japan has an arcade game where you flip your dinner table as hard as you can and the more stuff you break, the higher the score

Also, I don’t remember asking for armchair psychologists to come here and start dropping unasked thoughts about how to best relieve stress. Check those at the door.

oshi-- you guys its the king of fediverse

Lots of call outs to Postal 2, but not a lot of talk about the GTA series? Weird. Postal 2 was "3 edgy 4 U" and all, there were definitely some hilarious and violent things you can do. I remember pissing in somebody's mouth and they started throwing up, so I hit their head off with a shovel, and the vomit continued to shoot out of their neck into the sky. But once you get past the shock value the game is pretty bland. I played the hell out of the demo back in the day, and eventually got my hands on a copy and I remember thinking "oh, it's just the same thing but with more levels"...

Anyway. The GTA series are actually good games. Like the controls, physics, story, comedy, etc etc... But also, you can go into a boutique clothing store in a affluent part of the city and murder all of the patrons and then when the cops show up - shoot rockets at their cars. Then pull somebody out of a high end vehicle and beat the shit out of them with a baseball bat and escape a high speed car chase. You can even play it in VR. Never done it myself but I remember seeing videos of beating people with blunt objects while they attempted to put their arms up in defense but succumbed to the blows and went unresponsive on the ground and though "holy fucking shit, that was really violent".

Anyway... That also lost its shock value pretty fast, but at least the games remained fun when playing the objective.

I had similar idea a while ago but admittedly more political than mundane.

You're a boss in your corporation. game's objective is to be annoying and mess around with your worker. But somehow through your abuse you also have to keep your corporation alive financially.

It's a mix of sandbox & tycoon. but the gameplay should be more sandboxed to really allow player create mess, and not very pressured by the goals created by the tycoon aspect.

I've been playing supermarket together, a supermarket management game where you can smack people with a broom;

Warning : tasteless comment right here.

I found that one of the bars you go to in cyberpunk on a side mission, the police won't enter no matter how wanted you are. It's crowded, too. And it feels pretty therapeutic to do a mass shooting in there. Start with a grenade onto the dancefloor then pick people off as they panic and flee.

IRL I'm totally non-violent, but there's something about doing this that takes the edge off my stress. I've returned to that save point several times.

You might want to play Red Faction Guerilla or Just Cause 2/3, though the former does take a while to open up your choices of destruction.

Hmm, maybe a "Just Cause edition" would be a fun game. Or just "you found the keys to the depot forklift". The physics simulation would make your computer scream

We do have these, they're just not super popular or are not intended to be played that way.

Like your first example of causing chaos in a shop? You can do that in Supermarket Simulator. It just isn't what you're meant to do unless you're Josh from Let's Game it Out. 🤷‍♂️

Walking Dead Saints and Sinners is pretty therapeutic at times.

Umm, you mean like The Sims?

Not an exact fit, but check out Night of the Consumers

Dynasty Warriors has been my stress relief game. I just love jumping into a hoard of enemies and just start swinging.

My stress relief game is fallout 4. You get so OP so quickly that it's like "ok, I don't like you, or your whole crew. I'm going to wipe you out of existence like Im a Mr clean magic erase sponge."

It's just satisfying release.

From what I know about simulator games, they don't usually simulate asshole customers, and it's fairly easy to be successful compared to real life. Kinda its own form of stress relief, though I'd assume that the target audience isn't people who have the simulated job in real life.

I'm playing Postal 2, I think this is kind of what you're looking for lol

I like Mini Motorways in creative mode for this purpose. You design road systems to connect houses with businesses using limited resources. The music is very peaceful and the pastel colours are very pleasant on the eye. While the other modes are a bit more stressful, creative mode is like a simplified city builder.

And of course the perennial favourite, Stardew Valley.