AD| Living with anxiety is rough and sometimes I just need to be distracted. Video games are a dream for me because they are wholly immersive and help me to escape my surroundings. In fact, I usually do only play games when I am struggling mentally. There’s nothing like anxiety to block the creativity and motivation you need for the things you love.
I’ve lived with panic attacks since I was a young teen. It sucks but it means that I can (mostly) recognise the warning signs now. What’s good about this is that I can sometimes distract myself with a video or game and give my brain the pause it needs until I’m able to face things again.
While I love games in general (and used to regularly lose and hours and hours to Civilization, Mass Effect and Animal Crossing), when I’m feeling anxious I just want something simple and repetitive. There are far fewer free online games that you can play in browser available since Google Chrome and other browsers stopped supporting Flash. So I thought I’d share some gems with you!
Plays.org have over 200 free games on their site, which you can browse by category or search. I’ve loved exploring their site and looking for the best of their collection. If you want to take a chance, why not hit the “Random Plays” button at the top of their site to be taken to a random game of theirs?
There’s no need to download anything or to create an account, you just play straight from your browser and most of the games work well on a mobile screen too (in full screen) so you can play from your phone too. The website was set up to try to bring a little joy to lockdown, which is just so lovely.
Here are 10 free online games to play when you need a distraction:
Flight Sim
I found this game calming and addictive and I actually thought it was quite tricky – but maybe that’s just me! I usually find games that you play with a mouse to be quite clunky, but I thought this was really well done. You basically use your mouse to draw a line that guides an aircraft to its landing strip or pad. And try not to let them all crash!
Ball in the Cup
A drag and drop obstacle course style game with lovely hand-drawn graphics. The aim of the game is to position items to create a course that allows the ball to drop and roll into a cup. It’s a really simple puzzle game that could be a not-too-challenging distraction when you need it the most. Hope you have fun with it!
Panda Love
This game was actually really cute! You’re a little panda and you have to click the mouse to jump from platform to platform, avoiding hazards as you go. As far as I can tell you have infinite lives (and I died a LOT), which is nice because it takes some of the pressure off an otherwise tricky game. My partner had a go and actually got to the end of the game, which was really lovely but I won’t ruin it for you. Let me know how you get on with this one!
Smurfs music orchestra game
Right… hear me out. I actually clicked on this one as a joke but ended up getting really engrossed and composing a MASTERPIECE. You have 4 instruments and a limited amount of notes and musical riffs and you arrange them to make a fun tune. I think that it’s probably possible to arrange the notes in order to make the Smurfs theme song, but I just had fun with it. I really wish you could save your song as an MP3 though!
Blocky
This game was probably the simplest that I played on the whole site but it was also so relaxing. I really loved the noises, I found them weirdly comforting too! The game is kind of basic and I didn’t find it particularly challenging, but I also think that was what I liked about it in the end. In blocky, you configure shapes together to make one solid box. There are no lives and there isn’t a time limit so just take it easy and enjoy.
Infinite Snake
I’m definitely showing my age here but this game took me wayyyy back to my Nokia 3310 and I swear I used to be better at this game! Use WASD to guide a pixelated snake around the screen as it eats flowers and grows in length. Be careful not to crash into the walls or collide with yourself or it’s game over! On my best run, I managed a really shameful 60 points before I died. Laughed a lot at the notification sign that said “you hit the himself” though!
Peg Solitaire
We used to have a stone set of peg solitaire in the house when I was little and it always baffled me. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get to grips with this one and, even at 31, the best I can do is get down to 3 pegs. I absolutely love puzzles though and I’m going to keep going back to this one until I’ve cracked it. I think we’re in this for the long run…
8-Bit Dungeon Knight
Tricky little puzzle game with an old school RPG flavour. In 8-Bit Dungeon Knight you are tasked with figuring out the correct order to progress by battling slimes and picking up power-ups. This game provided retro vibes and satisfying brain teaser puzzles.
The Sorcerer
This cute game has a whimsical soundtrack and works awesome on mobile. Your task is to pop the bubbles by matching 3 or more of the same colour in a row. Brings back nice memories of classic game, Zuma. Simple but fun, a really nice casual game that occupied my mind for a short time. It took me ages to figure out that I could click where I wanted the bubbles to go!!
Shadoworld Adventure Game
Quite a challenging little platform game. This game has a lot of cool elements and I loved how gloomy and atmospheric it was. It ran really smoothly and provided such a nice distraction as I felt full immersed. There are actually a lot of levels to go through and it gets pretty tough. Haven’t finished this one yet, but I bet some of you will fly through it!
