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Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

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Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#61

Post by tarruda »

amjnsx wrote: post #55

This article speaks to me a lot. I played FF7 Remake when it released on PS+ in ‘21 thinking I didn’t enjoy JRPG’s. From there i played the entire collection - the ps1 version, crisis core, advent children, and then remake again. Those months were fantastic - either playing, listening to the soundtrack, thinking about materia combinations. And it’s likely to consume another 3 months of my life when Rebirth releases.

FF VI and Chrono Trigger (both SNES) are two gems which I would definitely replay if I had the time.

It is easy to get lost the pretty graphics of modern games, but to me well written story and characters are the best part of JRPGs

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#62

Post by criddell »

qsort wrote: post #56
nlawalker wrote: post #21

For anyone currently looking for something that does this for you, may I suggest Advent of Code: https://adventofcode.com/ This is the first year I've really made time and space to enjoy it, and enjoy it I have. Also - this article ends on such a weird note given the message that the rest of it delivers. The author has finally realized how valuable it is to have something that gets them going, regardless of whether o…

Advent of Code is great but it requires you to: - (a) be available at precisely midnight EST every day for an entire month. That would be 6am for me, not really feasible on working days for a full month. - (b) be extremely good at a weird flavor of programming competition -- more often than not you don't win at AoC by writing better solutions, you just have to crank out a solution that you don't too long to type. I l…

It doesn’t require either of those things. I’ve been doing it this year and I’m on day 17 I think. I probably won’t finish it until the end of January.

I looked at the leaderboard one day there were a lot of people who finished the problem set in 3-4 minutes. I spent more time than that reading the problem description.

It’s still a lot of fun. Some days I’ll solve the problem more than once just to try different ideas.

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#63

Post by vibrolax »

I've wanted to play games since Atari Pong came out. But I've never owned a console, and haven't owned a computer with a discrete GPU since 2005. Twenty years ago, I satisfied my urge to game by playing Unreal Tournament, Quake, etc. demos. More recently, I'd spend an hour a week watching other people play games on YouTube, to see if I was missing anything.

This year, the snake has entered my garden in the form of an RTX 3060 that I bought for AI and media production applications.

My wife has bought me a flight stick for Christmas, so I can play DCS myself, instead of watching other people's videos.

I worked so hard avoiding escapist leisure in favor of physical exercise and 'maker' hobbies that it's difficult to switch off the discipline, and go have some escapist fun.

I'm retired and have all the resources needed to indulge in pure fun. I'm gonna take advantage of the opportunity.

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#64

Post by nlawalker »

criddell wrote: post #62
qsort wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advent of Code is great but it requires you to: - (a) be available at precisely midnight EST every day for an entire month. That would be 6am for me, not really feasible on working days for a full month. - (b) be extremely good at a weird flavor of programming competition -- more often than not you don't win at AoC by writing better solutions, you just have to crank out a solution that you don't too long to type. I l…

It doesn’t require either of those things. I’ve been doing it this year and I’m on day 17 I think. I probably won’t finish it until the end of January. I looked at the leaderboard one day there were a lot of people who finished the problem set in 3-4 minutes. I spent more time than that reading the problem description. It’s still a lot of fun. Some days I’ll solve the problem more than once just to try different idea…

... there's a leaderboard?

Kidding, of course, but that's pretty much how I feel about it. I haven't done any real programming in >5 years so I'm using it to dust off the cobwebs, get up to speed on C# language features and push myself to think about the problems functionally/recursively where I can, for fun. The freewheeling open-endedness is the best part because you can get value/enjoyment/satisfaction out of it a million different ways: you could golf the problems; use them to learn new languages; pretend you're writing production code and make it super clean and organized; do them with a partner or group; etc. etc. There's so much value simply in interesting, well-defined puzzles with a good scope, and the presence of the leaderboard is actually a really good example of not letting the need for greatness (especially by arbitrary measures!) stand in the way of enjoyment.

I'm in the same boat as you, I started late and I'm on day 14 or so with a couple skips that I'll get back to, hope to finish in January, and then maybe go back and clean a few of them up, reflect on them, write a little bit about them, and then start looking at problems from previous years.

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#65

Post by bobnamob »

vosper wrote: post #40
sarks_nz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got "Slay the Spire", a deck-building, casual, rogue-like and it's awesome. Can play a little or a lot at a sitting :-)

Slay the Spire is awesome, addictive, and can be played for 5 minutes or 5 hours - great recommendation! With very limited gaming time available I’ve been searching for other games like that with limited success, apart from Hitman Go, FTL, and Into the Beach. But none of them scratch the itch quite as well.

Give “Hades” a shot. Isometric rogue-lite, once you’re comfortable with the game, a “run” is <30 mins (<15 mins once you’re very comfortable).

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#66

Post by ciuncan »

For me it became incredibly hard to find a game to get hooked on. Most recently Path of Exile was it, one of the very few games (flight sims, Gwent and Slay the Spire) that I have more than 100 hours of game play. And indeed, when I find such a game, looking forward to it was a great motivation throughout the day. Currently my only hope is with PoE2, crossing fingers for it.

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#68

Post by hasty_pudding »

Fantasy and sci fi books have the same effect for me.

Im in the middle of "The Fisherman" and cant wait to get back to it everyday.

I honestly think that smart people get bored by the same-ness of every day qnd having a fantasy of some sort to slip into really helps.

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#69

Post by PsylentKnight »

tarruda wrote: post #61
amjnsx wrote: post #55

This article speaks to me a lot. I played FF7 Remake when it released on PS+ in ‘21 thinking I didn’t enjoy JRPG’s. From there i played the entire collection - the ps1 version, crisis core, advent children, and then remake again. Those months were fantastic - either playing, listening to the soundtrack, thinking about materia combinations. And it’s likely to consume another 3 months of my life when Rebirth releases.

FF VI and Chrono Trigger (both SNES) are two gems which I would definitely replay if I had the time. It is easy to get lost the pretty graphics of modern games, but to me well written story and characters are the best part of JRPGs

I really enjoyed Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Nintendo Switch) this year.

The story is alright, but the characters are well-written and I enjoyed the tactical gameplay more than the typical turn-based RPG fare.

Re: Having a game I'm into makes every day enjoyable

#70

Post by Ringz »

haswell wrote: post #19

I highly recommend reading the book “Flow” if you’re looking for that thing that makes every day enjoyable. In addition to exploring why people love games and other high skill activities, it discusses the idea that we can learn how to turn every day tasks into activities that evoke the same reward centers. It doesn’t just dive into “people like games”, or “people like achieving hard things”, but it delves into why, a…

Name the author please!
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