Random Gaming Thoughts

[RCBH928]

I was under the impression that any device can run Doom?

I think I saw Doom being run on a Calculator Watch and on a Refrigerator.

It can run it, just no one made an official version to run on MacOS but via GZDoom is silk smooth.

There's this hurdle with a lot of games that makes it quite difficult. I find these few games that are amazing in concept, but the learning curve overwhelms me and I get way too intimidated and don't wanna play it anymore. How do you get over that hurdle? Is it just a lack of self-confidence on my part?

learning curve keeps me away from starting any game, the modern ones just have too much. Even older ones like SimCity I guess. Retro games were just more "fun time" than "work time". Mario was D-Pad and 1 jump button, any one can play it. Doom arrow keys+fire button , shoot everything.

I tell myself it's okay to suck at a game, I don't have to master it or fully understand it as long as I'm having fun.

If I'm not having fun I just accept not every game is going to be for me even if I think it's interesting or well made otherwise.

Thats great philosophy I will adopt it. Maybe I should adopt it for other aspects of my life too

This has helped me beat a lot of games I started but gave up on as a kid, or ones I would likely give up as "too hard" if I could just switch to a different game whenever I wanted.

No game is too hard with "save any where" ! The inventor should get a noble prize. Unless the game is a strategy game where you realise that 8 hours in, you made a mistake at hour 2 that lead you here and now you have to start all over again. Pandemic does this, keeps you playing while you made a mistake at step 3 and now you are at step 25 but it keeps going on. I stopped playing. You have to keep using trial and error until you find the "correct" path.

[Limewater]

No game is too hard with "save any where" ! The inventor should get a noble prize. Unless the game is a strategy game where you realise that 8 hours in, you made a mistake at hour 2 that lead you here and now you have to start all over again. Pandemic does this, keeps you playing while you made a mistake at step 3 and now you are at step 25 but it keeps going on. I stopped playing. You have to keep using trial and error until you find the "correct" path.

Unless "save anywhere" is built into a game, I try not to use it. Right now I'm replaying through The Dig. You can save anywhere, so I use it. It's not that vital, though, because I don't think there are any dead ends in the game. But it's also a point-n-click adventure game, not a difficult action game.

If I'm playing something on an emulator then I try to be judicious with my save-state usage. I basically only let myself save my state at the end of a play session. I greatly prefer to play on real hardware, but I had to make this concession simply because I may only get an hour or two of video game time in a week, and that may be interrupted at any time.

I am not a big fan of save scumming. If I resort to that then I don't consider myself to have legitimately beaten the game.

[marurun]

I am not a big fan of save scumming. If I resort to that then I don't consider myself to have legitimately beaten the game.

If that works for you that's great. Keep doing it! I absolutely don't share that philosophy. I'm playing the game to have fun, to enjoy the experience. The game works for me, I don't work for it.

[Gucci]

I save and reload very often in stealth games like Dishonored. I see no issue with that.

[Limewater]

I am not a big fan of save scumming. If I resort to that then I don't consider myself to have legitimately beaten the game.

If that works for you that's great. Keep doing it! I absolutely don't share that philosophy. I'm playing the game to have fun, to enjoy the experience. The game works for me, I don't work for it.

I'm not telling anyone else how to play.

But, if you beat Ghosts N Goblins both times by saving and reloadig every ten seconds are you really going to claim to have "beaten" Ghosts N Goblins?

To this day, it's the only game where I took photos of my television to capture the end screen.

[marurun]

I'm not telling anyone else how to play.

But, if you beat Ghosts N Goblins both times by saving and reloadig every ten seconds are you really going to claim to have "beaten" Ghosts N Goblins?

To this day, it's the only game where I took photos of my television to capture the end screen.

Oh, I know you're not telling us how to play. I'm just making sure those who don't gel with that approach also feel supported in their play style.

