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Creating stuff will definitely give you more of a sense of self-worth and satisfaction than just consuming things will. On the flip side, I create stuff all da

Creating stuff will definitely give you more of a sense of self-worth and satisfaction than just consuming things will. On the flip side, I create stuff all day at work, and sometimes when I come home I just want to relax. There is room for both. If all people did was consume, then the world would be a boring place with nothing new. If all people did was create, then you would have a massive glut of stuff that nobody actually appreciated. I feel like video games are kind of in that space right now. There are just so many video games coming out every day/week/month, and they all rehash the same tropes. It's rare to find something really unique and "new". Sometimes I like to go back to an old game that I haven't played in a long time and just get caught up in it. Consumption doesn't always have to be of the latest and greatest thing.

defterGoose 7y ago
Yeah, I've have the same feeling about games lately. I took a break for a couple years in college and then junior year came back and started playing a lot of Halo 3 and Reach multiplayer. That was fun and got me back into video games as a 'serious' hobby: one that I was invested in exploring on a broad level. But ten years later I find myself getting bored with new games so easily. Maybe it's just getting more involved with adult stuff, but I have friends who are also avid gamers and I like having that as a shared interest/jumping off point. Still, I find myself craving truly novel narratives and mechanics and they're in thin supply. I'm reminded of Sturgeon's Law and the burgeoning market of Indy/low effort game-making. This was all a prelude to tell you that a couple months ago I picked up "Outer Wilds" and it sparked my imagination in a real way. It really felt like I had finally found a game that did space exploration 'right' and it ended up taking a place in my top-5 games of all time. It was truly a beautiful, crafted experience that kept me coming back for more. It was also not too long, not too short. Probably about 30-40 hours provided a comprehensive playthrough and I didn't feel like the game let you 'miss things', which I personally dislike. I wouldn't want to read a choose-your-own-adventure novel for the same reason.
- FreezerburnV 7y ago
  If you haven’t heard of it yet, Subnautica is the last game I’ve played that truly felt wondrous to play and hooked into my brain in a major way. Highly recommend, one of my favorite games of all time I’d say. (Up there with Undertale and Super Metroid)
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    Subnautica has been on my wishlist since before release but as it got more fleshed out, I just never went and picked it up. I think I may have been put off by the base building element or something, and I definitely had a bad taste in my mouth about exploration after No Man's Sky. Can you give me any more insight into the gameplay that would change my mind?
    - kd5bjo 7y ago
      Unlike most base building/crafting/exploration games, Subnautica doesn’t rely on procedural generation. It has an actual plot, and all of the environments showcase the sort of creativity and artistic choices that we simply don’t know how to teach to a computer.
      - defterGoose 7y ago
        Sure, I'm aware that it's not procedural, but maybe I was overly pessimistic about the world building within. I think after fallout 4 I've steered a little further away from RPGs with base building. It didn't really feel like those games were focusing enough on what I found interesting mechanic/narrative wise, but were rather taking a scattershot "give the player everything" approach to drive sales. Maybe I'll give SN another look. ...also I think Rocket League consumed my gaming time for a solid year which didn't help me work down my list.
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Base building in SN is somewhat a side show. You build yourself a home on an alien world because you need one, but most of the interesting things happen outside of it. I second the recommendation. Subnautica is hands-off one of the best games I played.
- invalidOrTaken 7y ago
