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For other "wiki games", I would recommend Terraria and Stardew Valley. Both have very rich wikis you can read for hours that will give you a much better underst
by opan 2y ago
For other "wiki games", I would recommend Terraria and Stardew Valley. Both have very rich wikis you can read for hours that will give you a much better understanding of game mechanics. I've also gotten into the habit of keeping a txt file for a game open in vim with notes on what I'm working on or what to work on next time I play. For Stardew it's stuff like "Kent's birthday is coming up, give him x item", or "catch/grow this before season ends". A lot of it gets deleted as I finish it, but I've also been thinking I should maybe flesh out a basic skeleton of important things to do on a new run so that I can get a refresher if I don't play for a long time.
I think I plan less with Terraria than Stardew since the passing of time doesn't matter much at all comparatively, but I still consult the wiki constantly to see where to get an item or what a monster drops and so on. I've got over 1000 hours in Terraria, but some of this stuff is just a bit much to remember, plus it can change slightly from game updates.
Both games have a lot of informational YouTube videos as well. All the videos of beginner tips are what finally got Stardew to click for me after owning it for years but failing to get into it. I went from taking months or years away from the game within the first Spring to finally getting sucked in enough to finish the rest of my first year within a few weeks IRL time.
While some people probably think it's a chore to do all this work outside the game, I see it similarly to the author in the article, I think it enriches the experience. It also gives you a way to think about the game and get better at it while it's not even open. I don't like to open Stardew unless I'm prepared to play multiple hours in a row, but I can read the wiki and jot down some notes for a few minutes at any time.
- ethbr1 2y agoNot to ick anyone's yum, but when games begin to approach the same parts of my brain that I use for work, I question why I'm not just using them to make more money instead. But said as an ex-EVE player, so color comment to taste.
- Carlseymanh 2y agoI cannot think of any game that could approximate a full-time job as much as EVE (I am currently obsessed with factorio, which I play after working for 8 hours on production line automation systems)
- hoten 2y agoOh boy. Do many of your colleagues play, or at least understand your obsession? this reminds me of truckers playing trucking games in their rigs during downtime.
- Carlseymanh 2y agoOh yeah, i'm playing in a server with a colleague. The sane ones give us the look™ when mentioning it though.
- scubbo 2y agoI've heard it said that there are two kinds of Software Engineers when it comes to Factorio. There's one category who say "this is just like work, but I'm not getting paid to do it; why would I do this?" Then there's the other who say "this is all the bits I enjoy of work, with a faster and more direct feedback loop and without all the admin/management/other-people bullshit; I want to do this for the rest of my life" I am very much in the latter camp, but I can absolutely understand the former.
- Terr_ 2y agoOption 3: "Solving these problems would be fun except they are too reminiscent of all the broken buggy real-world products that I came here to temporarily forget."
- scubbo 2y ago(Speaking from the Option 2 camp) Exactly! You finally get to fix them - doesn't that feel good!? :D (Yes, I understand your actual point :) )
- oasisaimlessly 2y agoTaken to an extreme, this would exclude any game with any element of problem solving, leaving just... cookie-clicker- and twitch-reflex-FPS-style games.
- awelxtr 2y agoWith games there less negative repercussions if you fail. Like none.
- yismail 2y agoIn a similar vein, I'd recommend Factorio and The Binding of Isaac.
- runeblaze 2y agoSince we are onto game recommendations I recommend Pokemon without any irony. The wiki is vast. Honestly I don't know how people are supposed to learn about all the deeper game mechanics without a wiki, and RNG manipulation can be quite fun.
- opan 2y agoI almost added on Pokemon to my comment! Agreed. Though I will say it's depressing to see the party you spent the whole game with is genetically inferior (low IVs) and you have to breed a whole new set to play competitively (or cheat, or use Pokemon Showdown instead of a real game), and that the breeding process has a lot of luck involved and takes ages. I think they improved this in more recent games with ways to raise your IVs, but it made me burn out on the series and stop playing at least once. I haven't played the Switch ones yet. When I was last playing through a Pokemon game, I think it was Sun, I planned out my final party and movesets for them in advance so I knew what TMs I had to find and which 'mons to catch on which routes.