Definitely there are lots of games that are OCD friendly! For me I mostly think of OCD as an attentional disorder, where my brain really struggles to move on and stop focusing on tasks that I’ve already finished. And the clear rules and signposting that many games use to communicate when stories/locations have wrapped up can for sure help with that struggle.
I don’t really know of any other media that covers the topic well, sorry.
Meeee too, my niece pokes fun at how optimized my farm is lol
In my defence, I started playing before I read about this challenge.
Also, the game makers began work on the game long before Rowlings tiraids came out and they have distanced themselves from her. She had no involvement with the game from the point her rantings become public, and will have none with the sequel. (This info comes from my wife, who is a superfan of years gone by, and wishes Rowling would just shut the hell up and let people live their lives, so I tend to believe it is the case).
Similarly, while I’ve not finished the game, I didn’t see anything in it that appeared problematic from an LGBTQ perspective. There is a prominent side character who is trans. If there is something problematic I did not reach that point of the game.
All that said, if you feel it should be disqualified, I am happy to take that.
It’s definitely complex and I don’t think we are saying that you can’t count it toward the challenge. The whole thing is just a shit show because of her attitudes and it’s absolutely true that it meant a lot to people, including people working on projects related, and thus how people negotiate that varies.
There’s a lot to unpack with JKR and Hogwarts Legacy so here’s a summarization:
Because of these reasons, this game/IP/author represents some dangerous voices who would like to make the world less diverse, which goes against the purpose of this challenge.
I’d say play any game you’d like and whatever makes it more fun. Even just discussing this game can open up more awareness on these issues. 
Ok, I had to Google what TERF was. I feel so ignorant.
The goblin war seems to be the main plot of the game so I didnt see a while lot of it (I did a lot of side quests). Goblins and wizards generally don’t like each other, but there are exceptions. I didn’t see anything that directly struck me as colonial-like, but as I said I didn’t finish the game.
I personally think the bigger issue in regards to that kind of thing is the house elves. They are basically slaves for the wizards, and you end up getting one that pretty much works for you. It always made me feel rather icky.
I wasn’t aware of Troy Leavitt, so all that I was ignorant of.
It’s clearly a problematic game, however I’d say a lot of love for the source material (it’s pure form, ignoring JKR) has gone into it. As I said in my semi-review the world realisation is pretty amazing and I feel it should be seen just so the amazing artists who worked on it can be acknowledged.
Anyway, I’ll leave this here. I’m sorry if bringing up the game upset anyone. I honestly thought after they’d separated themselves from JKR things had improved a lot.
This is a point I wanted to make. A game may not have anything in it that is mentioned here for the challenge, but for me it still somehow counts because it either helps me with my autism and very mild OCD and AD(H)D OR some make it worse.
For Stardey Valley, on the one hand it is extremely important for me to have my farm made in a very strict way and it always ends up looking a bit boring and unnatural, whereas I love to look at other people’s farms that have a natural look and I have all the squares and one colour in each square and I can even get angry if I get a huge plant in the wrong square or not in the middle. On the other hand, the game helps with anxiety and intrusive thoughts and calms me down and cheers me up.
There are definitely games out there that are OCD friendly/helpful with mental health issues and some that are definitely not, at least for me, and I have to stay away from them.
When I played WoW it made everything worse, the same goes for other MMOs and live service games that make me feel like I need to collect stuff and have full sets of things and do daily quests and can’t log out before they’re all done… My brain is extremely vulnerable to the mechanics used in these online games to keep you playing. That’s why I stay away from them completely now.
Games I have played in the not so distant past:
For the challenge, I highly recommend Unavowed. It features a character who is an alcoholic, and the game does a very good job of explaining the daily challenges of that person, while also not making it their personality, but an aspect of it that is there most of the time, but not in the foreground.
Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo depicts several mental illnesses in an interesting way. Not just “fear of heights”. I don’t want to give too much away. It also does a good job of depicting older people falling in love and the challenges that come with having a history of bad relationships and/or still feeling the loss of your former partner, something I have very rarely seen in games.
Backpack Hero and Backpack Battles are definitely OCD friendly games for me. Sorting the backpacks is satisfying and calming and just right for me. It is hard to describe the positive effect they have on me.
Watchdogs 2 has a black trans character in a prominent role: San Francisco Supervisor Miranda Comay, who mentors protagonist Marcus Holloway throughout the game.
Interesting article on the character: Watch Dogs 2 featured a trans woman and 'no one gave a s**t'
What Remains of Edith Finch is an interesting game because it never mentions mental illness, but the belief in a “curse” and a man hiding in a basement from childhood to old age depicts mental illness and the families affected by it and how it affects generations. There is no doubt in my mind that the grandmother’s belief in this curse and her mourning by turning rooms into shrines and the like had a huge impact on all the other family members. The last story shows depression and the loss of the ability to understand what is the story in your head and what is reality. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and whether it would count towards the challenge.
Addiction is a big theme in Disco Elysium, but so are depression and retrograde amnesia and anxiety, trauma and loss. Not to mention the scars that a dysopian world and war can leave on people on top of jobs like police detective.
Beacon Pines is about grief and a huge trauma that has affected not just one person but a whole village. I also think at least one person in it is neurodiverse and there is a same-sex couple.
Paradise Killer allows you to flirt with both men and women.
Quick question; would replaying Deus Ex with the Lady D mod (makes the protagonist female) count? Really want to replay it with that mod and this would give me a perfect excuse. 
