Reus2 has been most of my deck commuting playtime if I’m honest. Great little game with endless replayability.

spec ops the line (just kidding)

I’m imagining someone cozying up with a blanket, a lap kitty, some tea, and the horrors of mankind.

Someone else mentioned Superliminal, and I second that recommendation. Very cool puzzles, very nice message.

I recommend Cobalt Core. Super cute characters and story, and very satisfying even after completing the main quest. It and Balatro are currently my standing “twenty minutes on a lunch break” games.

Spiritfarer, it’s the most chill game I’ve ever played.

Oh, yeah and Dredge, one of my favourite games.

I should preface this by saying I don’t actually have a steam deck yet, so I haven’t tested these on there. So I’m only commenting on the games themselves. These are listed as deck “verified” in the steam store, though.

One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is Yoku’s Island Express. Breezy summer vibes, not much difficulty. It’s kind of a pinball metroidvania.

Tinykin is another game with a very cozy/low stakes feel. It’s an exploration/collectathon platformer with cute environments made up of household objects.

Littlewood is a life sim sort of game, kind of like Stardew Valley, but it’s extremely chill. There’s no time limit or anything like that.

And others have mentioned these, but Toem, Alba, and Donut County are all very good and gentle games too.

Oh, and Tchia. That one has some dark moments at times, mostly in cutscenes, but when you’re actually playing it’s mostly gentle and island-y.

Maybe also Wuppo? It’s a strange one. The story and humor and animation are pretty great in that one, but there are some boss fights that can get a little frustrating. It’s mostly a fairly chill platformer, but then it’s got kind of bullet-hell-adjacent bosses. I still really like the game, but it’s not quite as purely relaxing as some of the others here.

Pikuniku is kind of in the same position as Wuppo, but I liked it a bit less. The humor feels a little more forced or stilted, and the frustrating bits are because the controls are kinda floaty. My niece really liked it when she was 8, though, so it had that going for it.

Hope this helps! I’ve been looking for this kind of game a lot the past few years

Transport fever 2 is very chill.

I would recommend grabbing this bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/safe-in-our-world-charity-bundle-2025 It’s got a kinda weird mix of games, but a lot of the games are great and several are fantastic for what you’re asking. Of particular note:

Edit: unfortunately that bundle is out of stock, and I just realized it. Sorry. My recommendation for the following games is still valid though:

• Little Kitty Big City - play as a cat doing cat things and exploring a japanese city. Very chill, fun animal characters, real fun experience.
• Thank Goodness You’re Here - very well animated adventures in a british town. Less of a game and more of an experience, but very enjoyable.

• Lost in Play - adorable game about two siblings and their imagined adventure…or is it?
• Tinykin - platform puzzler collectathon with zero enemies. Just cozy vibes.
• Freshly Frosted - Want to feel personally encouraged by a soothing narrator while making donut machines?
• Tiny Glade - make cute castles. That’s it!
• KeyWe - kiwi mail delivery. Literally.
• The Were Cleaner - werewolf janitor.
• Little Inferno - silly game where you burn things to get more things to burn. Also, Sugar Plumps!
• A Hat in Time - puzzle platformer collectathon that’s cute and creative
• Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate - silly point and click adventure. Looks like I’m gonna have to jump…!
• Hidden Through Time - Where’s Waldo but more animated.
• Thomas Was Alone - platformer where Thomas might not be as alone as he thinks (in a good way).

Various levels of puzzle/chill:

• A little to the left

• Viewfinder

• Unpacking

• Bonfire peaks

• Moncage

• Chronescher

• Humanity

• Superliminal

• Manifold garden

• Gridroad

• Dredge?

• Far (lone sails and the second one)?

• Vampire therapist (maybe)

Because you mentioned Islanders, maybe Dorfromantik?

Fields of Mystria is a Stardew-like that plays excellently on the steam deck!

The Last Campfire is like being read a bedtime story - its delightful

• Sable - but you’ll want to use protontricks to install dxvk
• Stonefly
• Far - 1 & 2 are both good, but I still prefer the first one
• Vane
• Lightmatter

Have you considered Snowrunner, Farming Simulator and American/Euro truck simulator? All games capable of unplugging your brain for a while. Just remember to manually set Proton if you play either truck sim, they have a terribly unoptimized Linux native version that runs poorly on the Deck.