So I started what was supposed to be a series detailing the various electronic and cardboard games that I had been playing in a given month. Then life exploded and I didn’t follow up on it. I started trying to write the next iteration, and found it would be extraordinarily short. Not because I hadn’t been playing anything over the past three months. But because the way I game now has fundamentally changed.
I realized that the shift was dramatic enough to be worthy of inspection. How has parenthood changed the way I game?
One Game at a Time
I’ve found myself getting singularly focused more than usual. For two straight months, all I did was play Dark Souls 3. I beat it twice around, and started on a third run before switching back to Elite: Dangerous a week ago. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, so I can’t tell if this is related to the adoption, or if I just really like this game that much. Would I have zeroed in on it regardless of life events? Hard to say. But that’s what happened.
I’ve got a wide catalogue of games I own but haven’t played (this is all your fault, Humble Bundle). But context switching between them seems to be too much work. Instead I just plop down in front of my game de jour without any thought. Even if that game winds up being very cognitively tasking. That doesn’t seem to make sense.
No Restrictions on Quitting
I want to know I’m able to jump off of the seat and leave whenever I want. Not just in case of emergencies, but for simple things. Like, “can you get my a glass of water” simple. So, many games are complicated. Dark Souls 3 actually actively penalizes you for ungracefully quitting, but I can work with that. But games with save points would be a non-started.
I think this roadblock is mostly a product of paranoia. I haven’t had any situation arise in three months of parenthood that would have required me to jump up at full attention right now, after the girls are in bed. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen tomorrow. And so I still refuse to risk it.
No Multiplayer
This seems extreme but I can’t find a way around it. It’s actually a by-product of the previous restriction: most multiplayer games are hard to leave arbitrarily. For example, quit Rust at the wrong time and your player character just falls asleep in an exposed position. Habitually leaving matches of DotA gets one relegated to the low-priority queue (and for good reason, it fundamentally breaks the game for 9 other people). Any game with a fixed “session” is problematic this way. All real-time strategy games will be unavailable unless, I think. Elite:Dangerous works only because I one can play in an semi-offline state.
Part of this problem might be the games that I’ve chosen. If I played CS:GO or Overwatch I could just drop out any time without a problem.
No Board Games
I haven’t played a board game since we got the girls. Not a single one. I can’t figure out why this is. It might be because so many board games just aren’t very fun with only two players, and we’re not playing with other people any more. Board games are inherently social, so a loss of socialization means a loss of the hobby. That hurts. This is a restriction that video games never had, which might by why I initially found it hard to get into board games in the first place.
All in all, it’s been a big shift. This is entirely expected, but still interesting. Are there any parents reading this that are also gamers? Do you have similar self-imposed restrictions? I’d love to hear how our experiences compare.