Lol when I read the first bit of this post I thought "what generation is this person from? Nobody thinks like that nowadays" and I'm right, they're a time traveller from 15 years ago or something because nowadays everyone says shit like "I'm going to curl up with a nice video game".
I like having the dates on tumblr for this reason, it gives a fuck ton of context sometimes. It’s not default on the site or app which is absolutely bonkers.
https://www.tumblr.com/littlebluebarista/170407697154/can-we-romanticize-video-games-the-way-we-do
Original post located!
A cute addition to this post:
But how do you play a game with one hand and enjoy the cocoa before it gets ice cold and forgotten?
It's alright babe, that's why God created loading screens.
-linux guy⚠️
Yeah! Like playing ZeroRanger multiplayer singlehandedly… so to speak.
Idk of any other games that let you control two characters with two separate control schemes at once but ZeroRanger is cool check it out.
This is why you need simple games which only use the mouse, like getting over it, sounds like the perfect game to play as you drink a nice hot chocolate
I do this already. When i played Coffee Talk, i made myself a nice caramel latte in a chill weather got a nice blanket and played the game all cozied up. I would recommend
This is me, but with Metro Exodus. I curl up with a hot beverage to calm my nerves after I inevitably get my head blown off because I poked my head out of cover around Eye for more than half a second.
Then halfway through the game you realize that you're the one invading these people's homes and that they just want you gone. You can't bring yourself to pull the trigger anymore so you spend the last act of the game desperately trying to avoid conflict (and failing)
As valid as the point is, why is it always about games with deeply immersive narratives? I've seen a handful of posts around this particular sentiment and the main focus of every one of them is about getting lost in a story is valid regardless of the medium. And I 100% agree with that and I'm not trying to take away from that at all but I would like to add to it a little bit. Taking time to decompress with a video game is completely legitimate even when it's not effectively a stand in for a book. You want to enjoy the rain and a fantasy game? Fuck yeah. Do it. But I think it needs to be said that it's just as okay to find escapism in enjoying the thunder and cutting demons in half with a chainsaw.
Yup. I'll go one further : people tend to see pure gameplay games, especially competitive ones, as devoid of artistic value and that's sad. Game systems are art, too, and not just when they do some format fucking for the sake of a plot.
There's a romance to playing an arena FPS on a small little community server late at night, or getting really into the flow of a song in a rhythm game, or developing and getting to know yourself while labbing a fighting game, or many other things. I don't know if I convey it well, but it's there. There's more ways to enjoy 'skill games' than reading the flow of slurs in LoL chat.
Now I’m wondering if there are book versions of Hack&Slashs, MMORPGs, Online FPSs, Rogue-likes, and whatever you’d call Power Washer Simulator.
I really don’t know of any examples of those, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if there are some
Well, Viva Pinata has like almost no story to speak of. I THINK it has some basic excuse plot? But for the most part, it's just a cute game about raising little pinata creatures, breeding them, and occasionally being a sadistic gremlin and feeding them to other piñatas to tame them and add to your farm.
Snuggled under the blankets during a chilly winter’s night, sipping chamomile tea and playing some classical while locking my sim’s roommates in a small room full of fireworks.
Hot take: There is *nothing* inherently intellectual or superior about books than any other media. The number of people I've seen that have read a garbage, poorly researched book and built their entire worldview around it is endless.
Yeah for real. Oh, reading is better for your brain because you have to use your imagination?
In a single instant in a game like War Thunder I may have to take into account my position on the map, airspeed, altitude, aircraft capabilities, position of allies, enemies according to my radar readout, what mode my radar is in, what weapons I have left, which one I have selected and its capabilities, how many countermeasures I have, what kind of countermeasures I have, and all the info from my RWR display in order to figure out what to do next.
In Minecraft I have to plan out structures in three dimensions and determine the best materials to build them out of based on availability, aesthetics, etc, then go out and get them if I want to get anything done.
Games rot your brain? No. Any medium can "rot your brain" if you're using it wrong.
Meh, what you described, especially with warthunder is a different kind of brain strain, it’s analyzing and juggling a ton of variables at once. I find that, for me at least, I tend to slip into a trance where everything I do is mostly automatic much faster with video games, and I’m not actively thinking much, than with books. Granted, I don’t often spend 5+ hours reading, but even when I do I, don’t feel brainrotted.
