Simulation covers two very different pleasures: running a system well, and inhabiting a routine. Management sims are the first. Life and farming sims are the second. Recommending across that line is where most simulation recommendations go wrong.
Whether the system is legible. A good simulation lets you see why the number went down. A bad one gives you a dashboard and a shrug.
No fail state, a calendar, and somewhere that slowly becomes yours. Best in twenty-minute sittings.
Where operating the thing is the fantasy, and the startup procedure is part of the appeal rather than a barrier.
A system to tune rather than a character to play, and an evening that vanishes.
A simulation with no fail state and no time pressure — Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, Spiritfarer. The label is about how it feels to play rather than what genre it is in.
Coral Island if you want the same loop with more to do, My Time at Sandrock if you would rather build than farm, and Rune Factory if you want dungeons attached.
Deliberately. That is the appeal for most of them, and the ones that speed up — like the management sims — usually give you a time control to do it with.
Start from something specific rather than from the genre:
Or by the machine you own:
Or start from a game you already love — every title we cover has a page of hand-written recommendations, and the best-games lists cut the same library by era, audience and mood.