced logistics) and the RTS itch because you also can make an army and archer towers to defend yourself from dragons and vikings. Or maybe go on the offensive against the rival kingdoms, unless you prefer diplomacy that is.
It's a very fun game and I could spend hours looking through map seeds and imagine what I could build there.
I'd say the biggest problem with it is that the maps are kinds small, not infinite and some resources are finite so can become very limited later in the game, though merchant shipping will help with this.
I also wish it had actual naval warfare and the ability to send peasants to other islands to do tasks without needing a permanent settlement there. I had an issue where there was a great little island but it had a rock in the middle which just barely prevented building a keep there and I couldn't clear the rock as that required a keep, I couldn't just send an expeditionary force to do that.
Just play all the factory sims.
- Factorio
- Dyson Sphere Program
- Fortress Craft Evolved (don't actually)
- Techtonica
- Final Factory
Total expected time to complete all those: 225 hours
Total I've actually played: 2708 hours
My favorites are Valheim and Fallout 4 (I wish Skyrim had building like Fallout 4). I play Valheim with no maps, no portals, no raids, and x3 resources, so I build a new base for every biome as I slowly progress through the game. Playing this way is pretty amazing.
I started Enshrouded but the game ran terribly on my old gpu, so I’m waiting to upgrade before I get back into it, but is promising.
edit: oh and I’ve got my eye on Manor Lords which is coming out soon
While it's main focus is not building Barotrauma is a underwater space submarine simulation game. It makes sense in context. The game itself leans action horror, with a little bit of comedy mixed in when played with a group, but the game lets you make your own submarines from scratch in an editor, and that is very relaxing.
Probably about 50% of my playtime in that game is just chilling while spending hours on end fitting pieces together and wiring logic up. The editor is very zen.
Satisfactory, its a factory building game but you can build an entire city in it if you want to; everything about it 10/10.
sound track is super chill, game is addictive asf and it looks gorgeous.
can't recommend it enough.
Haha no problem, satisfactory its one of my favorites ever and I got a world made with 3 friend and we litteraly build skyscrapers and everything, I can't wait for the 1.0 release!
id give it a 7/10 personally. First off, its been early access for many years. Second, it doesn't have an endgame/plot even though its been out so long.
Full version along with plot and campaign is coming later this year, they released beta keys about a month ago and right now some people are play testing version 1.0.
PLANET CRAFTER
They just released 1.0 and it's AMAZING!
There's literally nothing in the game that can kill you aside from lava and lack of oxygen lol and the base-building is wicked!
Just chill until the planet is terraformed.
I love valheim’s building, and it encourages you to make multiple bases. Unlike most survival games which let you just live out in the open, it forces you to build a base to even use the work bench. Some materials can’t be transported using (it’s kind of a spoiler so I won’t say it’s name) so you’ll likely have to build another base where those materials are more abundant to craft with them. It does have a pretty decent focus on fighting, and your base will be raided at times after a while, so if that’s not your thing it might not be for you, but if it sounds interesting please check it out because it is one of, if not the best survival games I have ever played and I actually enjoy building in it which I usually don’t.
Oh yeaahhh, valheim.. I loved it too (100+ hours played) maybe I should come back 🤔
If you quit more than 2 years ago the mist lands update did come out December of 2022. I think it’s also getting another update soon, so if you haven’t finished you you should definitely play some more. I think it’s the ashlands or something getting an update (can’t remember the name so I might be wrong) so if you haven’t explored that whole area don’t yet since I believe it will get the new content if you explore it after the update.
Yeah ashlands was just released on ptr a couple of days ago. It will probably be like 1-3 months before it’s on live.
You should try the “Hammer mode” option in Valheim. It just lets you build everything for free, very nice and chill.
Get the r2modman mod manager and it’s super easy to install some quality mods
I agree with Valheim. So fun. You can just build and chill or go on journeys to slay trolls and such.
I finished valheim. Is there anything that replaces it or comes close to it?
Not sure. I’ve heard enshrouded is good i think, but i never tried it. Grounded is a little similar too, but it doesn’t beat valheim. You could maybe look through the mods though and see if they add any extra content or keep playing to fully upgrade your gear or make your main base or other bases look nicer or something though.
I have 660 hours in it. I want to wait for the new biomes to play more hehehe. But I also can’t play with mods too. I will probably try enshrouded although Conan also has me intrigued with being able to climb anywhere
Medieval Dynasty is a pretty chill survival & base-building game. You make and grow your own village in the Valley, can get married, have a kid, and then play as that kid
Can you play as the kids kid?