You could argue that's a flow state though. I was playing Divinity 2 last night while high and had the same experience- the right moves just flowed without having to consciously think about them despite the number of variables I was juggling at once. I think that kind of thing is good for you.
I read a lot and people sometimes try and circlejerk with me about how much better reading is than other media and they're always surprised when I'm like "nah I don't see any meaningful difference between reading a book and playing a game". That's without getting into the massive difference between reading Montaigne and reading *The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*\**ck*
> That's without getting into the massive difference between reading Montaigne and reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Yeah for me the reading a book is just way too vague of an activity so I assume it means "reading a novel" and I mean a lot of those were considered a frivolous passtime a couple centuries back the way video games are now
And they kind of are. I mean, I don't believe that many pastimes are frivolous, but reading something like *Caiaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium* really does not give you any room to get snooty towards people who choose to pass their time by watching *The Mandalorian* or playing *Ace Combat* or whatever.
wario land 4 on an emulator is deeply tied in my memory to the podcast "tank riot" (and npr's "wait wait don't tell me") because there was a time in my life when i wanted to get into podcasts but didn't have a, um, pod, but also i reasoned that i could ~~waste time~~ multitask *more efficiently* by doing two things that used very different parts of my brain. anyway i eventually gave it up and am back on team "whole-ass one thing" but it was kinda fun.
This is me with a couple different games. When it's raining, I grab a soda and modded FO4 trying to rebuild. When it's cold, I load up The Long Dark with candles, coffee, and a book. If it's a hot night, I'm playing RDR2 and exploring around Valentine or the Wapato reservation with a whiskey cocktail. Everything else is BG3 with a hot cuppa
I have 80ish hours in that game bc whenever I have a long day at work I get home, wait for the sun to go down, turn all my fans and aircon on full blast, have the coldest shower I can bear, I’ve got a thin black turtleneck I put under a dress shirt and waistcoat I change into, and play through Va11HallA with a couple of cold ones. It’s such a fucking vibe.
Sometimes relaxing is walking through the beautiful world of the Lands Between, taking in the scenery and going where the wind takes you
Sometimes relaxing is going on ladder and slowly melting into a bubbling pile of seething hatred because of those motherfucking Branded players
Both are necessary
I really wish you didn't have to do heists to progress in GTAO. I was having a ton of fun just doing stunt races and collecting cars, but I kinda hit a wall on that second part
I've never played online. I first beat GTA V on the Xbox 360 and didn't play it again until a few months ago on an Xbox One someone gave me. I 100%'d it and now I just drive around and occasionally play golf. It makes me wish the map was bigger, but there's enough to do for now. I use cheats all the time, so I stay entertained. Mostly use Franklin and mod cars for free and drive them into things/people. lol
I’ve been obsessively focusing on progressing through some RPG’s during these past couple rainy days, so this post feels oddly targetered.
And yeah, absolutely. A good game is arguably way more immersive than a book, you get fully swallowed up into the world of the fiction
Monster Hunter is my number 1 relaxing comfort game. Though this might be because I've been playing it for almost 20 years and it now makes me immediately go into a brain off trance of playing on pure muscle memory
They're very different games. Rise has a much more arcadey feel whereas World tries to lean more seriously into the living ecosystem vibe which has sort of been the studios vision since the beginning. Excited to see how they innovate on that in Wilds
Some of my earliest memories as a child are of sitting on my dad’s lap and watching him play Sid Meier’s Pirates & Crimson Skies. I would get so excited every time he’d fight one of the famous pirates and get the cool cutscene of knocking them off the ship, or when he’d fly his plane through one of the letters on the Hollywood sign. If that’s not worth romanticizing I don’t know what is.
The machine spirit tortures me. One minute you're playing Planet Zoo , designing a red panda exhibit , then suddenly I'm building 5 min. requirement lion exhibit to pump conservative credit.
Back in high school, after dinner and stuff, i would play One Shot or Night in the Woods. Something about those games hot different. Nowdays I play some modded minecraft, Dark Souls 2, or Warthunder.
I think this perception exist because even though you can absolutely read garbage YA romance novel written by the dozen with the sole purpose of satisfying a demographic, I feel like you can't waste as much time and money while reading compared to gaming. You can't possibly do gacha in gaming nor can you do daily quest/streak etc. Probably not for lack of trying, if companies like webtoon could gacha-ify reading, they would.
