Aging gamers were reportedly delighted to see that a new video game called Eldric Quest has accessibility features catered specifically to people their age who do not have enough time to actually play a video game.
“I came back from the office at around 7 p.m. and was so happy to see this mode implemented because holy shit am I tired,”
I feel like a time wizard because I’m like 40, date several people, have a full time job, and still play games and read books. Where is everyone else’s time going??
Is it kids? I don’t have a kid. That might do it.
It’s the kids. Kids take a lot of time. Most folks our age with kids don’t have any time to themselves until it’s 9/10 at night, then still have chores & work the next day.
Plus pets, home/vehicle ownership, commute times, etc… Lots of things that some people have/choose to commit a significant amount of time. Sometimes it’s also not about the total time commitment, but the windows of time available. Things like kids/pets can make it difficult for games that assume you’re actually going to be continuously attentive over 20+ minutes at a time when you can be interrupted by breaking up a fight with the pets, having to let the new puppy outside regularly, hearing the cat about to hack up a hairball, cleaning up the ice cream the kid just dropped, etc…
As a dad with two kids who still finds time to play games. It’s the kids. I have to give up sleep to do it.
I don’t think it’s the difficulty of games that makes them take so long for me. Just that everything is so bloated now. There’s so much to do, but so little of it actually adds to the experience.
I appreciate that a lot of games have realised this and let you differentiate between “go this way to see the end of the game” and “here is some bullshit if you’re not getting another game until Christmas”.
Like sure, I could deliver every parcel in Death Stranding, and really get into the class fantasy of being a post apocalyptic Deliveroo driver, but I’m just mainlining the story quests at this point. Which is taking long enough on its own.
The new assassin’s Creed games feel like this to me as well. I ended up feeling like i had sunk 4000 hours into Valhalla and just stopped giving a shit lol
Also the sequels and prequels. The Assassin’s Creed series is about 30 games long at this point and has countless DLC on top. It’s just way to much stuff. I’d wish companies would just take their engines and do different games with them, instead of trying to shoehorn everything into the same universe. Ironically, that’s kind of like Assassin’s Creed started, it was originally a Prince of Persia game until they made it a separate game entirely, but name recognition is too important these days to just give up, so everything after that ended up as Assassins Creed games.
I am kind of tired of series so complex and convoluted that I need to read a Wiki just to figure what is going on. I miss stories with an actual ending.
I played Odyssey and the DLCs over 2 years ago, and I still feel kind of tuckered out on AC for a bit.
The only thing that makes me want to play Valhalla at some point is the Keith Flint lookalike singing Smack my Bishop.
Smack my bishop completely blindsided me and it was hilarious. Such a good bit
Wait, there’s an “end of the game”?
I know this is satire but I would definitely play a mode like this. I may only be 20 but a 10 hour shift plus nearly 2 hour train rides kill me
Dear god. I burned out around your age with a similar work schedule. Less commute but more work hours. Took me years to recover.
If your situation allows, please find yourself a better work and commute setup. Your boss isn’t going to care that you’re dying inside, especially when they’ve grown accustomed to everything you get done running yourself ragged. If you can, start doing less at work so you have energy to search for other jobs.
In some workplaces, it’s actually better to let things slip so your boss can push for more manpower.
My situation is lucky not the worst. I am currently going to a technical school for medical work. And when I actually am at the place I work in it’s hardly “working” much at all, a good number of days I literally can watch an movie between cases.
Honestly most of the feeling dead is the commute, which unfortunately I don’t have many options for, can’t drive plus no other job I find offers nearly as much as I make (coupled with the fact that this quite literally the only job of its kind in the area).
I also get along very well with my team (literally no drama) and management is pretty nonexistent and we all take a firm stand when they do.
I very much appreciate the concern however
I mean many games usually have an easy mode.
I frequently play on it.
yeah I’m glad I’ve kind of let myself play in easy, I enjoy games much more that way
I only realized it was satire after I opened the thread and saw it was HardDrive, not only did it feel something a game would do (probably a New Blood game) but I was also genuinely stoked
The Steam Deck might be just the thing for your commute.
I actually have both a deck and a switch. I’m just too tired before and after work to play on my commute.
I feel you.
I have found that searching for game reviews with the term “Cozy Gamer” finds games that fit into that after work funk, for me, when I have that time.
Great tip, first thing I found was this which is definitely right up my street
As a 40yr old developer of a FOSS RTS game (not released yet), I generally aim at games taking from 20 - 30 minutes. This is because I usually have only about 1 or 2 hours to play games with the bois after work. Additionally, I am usually extremely tired, so I try to implement a lot of QOL features that make the game less arduous to play.
Recently a popular RTS game that uses the same engine as mine has had a lot of sweats complaining about widgets (Long story, but they are unsynced bits of lua code that can extend things. They have limited access to the synced state, but are still pretty powerful). Basically people complaining about a specific widget that will make your units try to stay at max range when in a fight. While this sounds pretty useful, in the case of players who are relatively decent with rts gameplay, it’s more of an irritation to deal with than anything else.
