Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?

Eve Online, and Barotrauma, both require you to risk costly failure in Eve this could be the expensive ship, mods, and cargo that you have accrued to do the task you are risking it on, Barotrauma, risking failure for your team by trying to improve your team's "lot".

> and linked to your sensitivity to certain brain chemistry.

Yeah, I align with this—I've probably spent a lifetime tuning myself for this.

I present to execs at work frequently and own too many projects for my own good. Peers have asked how I handle the stress..and I don't think I explicitly see or feel it as "stress". I think it's actually that I chase the high of the risk/reward response, and I'm willing to feel the pressure of the "risk" to see something through to the reward.

My second favorite game genre is the management/builder/strategy genre — it's just second because there's not enough of them. I've been playing them all my life, from Civ II on my first PC as a kid, and onward. I think they've kinda trained me for this. These games now feel like a walk in the park, even if I take a weird risk and lose—but as a kid the losses were crushing.

Strategy/4X/Builder/Management games feel like a bit of the same feedback loop, just different nouns and verbs from the day-to-day.

I don't have a game to answer with, but want to share some related sentiments.

"Risk tolerance" is a trait you acquire only when you've never known hunger. Only when you've never been faced with homelessness. Only when you've never been so poor that you can't afford to throw something away, less you may one day need it.

When the worst thing that can come of your failure is going home to a supportive and connected family, a hot meal, and a feather pillow to rest your head, of course you'll be "risk tolerant".

I don't think any game can give you this trait. The only way to acquire it is to be born and raised in a house of abundance.

...though at the same time, the threat of destitution could be a great way to really push one to succeed. "Burn the ships", "necessity is the mother of invention", and all that.

you arent going to overcome IRL risk aversion by not taking IRL risks.

Rocket League.

It is free and runs on most platforms.

It will take a lot of time to understand and learn how to control the car and the ball, but once you know that, you can go into ranked or casual 1v1-matches. These are the most nerve-wracking matches to play for most people, since your own mistakes often immediately gives your opponent and opportunity to net a goal. The reason I personally think this game is so awesome and satisfying to play, is how you need to learn and develop yourself in both game sense and game mechanics.

The grind of getting the mechanics is worth it in my opinion, but all in all you also have you enjoy the game.

The 5-minute gameplay in a match of Rocket League, especially in 1v1s, will introduce intense and stressful moments for many players. So observing yourself through both how you react and how you play will learn you a lot. Because everything happens immediately, you need to be aware of how you emotionally react to your own failure in order to play your best game. If you learn wisely from your mistakes, it doesn't matter if you win or loose, because you have a better fundamental understanding for future games. Rinse and repeat! Then understand how the same risk and reward principles that applies in Rocket League can be applied to your own personal risk management.

In general, I learned more about learning, and emotional reactions than I ever imagined I would from a game. And especially a game where the objective is to use your rocket-boost powered car to smash an oversized ball into the goal.