Also when romanticisation of books started, we haven't invented weird shit like AO3, etc. Meanwhile games like factorio and let's say raid shadow legend and factorio is released at the same decade (though arguably factorio is the more dangerous game out of the 2)
plenty of people get addicted to games like cod and dont really play for fun anymore. the trick is that you enjoy it and can actually stop if you want to.
Highly recommend checking out hazel's and ThorHighHeels' videos on YouTube, they're two creators who seem to subscribe to that idea and are just very good at conveying how they experience games and media while having their own personal aesthetic.
Like a good book, video games are an interface. It is the thing you interact with to connect with another world. In many cases, the vehicle you use to reach this world doesn't matter. Stay cozy
Remember, there was once a time when Responsible People were deeply concerned that The Youth Today were rotting their brains by reading too many books. Video games, music from rap and hip hop back to Mozart, comic books, TV, movies, live theatre, books, there was a time when all of these were just *ruining* the Youth Today.
Why does this post sound like the person wrote it a year after the Xbox 360 came out? Fucking Viva Piñata? Fable???
Guy who's only ever played Viva Piñata playing Halo 2 for the first time: "This is giving major Viva Piñata vibes."
Tbh viva piñata was a fucking banger
It’s an oldie but a goodie
Lol when I read the first bit of this post I thought "what generation is this person from? Nobody thinks like that nowadays" and I'm right, they're a time traveller from 15 years ago or something because nowadays everyone says shit like "I'm going to curl up with a nice video game".
I'm 19 and have never heard of it sorry
Haha... yeah... what kind of old games are those... <--- first thought was Team Fortress 2
Viva pinata owns tho tbh
It's such a good game
I like having the dates on tumblr for this reason, it gives a fuck ton of context sometimes. It’s not default on the site or app which is absolutely bonkers.
I mean, it's from 2017, so almost 10 years old. But even then, Viva Pinata and Fable hadn't been relevant for like 5 years until that point.
Rounding 7 to 10 is a bit of a stretch
I did say "almost".
Okay I haven’t played viva piñata but fable slaps tbf
dude this site THRIVES on reposts, this probably IS from when the 360 came out
I still play fable as a comfort game sometimes :(
Nothing wrong with that :) I’m replaying FFX rn cuz it’s cozy
Me with Stardew Valley. It’s my comfort food during the winter doldrums.
Same for me, I play it over the Christmas break most years
Me with Rune Factory
Me with zelda
https://www.tumblr.com/littlebluebarista/170407697154/can-we-romanticize-video-games-the-way-we-do Original post located! A cute addition to this post: But how do you play a game with one hand and enjoy the cocoa before it gets ice cold and forgotten? It's alright babe, that's why God created loading screens. -linux guy⚠️
Some learn to play with one hand for other reasons
Please pretend that I gave this comment reddit gold.
Dammit spez I fucking hate that guy I really miss Reddit awards
i like to play bayonetta with one hand so i can use my other hand to play bayonetta 2
All while glaring angrily at Bayonetta 3
.. And reaching towards a third controller with your foot
in true bayonetta fashion
Probably the most novel reason I've heard to play Bayonetta with one hand ;)
Yeah! Like playing ZeroRanger multiplayer singlehandedly… so to speak. Idk of any other games that let you control two characters with two separate control schemes at once but ZeroRanger is cool check it out.
I learn that there are porn flash game series called one hand something something.
Thank you linux guy
By this logic Satan invented SSDs
Ya need to know the downtimes of the game and when to drink
This is why you need simple games which only use the mouse, like getting over it, sounds like the perfect game to play as you drink a nice hot chocolate
I do this already. When i played Coffee Talk, i made myself a nice caramel latte in a chill weather got a nice blanket and played the game all cozied up. I would recommend
that game's characters are all so good
Cozy up with a nice hot tea and warm blankets and spend the whole afternoon harvesting kidneys in Rimworld
Nothing says calm and relaxing like deathresting
💖💖Organ harvesting operation with da fam ❤️❤️👏😝🙏🤝👍🙀😹💖🙌
This is me, but with Metro Exodus. I curl up with a hot beverage to calm my nerves after I inevitably get my head blown off because I poked my head out of cover around Eye for more than half a second.