  One area that's ripe and unexplored, imo, is creation of social infrastructure around playing video games, especially team games. A family has rules, a company has rules, even HN has rules. Some rules are an unnecessary drag, but others are vital and essential to stoping a race to the bottom. Having those rules allows for much greater net freedom.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    What is the difference between what you're talking about and Steam?
    - invalidOrTaken 7y ago
      Simple: If I fire up DotA 2, I have a 75% chance of utterly despising my tean, and them me. "Everything+Kitchen sink" games like MOBAs, Overwatch, etc, are caught between two masters: 1) the desire to give players lots of options, and 2) the tendency of players to abuse their teammates for how they use those options. The solution is not to be found on that spectrum---DotA did this a while ago with DotA+ (lol, "+") restricting possible team compositions, and Overwatch did as well (also forced team compositions). What really needs to happen is players need to start innovating socially, creating trust-based groups that can reap the best of both worlds. This would require proactivity, but, hey, this is the thread for it.
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        That's a guild. Many games have them, and some guilds span multiple games. Try playing an MMO, that's where they are easiest to find. You can also find them around some multiplayer shooters.
- cableshaft 7y ago
  Sucks that you said that you don't like the idea of missing things, because some of the best narrative games in recent years, in my opinion, had bits that you could miss. Like Detroit: Become Human, which shows you how each chapter could have branched and what path you ended up taking, or Neir Automata, where you beat the game once and you've seen maybe 30% of the content in the game, because subsequent playthroughs are from other perspectives. Or Life is Strange, which has similarly complex branches like Detroit Become Human does, and the main character can rewind time and try different approaches. Or Persona 5, where it doesn't give you enough time to max out each NPC's social link, so you will miss some side stories the first time through the game, and there's bad or alternative endings you can trigger depending on what you do. If you're into non-narrative games at all, then there's some games with novel mechanics coming out. Two of my favorites recently are Into The Breach, which is a tactics game where you know exactly how the enemies will attack, and your goal is to use your mechs to move, stop, block, or kill the bug threatening the attack so that it attacks somewhere else or doesn't finish the attack, where it turns it into a thinky puzzle. Or Baba is You, a puzzle game which is just full of 'holy crap I didn't realize you could DO that!' moments, where you push words around to form sentences which govern the rules and mechanisms for the level, which you have to manipulate in order to solve the level. And if you haven't tried The Witness yet, Jonathan Blow spent 7 years dreaming up every possible way in which you could possibly change-up a 'draw a line through a maze' puzzle, and the deeper you get into that game, the more crazy things you'll discover that he came up with (I would have never come up with half the crap he did, and it gets reaaaally creative). There's several 'Holy crap I didn't know you could DO that,' moments in that game too. But it's not a narrative game, not really. More of a hint of a narrative.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    Yeah, the problem is that most games fail to have compelling enough mechanics to warrant replays. If things are "missable" it kinda feels like a f*ck you from the developer, or at the very least like they didn't try hard enough to have a cohesive narrative (too many hangers-on narrative ideas). Depends on the game of course. But for instance, with Nier (haven't played it, not my favorite stylistically), if you really haven't encountered 70% of the content with one playthrough, I wouldn't consider that a true playthrough. The Witness blew me away too. At the time I played it (release), I felt the same way about it as Outer Wilds. Baba is you was recommended by a friend recently, and I'd definitely like to give that a shot at some point. I'm pretty hawkish about style, and I tend to strongly dislike tactics type games, as well as RTS. A lot of newer RPGs turn me off too, especially ones using the ATB concept (FF7 is one of my all time favs as well, but I have almost no interest in trying the new one; I reaaaally wanna vote with my dollars for new IP).

