Nerd Girl Thoughts

This is me, fully admitting I have no real and actual plan for the month.

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Community Game-Along

Normally, I try to pick out what I’m going to play for the theme of the month way before the month starts. Usually, this isn’t too hard, because either I only have a couple of games that might fit the theme that I’ve even vaguely interested in, or I have a ton because it’s a theme I already really enjoy so there probably won’t be a bad pick.

But I’m going to make a confession here: JRPGs confuse the heck out of me.

Using Steam’s Dynamic Collection feature gives me 54 games to choose from this month. My own (admittedly sort of haphazard) organizational system shows that I have 73 choices. Not a single one of those games have I played for more than a few minutes, and clearly I don’t necessarily know what a JRPG even is.

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So, I downloaded a whole bunch of stuff to dabble in and see if anything sticks.

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Play to Satisfaction

For me, saying “Play to Satisfaction” gives me explicit permission to drop a game that’s not working for me, but also to grind away for nerd points if I’m really loving something. I’m trying to make it a policy for myself that I will always play to satisfaction – no more, no less.

I still have a few outstanding game-related stuff I’d like to finish up over the next few weeks, but there’s plenty of stuff I haven’t already talked about I’d like to add onto my plate this month.

Oh, look, it’s another spot where I don’t quite have anything definitive to say. The Steam Summer Sale is going on through July 9, and I’m waiting to make my bigger purchases until after the Humble Choice reveal on the 3rd. Not that I’m expecting overlap, but why go through the hassle of doing returns if I don’t have to?

I had originally planned to get Disco Elysium as my big splurge game, but I’ve been poking around, and there’s a not-insignificant number of reports of frequently crashes by people playing on AMD graphics cards, so that one got pushed back in priority for me.

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Now, I am primarily debating between Megaquarium and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Triology – neither of which I truly need, but I can see either one of them being something I’d enjoy playing sooner rather than later, so whichever one I choose, I’d like to put some hours into it this month.

I’d also like to dabble in whatever else I pick up, big or small. So far, I’ve bought four little games that looked good to me, and I’ll likely pick up another handful of sub-$10 titles. I don’t feel like I have to play them to completion immediately, but I want to put in enough time to confirm they’re good games for me.

I’d also at least like to take a look at No Man’s Sky before my XBox Game Pass for PC runs out in about a week.

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On the MMO front, I’ve reinstalled RIFT. After reading Syp’s recent post about it, I decided to take another trip through Telara, just to see if there’s any joy left there for me.

As far as Smite is concerned, I’d like to get familiar with more of the gods that have been added since I last played, and try to find a couple in each role that I feel at least moderately competent on. The group I’m playing with is made up mostly of folks new to the game, so I’m not dragging them down overly much just yet, but I would like to be able to be a little more flexible than I am at the moment.

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Mid-Year Reset

I don’t think 2020 has been what any of us expected it to be when we were looking forward back in the fall and winter of last year. I gave myself a couple of challenges, and as it turns out, neither of them are really working out for me. I have decided I’m no longer going to work on either Low Spend 2020 or my Ten Games to Tackle ideas.

I think my Low Spend idea has succeeded, in that I put a lot more thought into what I’m buying. If I don’t see myself playing it reasonably soon, or if I already have something (or multiple somethings) unplayed in my library that I expect will offer a similar play experience, I don’t make the purchase. I’ve also found myself thinking a lot more about spending more on interesting independent games, and less on blockbuster titles that I just seem to collect and never actually play.

As far as taking on some of the bigger, more intimidating titles in my library, what I’ve mostly discovered is (a) big games are still overwhelming and (b) I often feel like I have to play a game because it’s a huge success and it shows up on Must Play lists. I think I need to give a little more thought to what makes games work for me – while it’s good to step outside my comfort zone now and again, I need to accept that my taste, skill level, and tolerance for frustration just make some games unplayable for me, and there’s plenty of other choices out there.

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For a post about my monthly goals, this one feels extremely nebulous. It’s strange to be so forthright about just not having any idea what I want to do right now.