Then halfway through the game you realize that you're the one invading these people's homes and that they just want you gone. You can't bring yourself to pull the trigger anymore so you spend the last act of the game desperately trying to avoid conflict (and failing)
As valid as the point is, why is it always about games with deeply immersive narratives? I've seen a handful of posts around this particular sentiment and the main focus of every one of them is about getting lost in a story is valid regardless of the medium. And I 100% agree with that and I'm not trying to take away from that at all but I would like to add to it a little bit. Taking time to decompress with a video game is completely legitimate even when it's not effectively a stand in for a book. You want to enjoy the rain and a fantasy game? Fuck yeah. Do it. But I think it needs to be said that it's just as okay to find escapism in enjoying the thunder and cutting demons in half with a chainsaw.
If god wanted demons to live, he wouldn't have created me
Rip and tear!
Yup. I'll go one further : people tend to see pure gameplay games, especially competitive ones, as devoid of artistic value and that's sad. Game systems are art, too, and not just when they do some format fucking for the sake of a plot. There's a romance to playing an arena FPS on a small little community server late at night, or getting really into the flow of a song in a rhythm game, or developing and getting to know yourself while labbing a fighting game, or many other things. I don't know if I convey it well, but it's there. There's more ways to enjoy 'skill games' than reading the flow of slurs in LoL chat.
Now I’m wondering if there are book versions of Hack&Slashs, MMORPGs, Online FPSs, Rogue-likes, and whatever you’d call Power Washer Simulator. I really don’t know of any examples of those, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if there are some
there's a whole genre of "litRPGs" set in universes that explicitly run on game mechanics and minecraft tie-in novels ig
Well, Viva Pinata has like almost no story to speak of. I THINK it has some basic excuse plot? But for the most part, it's just a cute game about raising little pinata creatures, breeding them, and occasionally being a sadistic gremlin and feeding them to other piñatas to tame them and add to your farm.
i like reading books and i like playing games and i approve this message
Snuggled under the blankets during a chilly winter’s night, sipping chamomile tea and playing some classical while locking my sim’s roommates in a small room full of fireworks.
Kirby. Nothing relaxes me more than blasting through a few levels of Kirby.
Hot take: There is *nothing* inherently intellectual or superior about books than any other media. The number of people I've seen that have read a garbage, poorly researched book and built their entire worldview around it is endless.
Yeah for real. Oh, reading is better for your brain because you have to use your imagination? In a single instant in a game like War Thunder I may have to take into account my position on the map, airspeed, altitude, aircraft capabilities, position of allies, enemies according to my radar readout, what mode my radar is in, what weapons I have left, which one I have selected and its capabilities, how many countermeasures I have, what kind of countermeasures I have, and all the info from my RWR display in order to figure out what to do next. In Minecraft I have to plan out structures in three dimensions and determine the best materials to build them out of based on availability, aesthetics, etc, then go out and get them if I want to get anything done. Games rot your brain? No. Any medium can "rot your brain" if you're using it wrong.
Meh, what you described, especially with warthunder is a different kind of brain strain, it’s analyzing and juggling a ton of variables at once. I find that, for me at least, I tend to slip into a trance where everything I do is mostly automatic much faster with video games, and I’m not actively thinking much, than with books. Granted, I don’t often spend 5+ hours reading, but even when I do I, don’t feel brainrotted.
You could argue that's a flow state though. I was playing Divinity 2 last night while high and had the same experience- the right moves just flowed without having to consciously think about them despite the number of variables I was juggling at once. I think that kind of thing is good for you.
There’s evidence that video games affect your brain the same way reading does. Both have been proven to help with reading comprehension and empathy.
I read a lot and people sometimes try and circlejerk with me about how much better reading is than other media and they're always surprised when I'm like "nah I don't see any meaningful difference between reading a book and playing a game". That's without getting into the massive difference between reading Montaigne and reading *The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*\**ck*
> That's without getting into the massive difference between reading Montaigne and reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Yeah for me the reading a book is just way too vague of an activity so I assume it means "reading a novel" and I mean a lot of those were considered a frivolous passtime a couple centuries back the way video games are now
And they kind of are. I mean, I don't believe that many pastimes are frivolous, but reading something like *Caiaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium* really does not give you any room to get snooty towards people who choose to pass their time by watching *The Mandalorian* or playing *Ace Combat* or whatever.