defterGoose 7y ago

Yeah, I've have the same feeling about games lately. I took a break for a couple years in college and then junior year came back and started playing a lot of Halo 3 and Reach multiplayer. That was fun and got me back into video games as a 'serious' hobby: one that I was invested in exploring on a broad level. But ten years later I find myself getting bored with new games so easily. Maybe it's just getting more involved with adult stuff, but I have friends who are also avid gamers and I like having that as a shared interest/jumping off point. Still, I find myself craving truly novel narratives and mechanics and they're in thin supply. I'm reminded of Sturgeon's Law and the burgeoning market of Indy/low effort game-making. This was all a prelude to tell you that a couple months ago I picked up "Outer Wilds" and it sparked my imagination in a real way. It really felt like I had finally found a game that did space exploration 'right' and it ended up taking a place in my top-5 games of all time. It was truly a beautiful, crafted experience that kept me coming back for more. It was also not too long, not too short. Probably about 30-40 hours provided a comprehensive playthrough and I didn't feel like the game let you 'miss things', which I personally dislike. I wouldn't want to read a choose-your-own-adventure novel for the same reason.

FreezerburnV 7y ago
If you haven’t heard of it yet, Subnautica is the last game I’ve played that truly felt wondrous to play and hooked into my brain in a major way. Highly recommend, one of my favorite games of all time I’d say. (Up there with Undertale and Super Metroid)
- defterGoose 7y ago
  Subnautica has been on my wishlist since before release but as it got more fleshed out, I just never went and picked it up. I think I may have been put off by the base building element or something, and I definitely had a bad taste in my mouth about exploration after No Man's Sky. Can you give me any more insight into the gameplay that would change my mind?
  - kd5bjo 7y ago
    Unlike most base building/crafting/exploration games, Subnautica doesn’t rely on procedural generation. It has an actual plot, and all of the environments showcase the sort of creativity and artistic choices that we simply don’t know how to teach to a computer.
    - defterGoose 7y ago
      Sure, I'm aware that it's not procedural, but maybe I was overly pessimistic about the world building within. I think after fallout 4 I've steered a little further away from RPGs with base building. It didn't really feel like those games were focusing enough on what I found interesting mechanic/narrative wise, but were rather taking a scattershot "give the player everything" approach to drive sales. Maybe I'll give SN another look. ...also I think Rocket League consumed my gaming time for a solid year which didn't help me work down my list.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Base building in SN is somewhat a side show. You build yourself a home on an alien world because you need one, but most of the interesting things happen outside of it. I second the recommendation. Subnautica is hands-off one of the best games I played.
invalidOrTaken 7y ago
One area that's ripe and unexplored, imo, is creation of social infrastructure around playing video games, especially team games. A family has rules, a company has rules, even HN has rules. Some rules are an unnecessary drag, but others are vital and essential to stoping a race to the bottom. Having those rules allows for much greater net freedom.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  What is the difference between what you're talking about and Steam?
  - invalidOrTaken 7y ago
    Simple: If I fire up DotA 2, I have a 75% chance of utterly despising my tean, and them me. "Everything+Kitchen sink" games like MOBAs, Overwatch, etc, are caught between two masters: 1) the desire to give players lots of options, and 2) the tendency of players to abuse their teammates for how they use those options. The solution is not to be found on that spectrum---DotA did this a while ago with DotA+ (lol, "+") restricting possible team compositions, and Overwatch did as well (also forced team compositions). What really needs to happen is players need to start innovating socially, creating trust-based groups that can reap the best of both worlds. This would require proactivity, but, hey, this is the thread for it.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      That's a guild. Many games have them, and some guilds span multiple games. Try playing an MMO, that's where they are easiest to find. You can also find them around some multiplayer shooters.
cableshaft 7y ago
Sucks that you said that you don't like the idea of missing things, because some of the best narrative games in recent years, in my opinion, had bits that you could miss. Like Detroit: Become Human, which shows you how each chapter could have branched and what path you ended up taking, or Neir Automata, where you beat the game once and you've seen maybe 30% of the content in the game, because subsequent playthroughs are from other perspectives. Or Life is Strange, which has similarly complex branches like Detroit Become Human does, and the main character can rewind time and try different approaches. Or Persona 5, where it doesn't give you enough time to max out each NPC's social link, so you will miss some side stories the first time through the game, and there's bad or alternative endings you can trigger depending on what you do. If you're into non-narrative games at all, then there's some games with novel mechanics coming out. Two of my favorites recently are Into The Breach, which is a tactics game where you know exactly how the enemies will attack, and your goal is to use your mechs to move, stop, block, or kill the bug threatening the attack so that it attacks somewhere else or doesn't finish the attack, where it turns it into a thinky puzzle. Or Baba is You, a puzzle game which is just full of 'holy crap I didn't realize you could DO that!' moments, where you push words around to form sentences which govern the rules and mechanisms for the level, which you have to manipulate in order to solve the level. And if you haven't tried The Witness yet, Jonathan Blow spent 7 years dreaming up every possible way in which you could possibly change-up a 'draw a line through a maze' puzzle, and the deeper you get into that game, the more crazy things you'll discover that he came up with (I would have never come up with half the crap he did, and it gets reaaaally creative). There's several 'Holy crap I didn't know you could DO that,' moments in that game too. But it's not a narrative game, not really. More of a hint of a narrative.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  Yeah, the problem is that most games fail to have compelling enough mechanics to warrant replays. If things are "missable" it kinda feels like a f*ck you from the developer, or at the very least like they didn't try hard enough to have a cohesive narrative (too many hangers-on narrative ideas). Depends on the game of course. But for instance, with Nier (haven't played it, not my favorite stylistically), if you really haven't encountered 70% of the content with one playthrough, I wouldn't consider that a true playthrough. The Witness blew me away too. At the time I played it (release), I felt the same way about it as Outer Wilds. Baba is you was recommended by a friend recently, and I'd definitely like to give that a shot at some point. I'm pretty hawkish about style, and I tend to strongly dislike tactics type games, as well as RTS. A lot of newer RPGs turn me off too, especially ones using the ATB concept (FF7 is one of my all time favs as well, but I have almost no interest in trying the new one; I reaaaally wanna vote with my dollars for new IP).