But as a developer of this type of game, I have a vested interest in making players who aren’t as good be able to compete with players like myself who are really good. If that means some (very) rudimentary AI will try to make your units behave somewhat intelligently when you aren’t paying attention, I’m totally down for that. I find that as I get older, even though I am extremely experienced and good in rts games, I appreciate such tools existing for the players who simply aren’t that great. I don’t get my dopamine hits from steamrolling another player, I get my hits from good fights and satisfying battles. A lot of people I talk to make me feel like an outlier, but I know good and goddamn well that there are a lot of lesser skilled players that just wouldn’t bother with speaking up.
I have a very large problem with games that don’t respect my time. Elite Dangerous is a perfect example. I avoided it for a very long time because people went on and on about how hard it was to fly. Turns out, anyone who played descent 1 and descent 2 (And now Overload on steam (seriously, buy this shit, it’s modern descent built by the original devs and it’s amazing)) can fly the crafts with ease. The space combat is pretty shit tier. However, it’s gorgeous, and super cool, BUT, the developers refuse to implement any sort of fast travel. The sheer amount of time that it takes to get anywhere is mind boggling. I would spent 6 hours flying on a day off, and still not manage to really get anything done. This is the perfect example of a game that does not respect my time. I HATE games like this. I try to understand that time literally is money. That isn’t only a cliche. As you get older, you realize that time is a resource, and as you get older, you find that you have so little free time, that any time lost can be a really heavy blow.
You have a name and/or link tothe game under dev? Would love to see it!
So I spent some time thinking about this. Imma send you a like to a vod of me playing against one of the other devs (he does all of the balance design) instead of linking it directly. It isn’t done yet. It is fully playable, and on our discord there are some download codes for people to use if they want to play test with us.
Just understand at best it’s alpha currently.
https://twitch.tv/videos/1873895670
We have a lot of good discussion on our discord and generally our dev chat stays open for all to read. A modicum of googling will find the GitHub and horrendously out of date wiki + discord and probably even our itch.io listing
Wow that looks really good. I like the map style of choosing where you started. And it seemed to run really smoothly performance wise.
This is sea of thieves for me. I had a friend who was obsessed with it, but you’re basically required to dump multiple hours in to complete anything and even then … You could get your ship sunk and lose it all. It’s incredibly frustrating.
“We’re here for you and we know that being 35 is really really really old, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.”
I feel seen.
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I never did ender dragon cause’ it was added after I was already done with the game in beta times lol
Same lol. I actually went back for the mobile version and all this stuff with enchanting and villages it’s like an entirely different game
really like the implementation. I remember playing the Witcher 3 on easy mode just to be able to go through the story and enjoy the fantastic scenery. One of the best gaming experiences of my life. especially on an ultra wide monitor
yep, I just started playing the DLCs on story mode again. I beat the main game on regular some time back but now I just want to bask in the lushness of Toussaint without having to think too much about which buttons to press
Currently playing through witcher 3 on my ps5 on story mode. Really loving it so far
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I would absolutely choose this mode without any shame. I already spend plenty of time in “Story Mode” difficulty; I don’t care to spend hours of frustration trying to hit just the right dodge pattern for a boss because I no longer have the finger dexterity that I did when I was 20.
I play an awful lot of games on easy mode now anyway, unless I’m going in specifically to learn the game (Fromsoft games for example). If I’m playing a random open world game or a FPS I’m gonna knock that difficulty down to make life a little easier.
Time. I’d rather not do this, but I get like maybe five hours a week to play. The days where I can sit down on weekends and just…game are long gone, and likely won’t return until the kids are much older.
This is how gaming dies. Easy mode should be forbitten as default and game should be always at hardest diffuculty and focus on challenging content and not grind. Hard challenges keep everyone busy, dosnt matter if you have infinite free time if you suck gaming. That should be the direction of a real game and not this no sense cringe “don’t have time to farm, here pay 80$ for your season-extraExp-bigEzRewards”. Fucking ridicoulus. Fucking Devs should actually rewarding the player who spend little time that the fucking no life grinder. Damn make % base drop chance -10% chance of legendary loot for each hour of the day log inside the game and gg.
You imply that easy mode = grind. I’m not sure why, they have nothing to do with each other. You can grind hard content just as much as easy content.
Damn make % base drop chance -10% chance of legendary loot for each hour of the day log inside the game and gg.
Man, for someone who wants things to be “hard”, you really want to be rewarded for time spent, as opposed to skill. Hilariously, you’re the target audience for those $80 content skips: people who want to feel like they’re good, whether or not they’re actually good.
You’re out here talking about “no sense cringe” while posting nearly illegible drivel about how you feel entitled to success because you have more hours to kill. Step back, get some perspective. Most people have made their time valuable. It’s not on them if you’ve failed to do the same.
