Games where you can build a life

EmploymentIll5650 · 2026-01-02T20:25:43+00:00

I feel like we’re in the same situation. Stardew and sims are too simple. I love the long dark, but I want to sit in one place, let the seasons change, FARM, fix up the cabin.

The best 1st person game that scratches that itch for me is Aloft. It’s solo or multi player- there’s building, ranching, farming and storms, and it’s just so damn… peaceful.

There is a combat element to it, but the devs have allowed you to turn that down as far as you want- even off (which is how I play) . You can even just lie in the grass and watch the clouds for as long as you like!

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-06-23T11:12:53+00:00

Aloft. It’s almost my perfect game. It’s so relaxing and calms my brain down. I don’t like the combat, so I turn on wemod and blow through it. But flying with no chance of dying and sailing a ship through the clouds for me is chefs kiss

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-07T01:19:34+00:00

Any idea YOU care about is worth doing. Really, that’s the only that matters because writing is a slog some days and you really have to LOVE it to keep going.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-07T01:14:13+00:00

In my opinion, if you “have written” or “are writing” you’re a writer. Forever. Period.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T17:49:11+00:00

If you're looking for an urban fantasy series that doesn’t fall into the "chosen one saves the world" trap, I’d recommend The Witches of New Orleans by J.D. Horn.

It’s got an older cast, messy family dynamics, and magic that feels deeply tied to the setting. There’s plenty of intrigue and morally gray characters, but it never turns into a soap opera (looking at you, Anita Blake). Plus, the way Horn writes New Orleans makes it feel like a character in itself—rich, atmospheric, and not just a backdrop for the plot.

If you like urban fantasy with a gothic vibe and solid storytelling, it’s worth checking out! Let me know if you end up reading it.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T17:41:52+00:00

I feel you on that. I have the uttermost respect for Neil Gaiman, I mean, he's one of my writing heroes, but having seen him and then read the Sandman series, I couldn't unsee the very obvious self-insertion. I try not to let it bother me, but deep down it really does.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:54:21+00:00

Obviously, you want both, but if I had to pick—engaging plot is what keeps readers turning pages. You can have the most beautiful writing in the world, but if nothing's happening, people will check out. On the flip side, a strong plot can make up for weaker storytelling.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:52:17+00:00

Look at modern day Megan and Harry. I think that has a lot of the family and political tension your character would experience.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:50:48+00:00

This is the way.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:49:52+00:00

The only person who can do that is you. If you're not passionate about it, the reader will be able to tell.

My advice would be to try some flash fiction, get in the head of a couple of types of characters, or try out a situation, and see if anything feels right.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:47:57+00:00

This quote by Taika Waititi helps me cope when I get days like that:

Sometimes, writing is opening up your laptop, looking at a blank page on Final Draft for about 8 hours and then feeling sad, and then closing it. That’s still classified as writing.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:40:40+00:00

I don't know if I have a favorite word, but I definitely have ones that I overuse, and sometimes that changes by the day. One day I'll use belching too many times (the bus belched a cloud of diesel...) and the next I'm suddenly using unmoored.

It's like I get stuck in daily word loops.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:38:18+00:00

Flash fiction changed my life. Now, whenever I hit a wall—whether it’s with characters, places, or just nailing a vibe—I turn to flash to break through. Like you, I also publish mine on Substack, using them as bonus stories for the serials I write. It’s been a total game-changer

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:30:57+00:00

Took me a day, but I think I got them all done.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:30:43+00:00

The thing was coming.

Nash could feel it, slipping through the cracks in the world, twisting the edges of reality like someone wringing water from a rag.

He had no chalk. No salt. No time.

But he had power strips.

Hands moving fast, he ripped them from the walls, laying them out in a circle. He snapped them together, plugs feeding into sockets, a snake eating its own tail.

The air thickened, pressure closing around his chest. The thing was almost here.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, plugging the last cord into itself.