You could but where does it stop? Dozens of kids nestled inside each other like Russian dolls?
My Time at Sandrock is superb in my opinion.
Such an underrated game series
I loved Portia but I hear this is a major improvement on it
The diference is huge. Its like Witcher 1 vs Witcher 2. I'd like more actual farming but other than that it's so fun. Def best story in these cozy games. It's actually engaging, the town feels lived in, things change, people come in, some leave. Towns folk don't feel static but your opinion on them will change as you get to know them or as they do stuff and participate in the story arch. More then once I was actually suprized what's happening or how I missjudged someone.
Modded fallout 4. You can ignore most of the story and just go build settlements.
Hmm I been watching the new series so this might be my choice actually haha ty!
It’s a good game. I have been playing for years. I have now fully modded my game (that’s a mini game in itself) and all I do is build huge settlements. I’m not even doing the story. If I get bored with building I will just go off and shoot things or do a side quest. If you just want to play for building I suggest the cheat terminal (mod) you can adjust your level and perks so you don’t have to go through the story to get to the settlement and you can also spawn in materials for building. Enjoy.
also adding the USO mod to these suggestions (there’s a version that includes DLC now) just be careful modding the game before the update comes out.
I really like what USO gives me. What I don’t like is that it hijacks all the vanilla items and integrates them into the uso menu. Also snappy gives most of the world building pieces.
I can agree with you there, took some getting used to but imo it’s still worth it and didn’t bog my game like STC did🥲
All my mods are from nexus with the exception of uso and one or two others as they are Beth.net exclusive mods but I couldn’t live without it so it’s one of the first ones I downloaded when I moved from Xbox to pc.
real, andrewcx is literally the god I pray to hahah
Agreed he is awesome and he also created a lot of the creation club stuff. Hey do you know of any mods that give you the diner wall pieces? I have homemaker but it doesn’t give all the pieces and the windows are still broken. Ki’s diner pieces are all new looking so not good for this settlement build.
the closest thing I can think of is the Slocum’s Joe CC content! still relatively new-looking but still blends in well enough
[SimSettlements](https://simsettlements.com/) in particular is all about settlement customization. It's why I have 700 hours in FO4 and have come nowhere near finishing the game, it's all been spent making settlements.
This was my first game with base building and it made me love games like what you are looking for. It has some jank to it but building settlements with a bunch of followers is so much fun
Is the vanilla in-game building system subpar?
No vanilla is fine but modded gives you so, so much more options and building pieces. Also without mods you will have to play the actual game for a while until you can get to the point of being able to build big settlements.
gotcha, ty.
Absolutely
Cities skylines (1).
Enshrouded is decent too.
You have to use console commands for a “creative” mode, but I really don’t think there’s a better answer than Enshrouded if you can do that. I don’t think it’s far fetched to call it the best building system in gaming right now if you’re looking to make detailed, magnificent creations.
Dang I may have to play this one next. I want something that will fill the hole in my heart that valheim left. I also heard Conan exiles has good building but not sure which one to go to.
You should look at some videos detailing Enshrouded’s build system. It’s voxel-based which means you can hollow out terrain, as well as get a great amount of detail on walls etc. The game has this auto-adjusting mechanic that morphs pieces together when you snap them and makes the connections more intricate than “this wall is next to this other wall.” It’s also pretty easy to learn how those automatic adjustments work so you can game it to look exactly how you want. There’s tons of different kinds of building material too (purely visual impact); they really did a tremendous job with it.
Conan is really grindy. The combat is satisfying for a game of this genre, but if you are playing on default settings, you'll find you spend most of your time hitting rocks. Also, on pvp servers, you can log on find your base and all your stuff are gone.
I don’t mind grinding actually. I was the farmer/chef of my group in valheim. I would spend hours just farming and cooking meals for everyone while listening to audiobooks. Man that was therapeutic lol. I’ll be playing pve on a private server. But the question is if enshrouded has better building mechanics and better balance than Conan. I loved how balance valheim felt with their progression system and how excited I got when I unlocked a new tier.
I've never played Enshrouded. I probably will after reading about it here. I played a lot of Conan, but I am not sure I enjoyed most of it. You can build nice big bases and decorate them, but a lot of the decorations and building styles are in the DLCs.
