On actually enjoying games

[flamebyrd]

I quit two phone games recently and want to work through some feelings about it.

Farm RPG

I started playing Farm RPG a while back because I was looking for something that was like Stardew Valley but more idle focused.

On the surface this is the case, but it’s not so much an idle game as it is a clicker. Some resources accumulate over time once you've bought the upgrade, but for the most part you are clicking to obtain them. Fishing is a twitchy “click on the moving dot” affair. Farming involves waiting (minutes, hours, days) or expending an item, but is not very profitable.

There are villagers to befriend (not marry) and quests to complete, but there’s a cynical snideness to the writing that didn’t really work for me. Some quests require items you get from sending your animals to the slaughterhouse, which I didn't want to do and used workarounds that just take longer (weeks/months instead of days.)

All of this I could deal with but I’ve reached a point where I cannot progress in the story without putting the raptors I have raised in a fight club and I just don’t want to. They’re good raptors! The only alternative I could see would involve many, many more months of grinding.

And then one day I missed finishing my daily quests, took a step back and asked, am I actually enjoying this game? Am I looking forward to doing the daily tasks or is it tedious?

So I’ve stopped.

nb. there is a social aspect to the game which I turned off shortly after starting. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I engaged with the community.

Pokémon TCG Pocket

If you want the feeling of opening packets of collectible cards with cute art but don’t want the clutter or to spend actual money, this game is almost perfect! You can open 2 packs a day for free! You can make decks and battle (against the computer or online)!

You can spend real life currency on a monthly subscription to open an extra pack a day, or à la carte to reduce the time until you can open new packs. But I wasn’t even tempted.

I quit because quitting Farm RPG made me question if I actually enjoyed this game too, and I thought how long the app takes to load every time, how unlikely it is that I’ll ever complete my collections, how I always battled in auto mode because it was slow and not interesting to me… so I’ve quit.

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What games have you recently quit? What are you Actually Enjoying right now?

I have been trying to read more but ironically most of the time this is more engaging than playing a game and leads to more time on my phone.

Comments

[bluapapilio]

Honestly I should quick Pokemon TCGP too.

[alias_sqbr]

I have been playing Wanderstop and just barely enjoying it enough to keep going, it's an ok narrative game stapled to an ok but kinda dull shop game, and while the intention is clearly for the two to work together to create a Magical Experience half the time they end up undermining each other.

Meanwhile Mega Mosaic is just one really big logic puzzle, which is not very exciting but it's fun poking around for new sections to fill in when I'm in the right mood.

[flamebyrd]

I listened to the Besties episode about Wanderstop and it sounded really *interesting* conceptually. But ironically I realised I don't really have the time to meet it at its level, even though on the surface a relaxing tea shop game sounds wonderful. They thought it had a lot of good things to do about burnout and slowing down, and also game mechanics and what progress means, but perhaps assumed a life experience that was less universal and more in line with "game developer used to crunch" (e.g. for me, the things that mean I am too busy to slow down and experience this game are not things I can just stop). I did start watching the Playframe let's play but haven't finished it yet!

I will check out Mega Mosaic!

[flamebyrd]

It's weird because it really does do what it does pretty well, and it didn't feel unbearably predatory to me, but also it just... wasn't sparking joy anymore.

I'd probably feel differently if I got into the battling side of it, though!

[sqbr]

Yeah it's one of those games which wants to "subvert player expectations" but to do that makes all sorts of inapplicable assumptions about the player which just leave me annoyed. And yeah as someone who has a physical disability partly as a result of overwork in a 'fun' customer service-y job it overall feels like a narrow and privileged portrayal of burnout and overwork. Its especially surreal since the same dev made The Stanley Parable which is about a developer trying to railroad a player into a heavy handed and narrow narrative about overwork.

[fred_mouse]

The main game I'm playing on the ipad is Cells (aka Cells to Singularity) which is an idle game that looks more clicky than it is because some of the mechanisms aren't obvious. It has three main settings, one of which is dinosaurs and one of which is space, and a rotating set of three day long ones some of which are quite good.