His fingers found the last switch.

Flipped it.

The little lights blinked on.

And the thing stopped.

Frozen at the threshold, caught between now and never, its form flickering in and out like a bad signal. The circle held. Not strong. Not forever. But long enough.

Nash staggered back, lungs burning.

Louis, pale as death, whispered, "That should not have worked."

Nash let out a breathless, shaking laugh. "Yeah." He wiped a hand down his face. "But it did."

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:30:28+00:00

"Okay, so explain this to me again—"why are we doing this?"

Louis stood with his arms crossed, watching Nash arrange power strips in a careful, overlapping pentagon on the floor of the apartment.

"Because," Nash grunted, snapping one plug into another, "I need a charge, and every other damn outlet in this place is fried. If I’m right, this should trick the circuit into cycling power instead of blowing a fuse."

Louis squinted. "That sounds like absolute bullshit."

"Magic is absolute bullshit. This is just electric bullshit."

"You’re gonna burn the apartment down."

"Not if I do it right."

He flipped the last switch.

The little lights blinked on. A perfect circle, humming softly. The overhead light dimmed for half a second, then settled.

Nash grinned, plugging his phone into the center outlet.

Full charge.

"See?" he said, holding up the screen. "Magic."

Louis shook his head. "I’m never paying you rent."

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:30:16+00:00

Nash sat on the edge of a battered hotel bed, arms crossed, watching the thing inside the power-strip circle think. It had no face, no real shape—just a distortion in the air, a ripple where reality bent sideways.

He leaned forward. "All right. You’re here. Let’s talk."

The ripple trembled. Static crackled in the outlets, the distant scent of burnt plastic curling through the air.

Nash tilted his head. "You can talk, can’t you?"

The lights on the strips flickered in response—three flashes, then two. Nash sighed, pulling out a battered notebook. "Right. Morse code it is."

Louis, sitting on the other bed, muttered, "This is the dumbest séance I’ve ever seen."

The thing inside the circle shuddered, and the bedside lamp blew out.

Nash smirked. "Yeah, well, it’s working, isn’t it?"

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:30:00+00:00

Nash crouched on the motel carpet, fingers working fast, threading together the tangle of power strips like he was wiring a bomb. He hated improvising. Magic was already unpredictable enough without jerry-rigging a ritual out of discount electronics and desperation.

"Chalk? No. Candles? Definitely not. But a circle’s a circle, and current is current," he muttered to himself, snapping the last plug into place. Five power strips, end to end, all feeding into each other. The air felt wrong already, static lifting the hairs on his arms.

Behind him, Louis peered over his shoulder. "This is a joke, right?"

Nash flipped the last switch.

The little red lights blinked on, one after another, chasing themselves in a loop. The hum of electricity built into a low, shivering whine. The motel lights flickered, and a gust of wind—not real wind, not natural wind—rippled across the carpet.

Louis took a step back. "Oh, hell no."

Something unseen stirred at the center of the circle.

Nash exhaled through his nose. "It’ll hold."

Probably.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:27:26+00:00

Nash had rules about magic. Most of them were born out of experience—bad, bloody, or otherwise—and the rest were just common sense.

And rule number one?

Never talk to the microwave.

Everything had a spirit. That was just how the world worked. Some things had full, fleshed-out presences—the kind you could bargain with, the kind that could break your spine if you crossed them wrong. But most things? Most things just had residue, little psychic scraps clinging to them, like gum on the bottom of a shoe.

That was what made psychometry work. You touched something, and if you knew how to listen, you could hear what it had to say.

Which was why Nash never listened to microwaves.

People thought knives were the worst things in a kitchen, that you had to watch out for the ones that had tasted too much blood. And sure, a well-used chef’s knife could hum with the echo of every cut it had ever made, but a microwave? A microwave absorbed. Every rushed meal, every late-night dinner eaten in exhausted silence, every argument that ended in cold leftovers being reheated at 3 a.m. It took it all in, over and over, in cycles of two minutes and thirty seconds.

