The 10 best video games to play while high
This post is part of our High-tech High series, which explores weed innovations, and our cultural relationship with cannabis, as legalization in several U.S. states, Canada, and Uruguay moves the market further out of the shadows.
Marijuana-friendly video games require four main attributes: simplicity, beauty, weirdness, and whoaaa cooool.
Playing games while high can, like most high activities, either be a portal to magical awakenings or scar you for life. Choose the game you pair with your herb wisely! Luckily, we're here to help guide you to Video Game Toke-halla.
Our selection is guaranteed to not harsh your vibe, but enhance it. For your convenience, we've even implemented a contact high rating system: Each game is ranked from one to five trees, depending on how toasted playing it under the influence will get you.
Just don't look down at your hands mid-game, cause you'll realize how weird it is that your fingers move like spider legs with little minds of their own and SHIT IT'S TURNING ON ME CALL MY MOM REALITY IS A LIE.
1. Kentucky Route Zero
The surrealist masterpiece: Few titles command the respect of both esoteric game critics and the 420 community. But Southern gothic Kentucky Route Zero is a sumptuous tour de force of magical realism, able to captivate anyone with a pulse. It offers non-sequitur humor — like a third-floor office building of bears, just bears — and meaningful dives into perception, entropy, creation, and this American life. Don't worry about "Getting It." KRZ is the rare piece of art that avoids going too far up its own ass. The fifth and final act has yet to release, but is still scheduled for 2018.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲
Platforms: PS4 (soon), Xbox One (soon), Windows, Linux, Mac
Green: $24.99
2. Monument Valley 1 & 2
The impossible architect: Bringing M.C. Escher's famed "Stairs" painting to virtual life, Monument Valley is the most mind-bending optical illusion puzzle game since Portal. And it's more accessible, being playable on all iOS devices and with controls so intuitive they're practically weed-proof.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌲🌲
Green: $3.99
3. Everything
The free-love philosopher: With as ambitious a title as Everything, you'd think this procedural life simulator couldn't possibly hold up to its own promise. But Everything, a game where you can literally be anything from a bear to a microorganism to a galaxy, doesn't exaggerate. Listen to the narration by Alan Watts and lose yourself in the vast randomness of mutual existence. Also, that floppy movement animation never gets less funny.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🐻🌲🐻🌲🐻
Platforms: PS4, Windows, Mac, Linux
Green: $14.99
4. Journey
The unlikely hero: A return to the time of myths and legends, Journey awakens something ancient and eternal inside you. Bringing Joseph Campbell's seminal hero's journey story structure to games, this beautiful, wordless adventure embodies all that is universal about the human experience. You can go at it alone, or choose to play online with another person who remains totally anonymous, your only option for interaction with each other limited to little chirps and messages in the sand.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌲
Platforms: PS4
Green: $14.99
5. Donut County
It's just holes, man: A perfect metaphor for 2018, Donut County is all about watching everything you know and love be consumed by a deep, dark void create by a selfish asshole. Come for the satisfying hole-based puzzles, stay for the Weird Twitter-inspired humor.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌲
Platforms: PS4, iOS, Windows, Mac
Green: $4.99 - $12.99
6. Panoramical
The music in the machine: It's hard to explain the technical marvel that is Panoramical. But you don't need to understand to discover its trippy soundscape, which transforms based on your interactions. It's perfect for group settings; your friends will either think you're a god or that they're on ecstasy, with you as the VJ manipulating an experimental world of procedural music and visuals.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲
Green: $9.99
7. The Stanley Parable
The existential crisis: The less you know about Stanley Parable before playing, the better. Just prepare to question every choice you've ever made in your life, including the one to buy this game. Be ready to fall through the Matrix, but like, in a fun way. And if you survive the abyss, be sure to check out co-creator Davey Wreden's follow-up game, The Beginner's Guide.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌲🤔
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux
Green: $14.99
8. Gardenarium
That guy who took one too many acid trips: Like a walkable kaleidoscope, the appeal of Paloma Dawkins' Gardenarium is simple yet undeniably pleasing. It's an acid trip of bright pastel colors, weird asides, and moments where you go, "Wait, am I in a glitch or is this the game?" Don't ask too many questions. Just tune in, turn on, and drop out.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌸🌲🌻
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux
Green: $4.99
9. Tetris Effect
The mind-melting classic. Imagine if the most addictive puzzle game of all time went to an EDM concert, and you've got yourself Tetris Effect. Named after the real psychological phenomenon of how this game warps minds, this lit ass version of Tetris adds a soundtrack, visuals, and background worlds which respond to the way you play. Oh and there's even the option to add VR, in case your face needs more help melting off.
Contact High Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲
Green: $39.99
10. Goat Simulator
Bleeeeeet: An embodiment of the phrase, "it's a feature, not a bug," this chaotic physics simulator asks you to push its glitch-filled antics to the absolute limit. Think of it as an interactive screaming goat Youtube video, where you can sink several hours of your life into the random hilarity of Goat Simulator. There are no rules or goals here. Only goats.
Contact High Rating: 🐐🐐🐐🐐
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android
Green: $9.99
Jess is an LA-based culture critic who covers intimacy in the digital age, from sex and relationship to weed and all media (tv, games, film, the web). Previously associate editor at Kill Screen, you can also find her words on Vice, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vox, and others. She is a Brazilian-Swiss American immigrant with a love for all things weird and magical.
