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I’m a separated dad with a demanding job and a fiancé. I only have the kids when I’m not working but I want to be fully available for them.

Recently, I’ve noticed that it would be difficult for me to play more than a story/ambiance game (next one is gonna be either Dead Space Remake or Aliens Dark Descent) and forever playable game (Gran Turismo 7 since its launch).

If I played more games with the time I have, I would forget the story or the controls. I haven’t tried but I’m pretty sure of it.

The problem with such a system is that I’m almost a aralyzed when I have to chose which story/ambiance game I’m gonna play.

So what’s your system and what are your time limitations?

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[-] CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

I just buy whichever game i enjoy playing when it's on sale only to never actually getting to play it.

Life is a matter of you either have the time, money or energy. But never all.

I have the money now but not the energy, i just pass out the moment i get home and playing games just gets postponed until i get time off.

[-] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago

Sorry for you as it sounds really sad.

I hope it’s just temporary and you’ll find a more comfortable balance soon.

[-] CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Thank you for the compassion, i'm hoping too.

Currently looking for a different job.

[-] Psythik@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

I'll play one game at a time, binge the hell out of it, then stop right before I beat it (if it's a single player title) and then never touch it again for at least 5 years.

[-] teuto@lemmy.teuto.icu 2 points 3 months ago

I do this, then after the 5 years I feel like I need to start over from the beginning so I know the story. Then I stop just before the end again.

[-] simple@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago

I separate games into two categories basically: Games I can play any time/in-between other games, and games I need to follow until the end or I forget everything and have to start over.

I only play 1 big game at a time if I can help it until I either finish it or lose interest. That said, I can play as many secondary games as I want like Binding of Isaac, UFO 50, Balatro, and whatever multiplayer game I'm into right now.

Especially as I got more busy IRL it became really annoying to play a bunch of big games at once. I ended up restarting Ori Will of the Wisps because I came back to it later and forgot where I was and what I was doing.

[-] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

Add on to this: Slay the Spire, Rouge Legacy 2, that card game... Balatro? Pretty much any rogue like. Hades... Etc.

Secondary games are my main. Sometimes I will play a good story game but it gets broken down into like 1-2 hr segments and only if I can stay awake after everyone goes to bed.

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 3 points 3 months ago

I used to run 7 instances of Ultima Online at once so I could play all my characters at the same time.

[-] Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago

No matter how many I may start, I always end up focusing on just one. I also find it difficult to get back into a game after I have stopped playing it for while, so these days I try to just start only one.

[-] Arkhive@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago

I often get game choice paralysis, so I have extensively categorized my game library to help with both decision making, but also time management. I use numbers to force my categories to sort in the order I want rather than alphabetically by category name.

Also worth noting I only started doing this after I stopped playing an MMO and reclaimed whatever % of my life.

First is my “currently playing” category. This contains roughly one game from each other category/genre.

  • A story driven RPG (Witcher 3 at the moment, the Metro series after)
  • A rhythm game (McOsu, an Osu mod)
  • An optimization/building game (Shapez 2 but maybe back to factorio soon)
  • An action rougelike (going back to Hades before Hades 2)
  • A deck builder (currently MTGA, but my group really wants to ditch WotC)
  • A puzzle game (probably Blue Prince once it comes out)
  • A dedicated indie game spot (the Cairn demo)
  • A few other odd games that I like having quick access to because I like them

There is sort of a secret bonus game to this section, but it also sits outside of this system entirely, because I will ALWAYS go back to it. And that’s the “block game” category. For a long time this was various flavors of modded Minecraft, but I’m so fed up with Microsoft enshitifying my baby that I’ve jumped ship. I’m playing Vintage Story (also heavily modded) and it’s just a better game top to bottom in my opinion.

Then there is an “Interesred” category for games I’ve either been told I should try and also think I might enjoy. I try to keep this small, following roughly a similar “one per genre” as the previous category. I honestly don’t really touch these much, it’s more there for when a spot is freed up in the “currently playing” section. This is also where demos for unreleased games go.

Then there is a “favorite” and “liked” category which largely contain games I’ve played before or are intentionally hyper replayable. This has a lot of my favorite puzzle games, a lot of the various rogue likes with a different game as the core mechanic (think peglin and ballionaire) stuff like that. Basically things to sift through if none of my current games are sparking an interest.

After this is just genre categories used for storage essentially so I can collapse them and not be sick scrolling the whole list.

I have a decent amount of time to game, but also work a very physical job, so I need to be very into a game to prioritize it over sleeping and such.

[-] N00b22@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

The Forza games, they are casual

In Horizon 5 you can do the weekly activities in 2 hours and get the weekly playlist car

[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

So many, depends on the booted OS and what I feel like or what the kids feel like playing.

Currently doing a mix of Quake 2 single player (100%ed it on nightmare but I keep coming back to it), Half-Life deathmatch (hilarious with the kids as we try to lay out traps for eachother), Reflex Arena, Planetside 2, Age of Empires 2, OpenRA, Fortnite (kids love it so I play along), Ion Fury, Fallout 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Last 3 are story modes, so they take long. Only Ion Fury is linear though, so it's easier to come back to.

[-] LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

I'm an independent games reviewer, so 1. But even before I did that, I still could only play 1 at a time.

[-] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

What is your process like ? Do you keep notes as you play through ?

[-] LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

Yeah sorta. I write the review as I go. Whenever a thing jumps out at me or I have moments where I'm focusing on a specific thing frequently, I'll write about a paragraph about it and then move on. Sometimes a long one, sometimes a short one. Once I'm finished with the game, I go back through and edit and restructure and get rid of some things that ended up not being important or change some of my thoughts based on how the game develops. Sometimes, early on, something jumps out at me and I write something about it, and then later on that thing gets fixed and I just get rid of the whole paragraph.

[-] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Thats cool, I imagined as much that it is an evolving sentiment as you play. Thanks for sharing.

this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
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