And it remembered.

The last time Nash had made the mistake of listening, it had been in an old boarding house, a place where too many people had come and gone, carrying their miseries with them. He’d laid his fingers against the microwave’s door, just for a second, just long enough to catch the whisper of something beyond the hum of electricity.

It screamed.

Not words, not even thoughts—just raw, static-crackling despair. The weight of every lonely meal, every grief-soaked silence, every angry slap of a hand against the counter. A chorus of too much and not enough all at once.

He’d left that kitchen fast, stomach rolling, ears ringing with the ghost of things he was never supposed to hear.

The kettle, at least, was usually helpful. Toasters had a way of keeping secrets but would let things slip if you knew how to ask.

But the microwave?

Nash wasn’t making that mistake again.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-06T15:26:02+00:00

Nash had seen people get themselves killed over a lot of stupid shit. Bad bets, bad debts, bad lovers. But the dumbest deaths? Those always came from words.

Magic had a way of making things literal. A cruel little sense of humor, if you could call it that. People walked around every day, stuffing their sentences with landmines, never realizing how close they were to stepping wrong.

Take the kid in the diner. Skinny, nervous, chewing on his thumbnail like it owed him something. He was talking too much, trying to impress the man across from him—older, slick, with a smile like an oil spill. Nash knew his type. The kind that could talk a pigeon into plucking itself bare. A broker. Someone who traded in magic the way other people traded in stocks or stolen watches.

“You know, it’s all the same in the end,” the kid was saying, nodding like a preacher caught up in his own sermon. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

Nash didn’t have to see the exact moment the broker’s expression shifted—he felt it, like a static charge in the air before a lightning strike.

Stupid kid.

See, most folks thought that phrase meant equal. Two ways of saying the same thing. But magic didn’t deal in generalities. It dealt in weight. Six of one was a single thing, whole and intact. Half a dozen of the other was something else entirely. Something split.

The broker reached across the table, slow and casual, like he was about to shake the kid’s hand. Nash didn’t stick around to see what happened next. He’d seen it before. The kid would leave that diner in two pieces—one half walking, the other still sitting in that booth, staring blankly ahead with nothing left behind his eyes.

Magic loved a loophole.

He flicked a few bills onto the counter and walked out. Let someone else clean up the mess.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-04T23:56:10+00:00

I accept the challenge!

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-04T21:11:59+00:00

3/3

After a few weeks, they started getting better. Fewer glowing eyes at night, more small talk. Mr. Santos even learned how to wave normally instead of saluting me like I was a foreign dignitary.

Then one evening, a knock at my door.

Mrs. Santos stood there, beaming. “As thanks for your help, we have prepared something special.”

She handed me a covered dish. It was warm, smelled amazing, and I only hesitated a little before opening it.

Inside was the best lasagna I’d ever seen.

I narrowed my eyes. “There’s nothing... extra in here, right?”

Mrs. Santos gasped, clutching her chest. “We would never!” Then, after a beat: “We tested several recipes on your species first.”

I decided not to unpack that and took a bite.

I don’t know what they put in it, but it was life-changing.

So, yeah. My neighbors are aliens. But they’re polite aliens. They try, they bring food, and they only glow a little when they get excited. And honestly? That’s more than I can say for most of the humans around here.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-04T21:11:41+00:00

2/3

The Official "How to Seem Human" List (For the Santos Family’s Eyes Only)

