Homebound

This game came out in July 2020 and it already feels like a historical relic, a snapshot of a different time.

This is a Reigns-like game about navigating daily life during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like most such games, the gameplay consists of receiving "cards" which are binary action choices, usually either to engage in an action or disengage. You have three stats: happiness, energy, and productivity, and any of them falling to zero is a game over. For example, taking a walk at night might increase your happiness and decrease energy, while staying in bed would do the opposite.

There's a wide range of different cards, all lovingly illustrated. They're all everyday choices, like deciding what you're going to eat, or whether to sleep or go on social media. Choices can sometimes have impacts further down the line, creating mini plot threads. The cards reference some memes from early pandemic era, like the mysterious seed packets, which feel like they're from decades ago already, one year later. Everything just happens so much.

To me, it almost felt like an idealistic fantasy version of the quarantine. There's only one card that references the protagonist's work-from-home job, and no reference to money; money isn't even considered a resource in this game. Unlike in real life, it's incredibly easy to do what you decide to do, with no such thing as just being too depressed to get up, no factors that affect your ability to make choices in the first place. It's rather easy to optimize the stats by balancing out the choices. But it wouldn't be fun if the game was any other way, I guess.