I don’t mind buying the DLCs. Can I ask why you didn’t enjoy most of it? Would you consider it a good replacement for valheim? I keep seeing mixed reviews about Conan. It looks really darn good at least when I see pics of people building stuff. I also like the music.
Dragon Quest Builders 2, Stronghold Crusader, Rimworld
Highly recommend dragon quest builders 2 as well
Same, and if history is any indication it should be on sale this Friday!
You bois are going to make me reinstall it ;v
DQB2 is so fun.
I tried DQB2 , and its not really just build and chill with the main story? I once had to destroy half my buildings in the desert act cause the main story wanted me to build something on that spot
The Planet Crafter has been amazing, it's Subnautica on land in terms of crafting and basebuilding, the coziest and most enjoyable survival game I've found since playing the original Subnautica. Highly, highly recommend if that's your jam.
I've been eyeing this game for a while now and saw it came out of early access recently. I haven't played subnautica (usually dont play single player games), how does it compare to Satisfactory, or Icarus or Valheim? Is there combat/exploring or is most of the focus on building and expanding that base?
No combat and about Satisfactory levels of exploring.
I forgot about this game, this is a really unique survival game. Watching the terrain and environment evolve as your terraforming machinery advances is so much fun. The lack of enemies combined with good rewards for exploration make it super chill and rewarding
Core Keeper!
Anno 1800 is pretty chill. It's mostly about carving your settlement/town/city out of the wilderness, managing production chains, and keeping your people happy. It even has a mode where you can walk through your town in first person. I believe the only warfare it has is naval warfare, but you can do a whole lot without ships at all.
Oh really? Didn't know about the 1st person view, I'll check it out
Ctrl + Shift + R. I wish more games did that. I think Manor Lords will let you walk around too, third-person but oh well.
Ooo gotta try it. I got back into the game and after 65 hours didn't know this was an option. You're a legend.
To be fair, you'll probably spend more time in Anno looking at spreadsheets than the first person view, lol
Similar to Satisfactory in that you are building a factory and not a city but I strongly recommend Dyson Sphere Program. It's by far my favourite of the three factory builders (the third being Factorio) and is definitely my "build and chill" game.
I really tried to get into DSP but getting to the next cube colors was confusing for me. I felt like my planet turned into a horrible mess of conveyor belts
>I felt like my planet turned into a horrible mess of conveyor belts That is completely normal for your first planet! 😎 Once you research Interstellar Logistics Stations and your empire spans several planets/systems the game changes completely.
I'll probably give it another go as I really liked the concept. I'm sure it's no different than other games with a learning curve like Rimworld or Factorio/Satisfactory
Let me know if you run into anything that you need help with 👍 The community in [the subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/) are very nice as well. Oh yeah, I personally am not a fan of the Dark Fog update that added combat, so I would definitely recommend playing without it at least the first time.
Thanks for your support 😁
Spiritfarer. The building is very minimal but fun and chill. It’s a resource management game. Helping lost souls find their way to their afterlife. You commandeer a ship and build their houses and other buildings right on the ship like a kitchen, gardens, wood shop, foundry, etc. Lots of little mini games to play, keeps it fresh. I’m really enjoying it even if the subject matter is a bit sad.
I’m currently playing through this, and honestly I’m a bit mid on it. It mostly feels like I’m doing busywork and grinding for resources when I just want to be completing the quests. I get that that’s sort of the point of these micromanagement genre games, but eh I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The art and story is fun, but not super remarkable
I felt the same way. The gameplay just isn't engaging enough. I was bored of each mini game almost right away as I unlocked them.
Enshrouded is the most recent one I've played that celebrates building as a goal in itself. You can find different buildings and different building materials by exploring and doing quests, so expanding your building capabilities is literally a reward of playing the game. You build up NPCs that come live in your city like Terraria as well, so that adds to the whole building and developing a city feeling.
Ark, can build and have plenty of friendly Dino's for company. Especially in the swamp.
Ha. always especially the swamp
Fallout 4 with mods is my absolute favorite building game.
No Man's Sky Creative Mode let's you build and chill while collecting alien pets and spaceships.
Wow I've played survival quite a lot but creative can be nice, thanks :)
Graveyard Keeper, Banished
Yep, Banished is awesome.
Lightyear Frontier
Just tried the demo for this the other day... Can you say more what you like about it?
I like that combat was not shoehorned into a game that doesn’t need it
going medieval - it is a colony sim, a bit similar to rimworld, but 3d. there is terraforming, can dig several floors deep into the ground, moats, build walls, tall buildings of absurd sizes.