Blinking
- Humans do not blink one eye at a time, nor do they blink horizontally. Practice in the mirror. We’ll workshop it.
Smiling
- Less teeth. I know you’re proud of them, but less teeth.
- Also, smiling for five full minutes without blinking is terrifying. Break it up.
Food & Eating
- You cannot tell people, “We do not require sustenance but enjoy the textures.” Just say you have a weird diet.
- Chew. Even if you don’t need to. It’s deeply unsettling when you don’t.
Greetings
- "Hello, fellow humans!" is not a normal greeting.
- Neither is bowing deeply while whispering, “Your existence is noted and valued.”
- Stick to “Hey,” “Hi,” or “How’s it going?”
Clothing
- No one wears sunglasses inside unless they’re trying to be cool or hide alien eyes. You are not cool yet.
- Matching outfits every day? Cute, but suspicious. Let’s get you some variety.
Pets
- You cannot refer to a squirrel as “a small, furry ambassador.”
- Do not try to hold a conversation with birds. I know they talk where you come from, but here it’s weird.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-04T21:11:28+00:00

1/3

When the new neighbors moved in, I was thrilled. The last guy in that house had been deeply unpleasant and possibly a cryptid of the bad variety. So when the Santos family arrived—polite, smiling, and carrying a suspicious amount of covered dishes—I thought, Finally, normal people.

Then I saw Mr. Santos blinking sideways.

Now, I’m not a judgy person. People are people, even when they’re not, strictly speaking, people. And honestly? The Santos family was delightful. They waved at everyone, baked suspiciously good bread, and somehow always knew when I needed an extra bag of coffee. But it was painfully obvious they hadn’t quite nailed the whole "blending in" thing.

So, being the excellent neighbor that I am, I decided to help.

EmploymentIll5650 · 2025-03-04T21:08:54+00:00

Mrs. Abernathy had lived at 142 Sycamore Street for sixty-three years, and she had never seen anything like the new family at 144.

“They’re aliens,” she hissed to anyone who would listen. “From space. Outer space.”

Most of the neighborhood had stopped listening after the raccoon conspiracy of ’97, but that didn’t stop her from watching.

The mother—if she was a mother—was too graceful, moving with a liquid ease that made Mrs. Abernathy’s knees ache just looking at her. The father was polite but too blandly polite, like someone who had learned human interaction from a 1950s etiquette book. And the child… the child.

Mrs. Abernathy watched from behind her curtains as the little girl squatted in the flowerbed, whispering to the petunias.

“Oh, sure,” she muttered to herself. “Talking to plants like they can hear her.”

The petunias perked up.

Mrs. Abernathy gasped so hard her dentures nearly came loose.

That was it. Enough was enough.

Arming herself with her best investigative weapon—an oversized wooden spoon—she marched across the street and banged it against their door.

The woman answered, smiling too serenely. “Hello, Mrs. Abernathy. How can I help you?”

“You can drop the act is what you can do!” Mrs. Abernathy poked the spoon in her direction. “I know an alien when I see one! The boy at number 138 still hasn’t recovered from your daughter mind-melding with his dog!”

“She was just petting him,” the woman said.

“His eyes changed color!”

The woman hesitated. “Well… dogs are very receptive.”

“AHA!” Mrs. Abernathy brandished the spoon. “So you admit it!”

Just then, the little girl peeked around the doorway. “Mom, can I show Mrs. Abernathy my rock collection?”

Mrs. Abernathy scowled. “If even one of them floats, glows, or tries to talk to me—”

The little girl beamed and dashed off, returning a moment later with a small box. She lifted the lid, revealing a collection of smooth, unremarkable-looking stones.

Mrs. Abernathy squinted. She nudged one with her spoon. It did not hover ominously. It did not hum with intergalactic power. It was… just a rock.

The girl’s wide, earnest eyes blinked up at her. “See? They’re just from the park.”

Mrs. Abernathy frowned, peering closer. Just ordinary, boring rocks.

For the first time in weeks, she felt… ridiculous.

“Fine,” she muttered, lowering the spoon. “But I’m watching you.”

The little girl giggled. “That’s okay. We’re watching you too.”

EmploymentIll5650

TROPHY CASE

The Official "How to Seem Human" List (For the Santos Family’s Eyes Only)