Nerd Girl Thoughts

Today’s entry should be about the next game on my list (Network), but I’ve been unable to get my butt in the chair and actually get the playing part done. I’m fine with being in the chair to endlessly doomscroll through my Twitter feed, or to browse Reddit, or even to do a little online shopping, so I though maybe I just wasn’t feeling the game.

Now, when I’m not feeling a particular game, both during and outside of this particular project, I don’t immediately jump to blaming the game. Which is not to say that it is never the game, but first I check my current mental and physical state. Is it a really bad pain day? Am I too tired to start something new? Am I overly stressed about something? Have I remembered to eat and drink appropriately throughout the day? A lot of times, it’s one or more of these issues, and if it’s a problem that’s actually solvable (usually the eating one), I do that and give it a second chance.

So yesterday, I ate some dinner, took a couple of Tylenol and a nap, and tried to come back to it, and lasted five whole minutes. At this point, I conceded that maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for a janky horror adventure title, and jumped to the next game on my list – Polyville Canyon – which I had actually been quite looking forward to. I managed to stick with that for thirteen minutes.

Instead of persevering with either title I had just bounced off of, or frustrating myself further by jumping further ahead in my list, I just accepted that it wasn’t happening today. There’s no shame in falling off schedule now and then. I’ve been going hard on this project for three months now, and I keep pushing because there are just so many games I’d like to look at.

On the other hand, who does it serve to push myself into burnout territory? Not me, certainly. Not anyone who read this blog, nor anyone whose game I might talk about when I’m just not feeling it. So I’m going to give myself some grace, and accept that I may either miss some titles this month, or end up with some weeks that are packed full of project posts. I need to be okay with either one.

I think, generally speaking, creating goals for oneself is often more important than actually meeting all of them.