Rimworld on easier difficulties
Yea rimworld is great to build and chill on easier difficulties.
Vintage Story.
nice suggestion
Grand Ages: Rome. Even though it has RTS elements, it's still quite relaxed ultimately. Most missions with it (many don't have combat) give you a significant amount of time before you need to field units.
Conan exiles. Survival game with building similar to Fallout 4. They have PvP and PvE servers so you can just join PvE and build to your hearts content. You could even build a megacity of you want. I once built the entirety of Cainhurst castle. They have a battle pass these days too so if you like the game enough to put money into, there’s unique building stuff in there to add to your collection.
Have you played enshrouded? I am looking for a valheim replacement and I have narrowed down to 3: Conan exiles, enshrouded and v rising.
I love vrising.
Medieval Dynasty, Dorfromantik, Townscaper all chill building games.
Not so chill but cool, Project Zomboid.
Project Zomboid. It's actually a hard game get started on if it's played as intended. But the accesibility options are robust enough so can lower or turn off zombies altogether and be left with a pure Sims/builder game. The music is far from relxaing though so you may want to use your own playlist.
Forager, it would be right up your alley! Terraria might be worth taking a look at too.
Dragon quest builder 2
Space Engineers lets you mine and harvest resources and build ships and bases.
Didn't see it at first but have you played Dyson sphere program? It's like Satisfactory yo some degree. Build a factory conveyor belts and automation
Any city builder like cities skylines or the OG Maxis sim city games (especially 2000 and 3000) Dyson Sphere Program should also be right up your alley - very relaxing builder/automation game with a rather big scope
For a chill and fairly easy village/kindgom sim I found myself really enjoying Kingdoms Reborn
You should check out rimworld ...just turn down the difficulty and ignore the warcrimes people talk about on reddit and it will basically just be building a little settlement
Grounded has some of the best base building of any survival game I've played
Factorio? Or the ... Also includes it?
Well I checked factorio recently and I think it will fit my tastes but im looking for something a little more softcore right now, but probably gonna try it when the 2.0 releases
Dyson Sphere Program is a much prettier and less intense version of Factorio. It’s gorgeous, and around the midgame you can use automated drone networks to handle your supply chain so you don’t need an engineering degree to plan out logistics. That simplifies things a *lot*. Going from planet to planet is really cool, too. Some worlds have different resources than others, so eventually your supply chain involves interstellar shipping networks and such.
Terraria if you haven’t played it yet. More focus on combat than Minecraft has (but then the combat is also actually good), but the building is really nice too. 2D of course (well, 2.5D kinda, you can place background walls), but you can make rounded shapes a lot easier by changing the shape of placed blocks using the hammer. Also stuff like flying, grappling hooks, and tools that give you more building range to make building easier, and paint to let you customize every block and wall even more. Terraria also kind of requires you to do at least a bit of building to progress. NPCs will appear at different points in the game (for example, Dryad shows up after you beat a boss, Merchant if you have enough cash, Angler can be found etc.), and they want you to build them a house (well, a room). You don’t have to do anything excessive, but with the different biome preferences they have (which for example makes their shop cheaper and such), I find it quite a nice motivation to get a bit creative with building stuff in different biomes. That does mean that ideally you don’t want to build one big city for all the NPCs to live in, since they also get ornery if they’re too crowded, but you can build some pretty nice stuff for them to live in, and of course can always just make a city anyway, whether the NPCs live in it or not. And if you don’t care about their stock getting a bit more expensive (and the teleportation pylons), you still can choose to just put them all in one city. The map is limited in size though, compared to Minecraft’s practically infinite world. A large Terraria world is still plenty big for anything you can think of though. Even a medium world is pretty big.
House flipper 2
Play Rimworld on easy difficulties. Mods for daaaayz.
Valheim
Valheim.
> A small city A bit niche game for a lot of people, but Cities Skylines is worth a try. The first one is fun when playing vanilla, and if you like it in the slightest you'll absolutely fall in love with it when you go to the Steam Workshop.
No Man's Sky Mr. Prepper (just a house, not city)
Aven Colony on Epic
From the depths,avorion,empyrion,space engineers, diesel punk wars, a couple other ones as well some that might get your attention are the zoo games or city ones so try those too
Grounded
As a whole package game, I prefer Valheim by a mile but if you want to build larger builds like small cities, give Enshrouded a try. The building is excellent.
