Five minutes of calm: cozy games we keep coming back to

Not every session needs to be a challenge. Some evenings you just want something soft to hold your attention while the day winds down.

Lantern Hollow is our current go-to for this. The rain, the music, the gentle puzzles. It asks nothing of you except curiosity, and the story unspools at exactly the right speed.

Kingdom of Sparrows works too, in a different way. Tidying a little town and watching it grow is weirdly satisfying, and the lack of timers means you never feel nagged.

The common thread with cozy games is forgiveness. There's no failure state waiting to punish you, so you can put the phone down guilt-free.

Keep one or two of these installed for the days when a demanding game feels like too much.