Recently, my wife has been watching Lost with my youngest son. I’m not exactly sure what he’s done to deserve this cruel and unusual punishment, but I feel I should stay out of it, lest I get dragged in. I still haven’t forgiven the show for how it ended — I’m not falling for the light-in-the-cave-after-six-seasons nonsense a second time.
I don’t have quite the same pressures as Desmond; failing to push the button here won’t make the sky turn purple or put the entire fate of the world in jeopardy.
And I’m not saying I want that much pressure… but maybe– just maybe, a little pressure might be good in breaking through the mental barriers that have gone up.
“Barriers? Against what?” you might ask.
The ‘Play’ button, I must grudgingly answer.
I know. I know! Not exactly earth-shattering, but it has really become something of a problem for me.
What if I pick wrong?
This time (it isn’t the first time), the problem stems from two things I can identify:
- Wuthering Waves dropped as my ‘default game’
Well… Sort of. I haven’t sworn off it or anything. It’s just no longer the thing I automatically click ‘play’ on when nothing else is top of mind. Now, I’m only really jumping in for new story content and the like.
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Post-Game Blues
You know when you finish an excellent book and then, rather than being happy it happened, you’re just sad it’s over? Oh- and also that nothing else could ever possibly compare? Yeah– that. But for a game.
The Default Game Issue
I’ve played Wuthering Waves every month for the past 8 months. That is unprecedented in my time here at Time to Loot, and likely not something I’ve done in general since… I dunno… Maybe not since Asheron’s Call? Back when it was officially live?
… Alright, that is a realisation that I could’ve done without…
Moving on!
It’s not even that I particularly want to have a ‘default game’. I enjoy the freedom.
So normally, this wouldn’t be an issue. I like bouncing around. Sampling things. Flexibility is my jam.
Except…
Post Game Blues
I finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in May.
Fair to say: I liked it.
So much so that I told myself — and more damningly, wrote in a post — that I’d be replaying it. Replaying it and writing about it.
I had an inkling of the structure even: a post series, broken into acts running parallel to the game. I was pretty excited to get into it.
And yet… I haven’t clicked play again.
After I was done with Expedition 33 the first time, it certainly left me… I guess ‘affected’ is the right term. It has lived rent-free in my head since. And like I mentioned earlier, it has had an effect remarkably similar to that of finishing a great book.
Somewhat oddly, this effect has extended even to Expedition 33 itself. The written series is very much in jeopardy as the drive to begin it slowly fades in the face of the unrelenting resistance against hitting play.
The Part Where I Pretend to Have Answers
Post-book blues have a relatively easy answer: just read something else. Duh. Although to add a little more flavour to that: Try reading something tonally different or perhaps even in an entirely different genre, to avoid the trap of direct comparison.
The ‘Break Glass in Case of Emergency’ option is to re-read something you’ve previously really enjoyed.
It took me a while to land the ‘right’ game to answer the need this time around.
I was spending *mumble mumble* a lot of time just browsing the library. I scanned through what I had installed. Installed new things. Looked at my wishlist.
Oh! Maybe something in my Early Access folder had a recent good update? And… I did always mean to go back and finish <insert long list of things I meant to go back and finish>.
Hm… Maybe I missed something in my wishlist? I should go back and check…
And maybe, while I’m there, I’ll rearrange some categories. Or uninstall a few things. Or install something else entirely.
…Wait, what time is it?
And just like that, the better part of an evening is gone — wasted looking for something to hit ‘play’ on, at least in part for fear of ‘wasting time’ playing ‘the wrong game’.
Look- I never claimed to be the most sane man on the planet.
In the end, I didn’t even pick the game that broke the cycle.
It picked me.
A couple of friends started getting the itch again — some pre-Borderlands 4 hype creeping in — and suddenly I found myself reinstalling Borderlands 3.
I didn’t hold much hope for it.
It was, after all, roughly the 30th thing to get installed without the mouse cursor so much as venturing to the same pixel co-ordinate zip code as the play button.
But…
This time, I pushed the damned button.
The game launched. I played. I shot things. Loot exploded. Guns yelled at me. Dialogue happened and I mostly ignored it1. But the key thing?
I kept playing.