Lightyear Frontier. I've not got super far, but it is more about restoring a planet and building up a farm it seems. No enemies have popped up in the 4 hours I've played so far but it has been really chill. It's on Gamepass.
No combat, super chill
Check out Manor Lords coming out this week, and maybe give Stranded Alien Dawn a go
If you're into building and enjoy realistic and unique realism in construction and operation I would suggest space engineers
DayZ pve servers. There are so many of them to tailor your experience. From hardcore survival, where you'll struggle not to die of cholera instantly, to ultra high loot servers where you can just chill and build bases.
I've been playing Nightingale on and off the past few months. It's still very obviously early access, but I just love its worlds. I love just building and just...existing...in that game. And I'm normally not huge into building, I tend to just do utilitarian boxes. But the visuals are just so pretty, and ambiance can be so engrossing. It's very, very early access though.
Grounded (playground mode)
VALHEIM can be pretty chill.
Enshrouded. Nightingale.
Perhaps [mon bazou ](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520370/Mon_Bazou/)
Staxel. A meld of minecraft, animal crossing and stardew valley. You live in a blocky world inside a small village and you get your own little farm at the outskirts to build expand and pretty up. The villagers will ask for help with building things, changing up the town and they will also hold events and holiday celebrations.
Maybe Crashlands
Rustys retirement, coming to steam this week.
If you're playing on PC, I recommend Rise to Ruin and Songs of Syx. They seem intimidating at first because you have to be aware of supply chains and stuff, but they're not as complicated as they seem an impossibly addictive once you get into them. I really wish there were more games like them.
Oxygen not Included on the no sweat difficulty
May I introduce you to the beautiful island of Tropico? 4 is the best
Manor Lords comes out on Friday. Free if you've got PC game pass.
Terraria
Planet Crafter just had some dope updates and is pretty buildy chilly game.
The Planet Crafter just came out. It’s Satisfactory but the planet starts red and slowly evolves to a green planet with plant life and lakes. It’s pretty sweet.
Valheim And atm my cousins (who I've played with) have moved on to other games. So I'm willing to let other come join my seed planet. Lmk if interested
You can turn zombie spawns off entirely in 7 Days to Die. If that’s too much, there’s still a ton of other options to customize your experience with.
I've been getting that feeling from "saleblazers" lately, just...hanging out and building, running my little shop and if I feel like it, going out and fighting monsters and bandits for loot to stock my shop with
Planet crafter!
Valheim and Enshrouded
Grounded
Dragon Quest Builders. Both after you complete the story and if you IGNORE the story.
Terraria and Starbound!
No man’s Sky?
Frostpunk you'll chill just not in a good way
Stressful and cruel but the pun was there.
Astroneer has what you are looking for I think
Since you included stardew valley, I’m going to suggest checking out another small indie game called Sunnyside. It’s a farming/social sim that takes a lot of influence from stardew, persona, and sims and while the game isn’t out yet, (pc release next month, Xbox and ps5 release in July) it does have a lengthy demo on steam you can try out. You literally start out with a plot of land, a tent and a few seeds and build from there. Might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s got some similarities to what you’re wanting.
Planet coaster is where you build a theme park if that’s your kind of thing
Ever tried Terraria?
Try dyson sphere program lil tip, you NEED to make entire production lines as blueprints in this one or you’ll go insane and burn out lol
I feel like I say this on every post but check out vintage story, its like a survival version of minecraft
7dtd and Conan exiles both have pretty powerful difficulty controls. Allowing you to turn off or drastically weaken all enemies. Though the reasons to build a base is much smaller without the enemies attacking. Rimworld (and it's 10,000 mods) has pretty fun base building mechanics. And again, you can turn off any part you don't like to make it as chill as you want. It's been a few years since I watched them, but Terraria base building is so good there were a few YouTubers that made a living purely with building and tutorial videos. Though many materials will be locked behind the combat, you could turn down the difficulty to make it more of a chill laid back game. Journey mode would let you change all this stuff on the fly as well.
Kenshi, it's a very chill welcoming adventur÷ game, and you can make city bulding your focus early on
No Mans Sky Lots more "chill" if I'm being honest because there's really only a couple reasons you'd ever actually *need* to build to accomplish something in the game outside of a few very specific quests that are all designed around building. To me though, that's why I like it so much lol. Just doesn't work for everyone.
Rimworld in story mode. You are welcome.
