Maybe this doesn’t need to be said but this is a different question to which video game genres do you enjoy. For example, I enjoy playing Dota 2. Every few months or so, I’ll play it for a couple of weeks and put it back down. I’ll never play more than two or three matches and I feel ‘present’ for the duration.
Paradox grand strategy games (especially EUIV), however, I can start playing at 7am and in a blink of an eye it can be 11pm and I won’t have eaten or used the toilet or anything. I can do this for multiple days in a row. Furthermore, I don’t often feel like I’m ‘enjoying’ it. I’m just consumed by it.
I’m intrigued to hear whether or not anyone recognises this difference in themselves. If you have any insight as to why you’re consumed by some games and not others, I’d be very interested.
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I can barely put down Ace Attorney style games. I love experiences where I get to unravel a mystery.
It’s also really easy to spend a long time grinding in old school Maple. Just monotonous enough to be soothing, just active enough to keep my attention on it.
Factory games. Resource management… I get all caught up rebalancing inputs and outputs… This building needs an expansion to fit the new gears project… Over here we need more room for screws… Plates??? Why are all the plates gone!!! 🤬
I’ve only ever caught this with Factorio but it had me pretty bad. Do you have any other recommendations? I bought Dyson Sphere Program on sale but haven’t tried it yet.
Satisfactory for me. I also bought Dyson Sphere on sale, but also haven’t tried it yet.
1.0 drops right when I actually have time to take vacation, scratches the same itch as some of the old Minecraft mod packs (so does factorio, I just really like building factories lol) I just really love watching things whip around.
Cheers
Get that picture away from me. I quit that game for my family and my health. I can’t let myself go back… Not even once…
Shapez 2 recently released in early access (still has release sale). While I love Factorio, Shapez has no enemies and infinite resources. Might make it more boring, but sometimes I find it really nice to just build some belts and not to worry about some sub-base being run over.
The trailer for Shapez fucking slapped. Biters in Factorio pissed me right off but that just added urgency to get defences setup which just sucked me in deeper. I could never play without them. I derive too much satisfaction from wrecking their shit, after they’ve been such a nuisance.
And next thing you know it’s the next morning. Which is why I don’t play factorio too often.
Any Paradox game. Oxygen Not Included. Factorio. Civilization. Rimworld. Dwarf Fortress. The list goes on.
For me I think it’s about having non-stop and parallel mini problems/puzzles/goals. By the time one task is finished. There’s two more to take its place.
An observation inspired by your comment. I love video game narratives; I often hate video game storytelling. PDS games tell me stories but there’s no cutscenes or stop in gameplay and the narratives are all dynamic.
I imagine Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress could be very dangerous for me.
Dwarf Fortress is, imo, much less crack-y than something like Factorio. It takes much less constant attention by how slow the game moves and how long your plans take to work out. I find my time in DF to be meditative and relaxing because I’m working towards a clear goal but can relax a lot of my reactions… Factorio is a game where you can do as fast as you can think (outside the early game) - even if you’re waiting on something there is always something else to obsess over.
Especially factorio with mods. I play with bob and angels mod which massively increases the complexity. I use infinite ore as well because anything on a timeline stresses me. I have over 2000 hrs in it.
This is definitely important in making the very most engaging base-builders - a pleasing mixture of longer term goals (manufacture this piece that I can eventually put in a future science pack or whatnot) and under-performing pieces of your older infrastructure that you have to scale up or re-plan is just so helpful for getting you into that flow state.
Satisfactory minecraft and monster hunter
Anything that gives me an adrenaline rush. Which usually only happens against real human players, but the first time through a good difficult game like a souls like works too.
Management games where I can play really slowly and focus on small details, normally on very hard mode too so a lot of the easy ones don’t make the cut.
Football Manager and Software Inc are probably the ones I go back to most often.
Also 99% of the games I play I never complete…
As a general rule, I tend to focus on a title or a series of {books,tv,movies,games,musician,etc}, consume it to death over the course of a handful of weeks/months, then lose interest and never touch it ever again.
I had a big Soulslike phase in the middle of the pandemic. Before that it was Rocket League. I’ve gamed very little these last months in between a million consecutive life events, but the little time I had to play was almost exclusively on Monster Hunter (I just reached Iceborne in MHW).
The one game I had a legitimately problematic relationship with was Counter Strike, as a teen and young adult. Nowadays, I still have the general game sense but the reflexes and skills are long gone, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to getting to a level I’d feel good at.
Minecraft, if I’ve got a project to do.
I run a local server so that I can play with my kid, but I’m the one who has to actually get things done. Simple things like looking for diamonds is enough to keep me playing for hours. I’ll find a vein, and I think that’s not enough, I need to find more, so I’ll find half a dozen more veins, but then my brain switches to the ‘I may as well carry on’ mindset.
I mined a mountain down to ground level recently because the top was spoiling the view from our village, and once I started, it was quite soothing.
Euro Truck Simulator
Kerbal Space ProgramKSP pulls me in for awhile until some bullshit bug ruins a mission I spent hours on
factorio has stolen months from me
You’re not alone. Factorio induces hyperfocus in the neurotypical. You and I never stood a chance.
I only have 1000 hours in Factorio, what are you up to?
This also my be a bad ideal telling you, but there is a DLC coming out for Factorio and boy does it look good.
Only 244.6 hours but 99% of those were within a two week period last winter.
Soon the factory will grow to other planets.
Sounds like there’ll be shit growing on me by the time Factorio + Expansion lets go of me.
Quick and twitchy FPS games. Reason I was so upset when roblox ditched wine support is because it deprived me of my daily dose of randomizer and bad business.
For me, it’s Fallout, Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Hearthstone and Stardew Valley.
But pretty much anything like those will do it if I’m enjoying myself.
With TES, Fallout and Stardew, I’ve definitely had something approaching hyperfocus. Not as severe as my PDS hyperfocus. Never with MMOs though. I’ve played a decent amount of a few but could never play more than one or two hours per day.
In WoW, I was a solo player that wanted to do everything. So, I’d go to a town, grab all the quests, and start crossing them off until it was time to go to the next one. And in between, I just spend hours wandering around looking for flowers to pick or ore to mine.
Vampire Survivor.
It’s very much like a Dragon Ball super fusion. For the next 20-30 minutes… I am fused with the game.
No one for rougelikes?
I dont even like them that much is just the only things I can play sometimes.
Basebuilders, 4Xs, Incrementals, and Survival Crafters
Once I burn out I try to stay away as long as possible for the sake of getting other things done and having a sane sleep schedule.
Compare with RPGs, farm sims, platformers, action adventure games, and roguelikes, which I can pick up and put down much more easily without disrupting other aspects of my life.
Thanks for providing examples that you enjoy but don’t induce hyper-focus. I relate to the ‘consciously’ avoiding aspect. Sadly PDS games are only ever like 2GB downloads, so uninstalling them only buys me like an hour of freedom.
What are Incrementals, out of curiosity?
Incremental games are a bit of an “I know it when I see it” grouping, but two typical characteristics are progression systems nested within each other and game loops that start simple but “flower” into a number of more detailed and mutually interacting ones over the course of play.
Universal Paperclips is a nice example, casting you as a newly built AI with the goal of making as many paperclips as you can. You start out able to make paperclips and sell them to humans for funds you can then use to invest in more capabilities. You work on building trust with the humans so they’ll let you do more things, and on making more clips faster, and there is a lot of escalation from these humble beginnings. Some other good ones are Cookie Clicker and, if you’re into programming puzzles, Bitburner.
