RE: What are you all playing right now?
May 21, 2024 at 8:08 pm
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2024 at 8:09 pm by emjay.)
I'd forgotten what an awesome, unique, and almost obsessive experience it was to play Stardew Valley. I'm playing it again now because of a recent massive content update.
It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs enacted in a computer game; you start with nothing, struggling to fulfil your most basic needs but by the end you can be working on purely aesthetic, almost "spiritual" goals, like designing your farm or carving out a nice little relaxing space for yourself.
It's not very Buddhist to play the game in the sense that it's all about goals, building things, achievement and accumulation... but at the same time, I think it has more potential for that than most games. I'm kind of always on the search for a "mindful" type game, that remains enjoyable even without goals... where you can just enjoy the moment without constantly striving for something. Essentially sit back and smell the roses so to speak.
This delivers on both fronts I think; naturally speaking, I love goals, and that sense of incremental, cumulative achievement, which is the essence of this game, but at the same time, you can just sit your character down in the moonlight, torches burning, a jukebox on playing your favourite in-game music, and enjoy the moment. I just love this game so much, how much it brings to the table, and how it's almost completely impossible to switch off from it (as seems to be similarly the case with the game you guys are all obsessed with, BG3
).
It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs enacted in a computer game; you start with nothing, struggling to fulfil your most basic needs but by the end you can be working on purely aesthetic, almost "spiritual" goals, like designing your farm or carving out a nice little relaxing space for yourself.
It's not very Buddhist to play the game in the sense that it's all about goals, building things, achievement and accumulation... but at the same time, I think it has more potential for that than most games. I'm kind of always on the search for a "mindful" type game, that remains enjoyable even without goals... where you can just enjoy the moment without constantly striving for something. Essentially sit back and smell the roses so to speak.
This delivers on both fronts I think; naturally speaking, I love goals, and that sense of incremental, cumulative achievement, which is the essence of this game, but at the same time, you can just sit your character down in the moonlight, torches burning, a jukebox on playing your favourite in-game music, and enjoy the moment. I just love this game so much, how much it brings to the table, and how it's almost completely impossible to switch off from it (as seems to be similarly the case with the game you guys are all obsessed with, BG3
).
