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Mowing Grass

Mowing grass and pulling weeds are among my preferred ways to fight stress. It is real, tangible work and the results are directly proportional to time and effort applied. None of that is true about the rest of my life. I find the complete predictability of outcomes (in a world that is spinning out of control) very comforting and apparently so do many others.

“Mowing generates by far the most reports of players having a really positive experience with regards to mental health,” Loades said. “We have had some really touching feedback. 2020 was a stressful year, so there were a lot of people playing to relax, but also frontline workers playing to help with the stress of the pandemic and even people playing to help with the grief of loved ones dying. It is hugely rewarding for us as the developers to get this kind of feedback, and it wasn't really a thing with our previous games.”

The game was designed to create a zen-like state, Loades says, noting that he’s especially proud of the digital grass and how it moves in the virtual wind. They wanted to tap into that sense of satisfaction you get from taking something messy (in this case, too-long grass) and morphing it into something neat and tidy.

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