My personal inclination is not to count games with a customizable character unless that character portrayal is tailored to their presentation of identity. The reason for this is because the impetus of this challenge is to encourage people to engage with portrayals that push the player outside of their typical sphere of experience. While there may inevitably be some overlap in experience between player and character in this challenge, I think what simply changing a character’s gender with a mod lacks is a deliberate and intentional character portrayal that’s in the spirit of the challenge. Everyone will tackle this differently, but that’s my take on it.
Fine! I won’t play it then!
Frkfmra fjrfkeke skefkkcr, ratbag.
Play a game developed by someone who…
is neurodivergent
has experienced a traumatic event
has a physical disability
is a different race than you
identifies as transgender, nonbinary, or genderqueer
has a mental illness
is LGBTQIA+
is indigenous
is a member of a diaspora
is a refugee or fleeing persecution
I just wanted to take a moment to say that, statistically speaking, every game someone has played made by 20 or more people has almost certainly included someone from one of these groups, and I think it’s important to be mindful of that too. Even if a game isn’t rubber-stamped with a clear “developed by an equity-seeking person” identifier, I think it’s very safe to say that most games include contributions from women, or autistic people, or LGBTQ+ people, etc.
The argument that some insidious group is forcibly inserting “DiVeRsItY” into games is ridiculous, because the people who make and play games are diverse. Always have been. Hell, even Final Fantasy, a game made in 1980s Japan, included a Persian-American man as one of its key contributors.
But obviously, ALSO support games from creators that make identity a part of their games, if that’s important to you. I just love throwing cold water on this idea that games were somehow developed exclusively by white, cis, hetero men until 2019. XD
The prompt allows you to choose a game with diverse portrayals or by devs who identify as such. It’s a given that large teams may have a diverse makeup, and so the prompt is open to interpretation. But it’s also designed to encourage people to actively search for portrayals and devs that often exist at the margins and/or may be less frequently engaged with as a result. If one does not wish to do that and one wishes to chose games by large teams that statistically may include diversity that corresponds to the prompt category, that is up to their discretion.
It’s noteworthy to point out that no one was making that claim, but thanks for stopping by with your strawman.
And before you get all mad that I’m calling you out, maybe stop and think for a second about why you’d want to come and drop that message in a challenge thread that’s encouraging people to potentially game outside their comfort zones and why you feel it necessary to argue against a claim that absolutely no one here is making. Is that productive? Is it contributing to the discourse in thoughtful ways? Or are you just trying to stir the pot? No need to actually answer, maybe just ponder it for a bit.
In no way was I challenging the thread, I was challenging the ideation of the people that inspired the thread - seconding Roach’s core thesis. Stop trying to start fights for no reason, I’m not going to bite.
Then you need to think about this wording more carefully:
Why stress “if that’s important to you?” Think about that for a moment. It’s clear that doing so is important, because it’s a part of the prompt. You come across as attempting to downplay the importance of distinct diverse voices that make games about their personal experiences. Maybe your intent was well meaning, but your talking points imply that if all games with large teams statistically contain diversity, then all games fit the prompt. And that’s a considerable oversimplification. Even though there may be diverse individuals on large teams, it doesn’t mean their voices are heard, nor does it mean their voices, perspectives and experiences reach the audience. Thus this challenge is meant to encourage you to play games by people with, or containing portrayals of, experiences that might be outside our realm of day-to-day. Because even if there is statistical diversity on large teams, it doesn’t mean those teams are telling diverse stories. We can all play an Ubisoft game, “made by a diverse team of people with different beliefs and identities”, and satisfy the prompt even if a game contains very little in the way of diverse representation, or we can look for things that are a little more obscure and that amplify voices less seldom heard. Both work, but I think one might be a bit more in the spirit of the prompt.
I always think I need to take time and beautify my farm because it is just rows of efficiency with no aesthetic, and my bed, chests, and tv right next to the door of my huge farmhouse so it’s all as economic as possible. But then it’s like HOW WILL I FIND, DO, OR ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING?!
I just love throwing cold water on this idea that games were somehow developed exclusively by white, cis, hetero men until 2019.
No one claimed or implied this.
It is interesting to me how just posting this challenge has already received a lot of pushback about ways to get around it. Interesting and painful.
To be clear, I’m not recommending that people go around it at all. People should absolutely seek out games from diverse voices. I’m trying to echo your points and add that the right-wing idea that the games they already play are somehow bereft of diversity is absurd.
It was not my intention for it to be construed elsewise, so I apologize for a lack of clarity on my part. In fact, the recommendations on this thread are excellent, and largely games I was unaware of.
I think this is a case of, “It made sense in my head, but came out differently than intended.”
We know people like us, and our peers, have existed in dev teams. But we also know that the environments on some of these teams have been harmful and straight up dangerous, like the advertisements created from these studios were aimed exclusively to men for a very long time. Just open an early 90’s/00’s gaming magazine and it’s very obvious games were a boy’s club. Specifically straight ones. Guarantee a non-cis male person worked on those but that advert didn’t represent them at all and often objectified or insulted their existence.
So this challenge wanted to highlight studios or developers whose authentic voice got to shine at the forefront, unsuppressed, and without constraints.
Or maybe play a game by one of these large studios you mentioned that has a diverse character or experience, and discuss whether the representation was problematic, suppressed, or maybe even written well.
Even now, the discussions occurring thus far about how to tackle this challenge has increased awareness on how we view diversity and talk about it.
Absolutely agree with your point about OCD-hostile games! Live service, gacha, and anything else with endless progression tracks are all stuff I have to avoid for my own well-being, otherwise I can get stuck on them long past the point where I’m having fun.
Also, multiplayer games like Overwatch that constantly bounce between fun and misery are a huge hazard for me. I often ended up playing way longer than I intended, in search of a final, “good” match.
Yes, this especially. Don’t ask how much $$$ I wasted on creating the “perfect” builds.