I think you missed the minus sign there and misread this, I will translate it: “The chance for rare loot to drop should be continuously reduced by 10% for every hour you log inside the game. I.e., you should receive rewards for completing difficult challenges rapidly, that is, skillfully.” The implication seems to be that if the challenge is hard and you are not good at it, and are just throwing yourself at a wall repeatedly, or the challenge is non-existent/mindless (chore simulator), if you are repetitively doing either and grinding hours away, they are one and the same, and neither is a meritorious achievement. I think this is an interesting angle, as very few games reward skill expression or eureka moments as a momentous achievement. The vast majority, genre and budget irrespective, rely on the (easier to implement) crutch of locking progression behind pointless tedium, so given enough hours sunk in, everyone can win. It is interesting to think about how, whether, and under what conditions games could reward the above.
Easy…Stop buying new games.
This isn’t a new game only issue tho. Plenty of games waste your time wether it came out this year, 10, 20, 30 years ago. It can be moreso worse in the past due to limits in game design such as only saving at set checkpoints (or even saving at all if you go back far enough)
I’ve heard it since the mid 2000s when EGM (Electronic Gaming Magazine) couldn’t keep up with what was coming out for reviews with Xbox push for indy’s (which lead to more tools and more flooding) plus AAA games. That was before phone games were even a thing. So everyone started to move to podcasts like real early circa 2005 and video reviews like gamespot would do. Same time Steam was slowly roasting in the background. Few years go by Epic also starts do some moves. 2011 Twitch basically becomes the place to review a game by watching someone play it. That feeling almost felt like you didn’t even to play the game because you watched it. 2012 Steam gets early access. The Market has been flooded for a decade not to mention so many games became templates of each other. What’s my point? There’s a ton of great things to play in many different genres that go back to the inception of games. Find what you like and enjoy it. There’s so much media today, one of the reasons save states changed over time. I will not watch every show or every movie nor all the books, comicbooks and manga or put in time with all my other hobbies ie drawing, painting, sculpting. Hard trying to keep up with your friends, some might be better off than you or have more time than you. You get older shit changes, people schedules change, you are more tired and sleepy and probably have more responsibilities. This is life, go for a walk outside come back in and do something you enjoy. That being said I do enjoy quality of life changes in some games but in others it might lose the soul of the game. TLDR There’s too much of everything and it’s overwhelming.
Main reason games like Deathloop, Outer Wilds, Gunfire Reborn, Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivors, etc. got their hooks in me so deep - something I can sit down, fire up to play solo (it’s tough as hell to get friends together to squad in games when all your friends are also 35 and busy), knock out a 30min - 2hr play session, and put down without feeling like I’m in the middle of something.
Love how many games there are these days who play like this. Seems like rogue-lites do it best, but it’s nice to see other genres making it work, too.
To be fair, that’s also a list of very high quality games.
I know Death loop got a lot of shit for its AI, but it’s honestly a criminally underrated game.
I’ve been meaning to try it out, it’s on GamePass, but I worry that it’s the kind of game that takes a lot of brainpower to “solve” while also requiring a lot of skill. I can do one or the other but both at once stresses me out! lol
Deathloop is great, I got it right around release and played through it over the course of a few weeks.
It doesn’t take brainpower to solve. There’s a whole time loop puzzle but the most disappointing aspect of the game was that it’s a solved solution. The game spells out exactly what objectives to complete at which places and at what times. While you play through the game the first time you’re uncovering twists and clues as to how to solve the puzzle but instead of letting you deduce a solution the games builds out a step by step list of markers for you to follow.
It’s essentially the complete opposite of how The Outer Wilds, which has a similar time loop aspect with a puzzle to solve, handles it.
That being said, give Deathloop a shot because it’s still a fun shooter with neat mechanics that lean very close to immersive sim levels of freedom.
Sounds good, I’ll check it out when I get bored of Remnant 2. :-D
Real talk: I’d rather kill my hour bashing my head against something challenging then progress actively through something not challenging. “Beating the game” just isn’t a drive for me. I play while it’s fun, which often (but not always) involves the game being challenging, and often, unless the story has particularly gripped me, I don’t care to “finish” it.
But that is me. A lot of people derive their enjoyment from progressing in games. Good, adaptable difficulty settings are so important for games, and the sooner we recognize that instead of shaming people for wanting things the be accessible, the better.
I’m 55 and I hate this. Yeah, I know, it’s satire. So is mine. Kinda.
I am also 55. And every time I get spanked in Destiny 2 pvp I am reminded that my reflexes are now shit, and my days of pvp glory in UT and CS are decades behind me. I’m officially a pve player now.
41 yo here. Definitely feeling the same. What pve games do you play? I’m on xbox, just checking Deep Rock Galactic.
City builder simulators like Foundation or Cities: Skylines. Anything with a Pause button.
The consoles suspend button they all added last gen is a godsend for me. No cocking about with loading, finding a save point, etc. Just, on and off.
“Anything with a pause button.”
Someone make this into a shirt with a cool gamer logo. I’ve found my gamer crew.
Oh, I meant pve within Destiny 2 but I get what you mean. Outside it all I always go back to Minecraft.
I played Destiny 2 but found it quite stressful and too hard for me.
