Can't seem to play the games I want to play, considering a forced-march approach
I was wondering if anybody had any tips for muscling through a game. I've got a few games I want to play or go back to, such as Stardew Valley (I completed it before the 1.3 update, wanna play 1.4), and Factorio (I bought in a fit of passion, haven't gotten an hour in). There are others, but these are the two I find myself going "I'm going to play this!" and I just never get to, and it's not for time.
I like the concepts of these games, and I've got something like 135 hours on Stardew Valley, but seem to get bored after I've restarted it (I lost some key items and bugs caused me to never get them back, plus the mine completion bug fixed in 1.3). I started Slime Rancher after playing through it in early access, but can't seem to get back into it after it went gold a couple years ago.
I realize I'm sort of asking for a way to force myself to play games, but has anybody done this? I'm thinking for a given game I can set smaller goals to strive for, and work on doing that, but was wondering if anybody has any ideas.
Most people have jobs and/or a bunch of mandatory activities. If you turn your leisure into an obligation, there's a great chance that the joy will go away.
Maybe you should pursue whatever draws your attention right now. Games are supposed to be fun.
I think I get where OP is coming from though because I find I'm the same way with certain things. There are books I know I'll enjoy that I might have a hard time starting on because there are always more approachable time wasters that feel like they're not as much of a commitment. Browsing Reddit or news or whatever is easy (almost automatic) to sit down and do, and it always feels like I could just do it for a few minutes and then move on to something else. A book, or even a game, feels like more of a commitment. It's me saying, "I have this precious small block of time, and this is how I'm using it." Reddit et al. never feel like that... until it's an hour later and I learn once again that unlike every other consumable, not using time doesn't conserve it.
There's also a certain 'activation energy' involved with some tasks, the amount of effort I have to put in before I get anything out of it. A book might have a slow or difficult start before it hooks me or I get used to the author's world; a video game might have a learning or re-learning curve to get past or some tedium at the beginning before I get to the parts I enjoy. Even if the thing I want to do is fun there can be this barrier that makes me feel like, eh, not now.
As for what might help OP, I think this kind of thing is best understood as a type of procrastination. One method that might work is when you find yourself looking for a bunch of complex ways to make yourself do what you want to do, just sit down and say, "that seems like a lot of work, I'll just do the thing to avoid all that other nonsense." So, like, when you have some time just sit down and start up a game even if you don't feel like it and tell yourself, "I'll do this for 1 hour and then see if I feel like continuing."
I think that's the big issue. I'll abandon a roguelike for a YouTube video, I'll decide Descenders is a faster hit than Stardew Valley. It sort of feels like the potential of these more open-ended investment-heavy games is like standing on a cliff, deciding whether to jump.
I was thinking something like this, a bit of a forced march that requires me to actually play for a period and see what develops. Sort of like a book, get a few chapters in, and you may find some small point of attachment. I guess I'm trying to find a way to do that with computer games.
For sure. I'm trying to be careful with finding a solution that at least creates a method to allow me to play the game I already want to, but in a measured way where I can work through some boring tedium and move to the next one.
I definitely have that same problem, where I like the idea of the thing, but the core gameplay loop isn't satisfying enough to actually make the first few hours fun when you already know how they go. I've got two suggestions:
2a. Make bigger plans within the game. Decide you're going to find all the fish. Look towards that completely automated subsystem. You're going to build a megastructure, a lava moat, a statue to rival the gods. Aim for something higher, and tie that to the day-to-day goals so that even when the early stuff is boring you have a sense of how it's meaningful in a larger sense.
2b. Play different. If you've always focused on farming, try mining or foraging for your money. Try different strategies as opposed to doing the same things you've done before. Date someone different. Choose a different weapon style. This'll get you out of the rut of familiarity that means that you'll see all the same things you always see and do all the same things you always do.
2c. Tell yourself a story. Don't just depend on the vague character sketch that the game provides you, tell your own story. This works a lot better with fairly open world or sandboxy games, but there's a lot of space even in more linear narratives for you to think more deeply about the character and why they're doing what they're doing. Why is your character choosing the fast money over the better, slower growing crops? Why did she go for the big two-handed axes? How does he feel about having crashlanded on a planet with ravening aliens? A more coherent and personal narrative can be a lot of fun, and it will also lead you to more novel play that isn't entirely how you would have done it in the past.
My, that's a lot.
I think this is sort of the problem. I don't play them because I'm not having fun, but I feel like the fun may be right around the corner. Or just being intimidated by the open-endedness of some.
I think you're onto something, particularly with more open games like Factorio.
I learned this with roguelikes, actually, and would experiment with builds to see what they do, at least to learn what will help me progress. It fell on its head with Stardew when I decided to do a Joja run (really grind and boring, not my style), but I get what you mean.
I'll try this. With Stardew, you're only given the escape from a corporate job, so you can write your own motivations for crops, mining, whatever. Idk about the others, but I can wing it as I explore.
Honestly, these are all great ideas to consider, I'll see what I can do with them.
Something to consider (and this is a total shot in the dark) but maybe you're less interested in playing the games and more interested in seeking closure for them?
Stardew Valley, Factorio, and Slime Rancher are all games that put you on a task treadmill where the completion of frequent small goals is a near-constant reward feed. This is highly engaging, but it can become frustrating when paired with open-ended game design that lets you play indefinitely, because you never reach any moment of definite finality, despite feeling mini-moments of completion all along the way. The treadmill never stops, but you can't stay on it forever, so you get off while it's still going, feeling unfulfilled because your travels never reached a distinct destination.
I never "finished" Stardew Valley or Slime Rancher. I loved my time with them, but after playing them for a while I just sort of stopped at some arbitrary point I didn't even distinctly pick. It's not that I decided I was formally done with either of them, it just sort of happened after I didn't boot either of them back up after the last time I'd played them. It wasn't until a few weeks later that I even realized I'd stopped playing them. They got left behind not by conscious decision but by an accumulation of time away.
Occasionally I'll get an itch to return to them because it's easy for me to think of them as unchecked boxes. I never did finish with them! I should fix that! says my brain. What I have to remind myself is that the whole box-checking model doesn't work for these types of games. If I read a book, I know I've finished it when I finish the last page. If I play a narrative-driven game, I know I've finished it when I hit the credits. But when I play an open-ended game, how can I know when I've finished it? No matter when or how I walk away from them, it's all too easy to focus on the things I didn't do or get to while playing them. No closure, only more treadmill.
Now, I could be completely off the mark with this, so if what I'm saying doesn't click with your experiences or feelings at all, simply ignore me. I just figured I'd put this out there because your post felt similar to the personal "completion compulsion" I experience, and I have to remember that for some games, "completion" is simply an unachievable status. If I make that my threshhold for moving on, I'll never be happy with them because I can never actually be "done" with them. I can't ever close an open-ended door, so I have to remind myself that I need to be okay with it being left ajar.
When I play something like Stardew Valley, I'll view, say, fixing the community center as the main goal and make that my drive until it's done. Then I find the next thing, which I had set up as the clock, for example (made harder by my broken save). I think that may be a part of it. When I start my current Stardew save, I think "more of this all season..." and then have to work around the plan I laid out. It's sort of a chore, I guess. I totally get the "it never ends!" thing, which was why I got bored with Animal Crossing, but I find it easy, at least for something like Stardew, to set goals and meet them. It's more finding the motivation to match the desire, I think.
I think we've got similar issues, but my problem, at least in terms of what prompted the post, is trying to find a way to sort of work towards a goal when the going gets a little tough.