I find my game-centered activities to have shifted more and more to hinge on games that I play only a small amount, but then spend a lot of time just mulling over, having fun imagining or considering. In the past, this might have been a bit more in the “obsessed drive till next session” vein of something like Diablo II, but at this point, it is much more like booting up the internal everdrive and imagining the act of playing, the feelings involved, considering the possibility space. I believe it absolutely is some form of play, and one that is infinitely convenient.
Are there games that you enjoy thinking about playing as much as actually playing? What aspects do you like thinking about?
(This is a very literal “thinking about the act of playing” example, but I also am thinking more broadly for this thread.) Recently I started playing Sokoban basic 2 on ps1, getting my teeth into sokoban for the first time. It is a no-frills sokoban game, except to feature sweet “swap in your preferred soundtrack cd” capabilities. I never had enjoyed sokoban because it seemed boring and frustrating, but this round has been different. Being more aware of this perspective of “playing a game in your head” as being equally valuable to actually playing, I appreciate that just as the game can load itself fully into memory, the rules of base sokoban can be pretty accurately run your head. Of course it varies per puzzle, but I have found myself able to solve a puzzle between play sessions just thinking it through.
Then, meta-level, it has made me think about the ways we play games in our heads, generally, building accurate mental models of how the rules respond to allow ourselves to do what we want in the setting of the game. The puzzle game genre can tend towards fostering this, but it also can demand direct engagement. I suppose the proposal of trying to build towards this kind of cognitive play away from the game itself is not a very straightforward path to attracting players, but it is almost exclusively what I hope a game will provide me at this point in my life.
I’ve only played about 16 hours of Shenmue over the course of an entire year but I think about it constantly. Every time I am at work and see a forklift, for example. But also, I often find areas of Yokosuka categorized in my memory right alongside places I actually lived in Japan. Shenmue is a game that reminds me to find the little joys in my environment, whether I’m walking around town, at work, or waiting in line somewhere. When I drink a can of coffee, I try to appreciate it as much as I imagine Ryo does when he makes that weird face.
When I was very concerned about whether I could handle working full-time again, I just kept thinking about Ryo working at the docks. And I thought, if Ryo can somehow get and keep a job at the docks (if only for a week or so), and have such friendly coworkers, maybe it’ll work out for me. Ryo is a weird guy and he doesn’t seem to know how to socialize very well, but he always tries his best. I find it quite inspiring.
By the way, “living rent-free in your head” has a very negative connotation, like it’s something you’re always angry about even though it doesn’t affect you at all. Doesn’t really seem to fit the thread.
I definitely spend way more time thinking about Dota than actually playing Dota. Not because I don’t like playing it, on the contrary; I like it very much but it takes like an hour.
Doesn’t stop me from thinking about it like three times a week though. That’s a darn fine videogame.
I recently got back into playing DOTA after a few years away. I really wanted to focus on climbing etc, but found that the game just mental stacks you to hell so fast that I couldn’t put on a good performance for more than like two games in a sitting, and then it became a situation of, can I afford a life where I play 6-7 dota games in a day.
As I’m about to go back to work after a year of parental leave for the first time today, these are good thoughts.
(And I agree on your comment regarding the topic title - at the time couldnt think of a good phrase that was more than something I just made up, but this one is better, I think)
I’ve actually always felt kind of odd in that I spend way more time thinking about games than playing them. If my gaming life was a pie chart, it’d be maybe 10-20% actual gaming time and the rest spent reading videogame magazines (new and old), looking at screenshots, listening to gaming podcasts, browsing this forum, and mulling over games.
Shenmue is definitely also a big one for me @wickedcestus . I love that game so much, and I wouldn’t even say it’s “fun”. But it makes me think about and feel some things. And it’s beautiful to look at and remember. I played through most of it way back when it first came out, but almost not at all since then. But for various reasons, Shenmue frequently comes to my mind, and I enjoy the thought of planning to play it again, even if I never actually do.