The thought that keeps coming to me as I play Ooblets, a cutesy farming/life sim with creature collection elements, is this: how could I have possibly conceived of enjoying this game as a Quake III-obsessed teenager? However often its wholesomeness tips over into sheer twee, Ooblets shows us how far we’ve come on our journey towards greater variety, tones of voice and breadth of audience in the last couple of decades of gaming. And that’s well worth enduring the occasional sense that you’ve slipped into one of Zooey Deschanel’s daydreams. Here’s a game where survival and competition take a backseat, where friendship, self-care, and a giddily optimistic version of capitalism take center stage instead.
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