Yes, if I get to the end of the game, I have beaten in. There are lots of games with mechanical exploits, many unintended, that render the game trivial, especially RPGs, but also FPS games. If you get enemies stuck on corners because of bad pathing and pick them off from a distance, does that mean you didn't "beat" the game? No, it just means you did it in a completely unintended way. I don't see emulation tricks like save scumming as being any different from the Konami code, AI/mechanical/RNG exploits, or just "gettin' gud". I'm not comparing my performance in the game to anyone else's. When I was younger I was more bound by the "rules" of the game, but I'm older, with less time to engage and more responsibilities. My modern conveniences don't invalidate my younger self's achievements, just as my younger self doing everything the hard way doesn't hurt my current self's approach to games.

[Limewater]

When I was younger I was more bound by the "rules" of the game, but I'm older, with less time to engage and more responsibilities. My modern conveniences don't invalidate my younger self's achievements, just as my younger self doing everything the hard way doesn't hurt my current self's approach to games.

That's funny. As I have gotten older and busier I have gone the opposite way.

When I was younger I accumulated games quickly and was often distracted halfway through a game by whatever I had just added to my collection. I was also more likely to use save-states a lot if playing an emulator just to get to the end of a game because I felt like I had a lot of ground to cover.
Now I am older and have slowed the growth of my collection substantially. Watching subtitled episodes of Game Center CX convinced me that I could go back and beat a lot of the games that "beat me" as a kid.
This means that I play far fewer different games in a year than I may have before, though this is largely because, again, I don't get a lot of play time. But I find that I tend to appreciate a game a lot more if I invest time to "git gud" than if I save-scum through it.

It is possible I may be wrong on this, though. I can't think of any specific examples of games I save-scummed through as a kid and then went back and beat "legitimately" later, other than Ghosts N Goblins. A lot of the others I haven't really revisited yet. I was underwhelmed by Bionic Commando, but when I eventually get back to it I may find that it really warrants all the praise it gets. I don't know.

I do see save-states and cheat codes as different than exploiting in-game bugs. An in-game bug may be a mistake, but it's still part of the game, and discovering it can be part of exploring the game.

[marurun]

It is possible I may be wrong on this, though. I can't think of any specific examples of games I save-scummed through as a kid and then went back and beat "legitimately" later, other than Ghosts N Goblins. A lot of the others I haven't really revisited yet. I was underwhelmed by Bionic Commando, but when I eventually get back to it I may find that it really warrants all the praise it gets. I don't know.

I do see save-states and cheat codes as different than exploiting in-game bugs. An in-game bug may be a mistake, but it's still part of the game, and discovering it can be part of exploring the game.

I'm actually better at games in some ways now than I was when I was younger. But I'm also more prone to RSI issues. I've been wresting a bout of cubital tunnel syndrome lately that's made it hard to play twitch games comfortably. I beat Joe and Mac 2 on the Switch SNES service using save states in part because the game was stupid hard and annoying and I was determined to get through it any way I could, and wasn't interested in spending any more time with it than I needed to. But I also had to give up Hollow Knight because I didn't have the time, skill, or manual dexterity to get past one particular spot. But I totally would savestate through that spot if I could. The game is so compelling in other ways.

For me it doesn't matter if a strategy or exploit is internal or external. I'm still experiencing and exploring the game on my terms. I'd rather experience the game any way I can than not at all.

[ElkinFencer10]

My philosophy is that unless you pay for my game, idgaf about your opinion on my chosen way to play. With that said, popo and flake both have a lot of leeway with telling me how to play several games lmao

[nickfil]

But I also had to give up Hollow Knight because I didn't have the time, skill, or manual dexterity to get past one particular spot. But I totally would savestate through that spot if I could. The game is so compelling in other ways.

I had the same experience with hollow knight but I don't think I'd power through with a save state. I was getting what that game was putting down and it is just an uphill battle the entire time.

I also never felt compelled to keep going? It felt so open ended that I hit a point where is ¹ difficult and ² has nothing pushing me through the story.

I get why people love it. It just wasn't for me.