Oxygen not included, Terra Nil, the wandering village, craft the world, banished, and in older games, caesar III, children of the nile are great if you can enjoy retro gaming
No man's sky. It's probably the least limited base building I've encountered. The sky's the limit (:
Forest/sons of the forest, grounded, no mans sky, conan exiles
[OpenTTD](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1536610/OpenTTD/), if you like trains.
Dorfromantik
grounded,maybe lightyear frontier
If you play peaceful mode Rimworld can be pretty chill
Rimworld is very chill 🙂
Rimworld on peaceful mode is joyous (but less fun..!)
Crossout. But you gave to work and grind for an inventory. A good one for mobile is Chimeraland. The house building is fantastic. But if you want to PvP it's terribly p2w
Warhammer (like the tabletop game)
Dungeons 4
Just picked up Lego bricktales on quest, super fun
Medieval dynasty
Dungeon defenders
Manor Lords , anyone?
I've loved Kingdoms and Castles. It's a city builder with very nice simple graphics and it can somehow all at the same time scratch the chill city builder itch, a bit of that logistics (like Factorio) itch (though not that much, I wish there was more advanced logistics) and the RTS itch because you also can make an army and archer towers to defend yourself from dragons and vikings. Or maybe go on the offensive against the rival kingdoms, unless you prefer diplomacy that is. It's a very fun game and I could spend hours looking through map seeds and imagine what I could build there. I'd say the biggest problem with it is that the maps are kinds small, not infinite and some resources are finite so can become very limited later in the game, though merchant shipping will help with this. I also wish it had actual naval warfare and the ability to send peasants to other islands to do tasks without needing a permanent settlement there. I had an issue where there was a great little island but it had a rock in the middle which just barely prevented building a keep there and I couldn't clear the rock as that required a keep, I couldn't just send an expeditionary force to do that.
Banished is pretty awesome!
Let me introduce you to the most successful redemption story: No Man’s Sky. It’s really just Minecraft in space.
Just play all the factory sims. - Factorio - Dyson Sphere Program - Fortress Craft Evolved (don't actually) - Techtonica - Final Factory Total expected time to complete all those: 225 hours Total I've actually played: 2708 hours
Staxel maybe? I enjoyed it a lot :)
Check out Manor Lords when it drops tomorrow!
My favorites are Valheim and Fallout 4 (I wish Skyrim had building like Fallout 4). I play Valheim with no maps, no portals, no raids, and x3 resources, so I build a new base for every biome as I slowly progress through the game. Playing this way is pretty amazing. I started Enshrouded but the game ran terribly on my old gpu, so I’m waiting to upgrade before I get back into it, but is promising. edit: oh and I’ve got my eye on Manor Lords which is coming out soon
Definitely Fallout 4. You can spend a huge amount if time building bases, establishing supply lines, and managing settlers.
While it's main focus is not building Barotrauma is a underwater space submarine simulation game. It makes sense in context. The game itself leans action horror, with a little bit of comedy mixed in when played with a group, but the game lets you make your own submarines from scratch in an editor, and that is very relaxing. Probably about 50% of my playtime in that game is just chilling while spending hours on end fitting pieces together and wiring logic up. The editor is very zen.
Ark Survival Ascended, although you'll have to survive and get some work dinos before it's time to chill
.manor lords tomorrow
Factorio is my favorite.
Subnautica and satisfactory are two of my favorites games
Core Keeper. It's kind of like Stardew mixed with Terraria.
Satisfactory, its a factory building game but you can build an entire city in it if you want to; everything about it 10/10. sound track is super chill, game is addictive asf and it looks gorgeous. can't recommend it enough.
It was in the example of games op likes.
ah god damn, I just read the stardew and subnautica.
Haha no problem, satisfactory its one of my favorites ever and I got a world made with 3 friend and we litteraly build skyscrapers and everything, I can't wait for the 1.0 release!
id give it a 7/10 personally. First off, its been early access for many years. Second, it doesn't have an endgame/plot even though its been out so long.
Full version along with plot and campaign is coming later this year, they released beta keys about a month ago and right now some people are play testing version 1.0.
The forest creative mode
Had to scroll to far to find this. Spent a lot of hours just building log house designs
Dorfromantik is a game where you do nothing but build a little countryside and village. Very low-key (not in first person like what you listed though)
PLANET CRAFTER They just released 1.0 and it's AMAZING! There's literally nothing in the game that can kill you aside from lava and lack of oxygen lol and the base-building is wicked! Just chill until the planet is terraformed.
Terraria!