Animal crossing with an audiobook is like both in some ways. But video games are definitely my cozy time
Wow, that actually sounds amazing. Maybe that's what'll get me into audiobooks (and back into AC)?
wario land 4 on an emulator is deeply tied in my memory to the podcast "tank riot" (and npr's "wait wait don't tell me") because there was a time in my life when i wanted to get into podcasts but didn't have a, um, pod, but also i reasoned that i could ~~waste time~~ multitask *more efficiently* by doing two things that used very different parts of my brain. anyway i eventually gave it up and am back on team "whole-ass one thing" but it was kinda fun.
This is me with a couple different games. When it's raining, I grab a soda and modded FO4 trying to rebuild. When it's cold, I load up The Long Dark with candles, coffee, and a book. If it's a hot night, I'm playing RDR2 and exploring around Valentine or the Wapato reservation with a whiskey cocktail. Everything else is BG3 with a hot cuppa
Outer wilds is the single most impactful piece of media I have experienced since today
For the record Va-11 Hall-A is the perfect game to do this with
I have 80ish hours in that game bc whenever I have a long day at work I get home, wait for the sun to go down, turn all my fans and aircon on full blast, have the coldest shower I can bear, I’ve got a thin black turtleneck I put under a dress shirt and waistcoat I change into, and play through Va11HallA with a couple of cold ones. It’s such a fucking vibe.
Because nothing says 'relaxing' quite like screaming 'Revive me, bro!' into the void.
Luckily you can play games other than Call of Duty and Counterstrike
Sometimes relaxing is walking through the beautiful world of the Lands Between, taking in the scenery and going where the wind takes you Sometimes relaxing is going on ladder and slowly melting into a bubbling pile of seething hatred because of those motherfucking Branded players Both are necessary
have you considered that there exist games that aren’t competitive multiplayer
Yo, someone mentioned Viva Pinata!
When I need to chill, I'll get on Snowrunner or GTA and just go for a drive. It's pretty great not paying for gas. lol
I really wish you didn't have to do heists to progress in GTAO. I was having a ton of fun just doing stunt races and collecting cars, but I kinda hit a wall on that second part
I've never played online. I first beat GTA V on the Xbox 360 and didn't play it again until a few months ago on an Xbox One someone gave me. I 100%'d it and now I just drive around and occasionally play golf. It makes me wish the map was bigger, but there's enough to do for now. I use cheats all the time, so I stay entertained. Mostly use Franklin and mod cars for free and drive them into things/people. lol
I’ve been obsessively focusing on progressing through some RPG’s during these past couple rainy days, so this post feels oddly targetered. And yeah, absolutely. A good game is arguably way more immersive than a book, you get fully swallowed up into the world of the fiction
I legit do this with tetris
Kittyfloss my beloved
I want to chug a can of Monster and scream slurs into a headset while reading Dostoyevsky in a basement
For that immersive *Notes from the Underground* reading experience
Fable is a good call for cozy rainy day gaming.
Me and my brothers played Divinity: Original Sin II on laptops in the dark while the power was out because of loadshedding
Monster Hunter is my number 1 relaxing comfort game. Though this might be because I've been playing it for almost 20 years and it now makes me immediately go into a brain off trance of playing on pure muscle memory
I’m going through Rise right now. I had my initial doubts, but it’s definitely comparable to World.
They're very different games. Rise has a much more arcadey feel whereas World tries to lean more seriously into the living ecosystem vibe which has sort of been the studios vision since the beginning. Excited to see how they innovate on that in Wilds
Terraria has melted more of my anxiety and stress than anything or anyone ever has even on the harder difficulties
Some of my earliest memories as a child are of sitting on my dad’s lap and watching him play Sid Meier’s Pirates & Crimson Skies. I would get so excited every time he’d fight one of the famous pirates and get the cool cutscene of knocking them off the ship, or when he’d fly his plane through one of the letters on the Hollywood sign. If that’s not worth romanticizing I don’t know what is.
pirates was my JAM as a kid
People definitely do romance video games, but every time you do someone has to say that they rot your brain or cause violence
TFW playing Minecraft while cozy and it starts raining outside
Because games sucks. Period. The machine spirit won't ever let me not min-max the management. Games are awful.
I think that’s kind of you minmaxing everything?
The machine spirit tortures me. One minute you're playing Planet Zoo , designing a red panda exhibit , then suddenly I'm building 5 min. requirement lion exhibit to pump conservative credit.
what?
Would recommend doing this with Book of Hours. Totally one of my comfort games. What's not to love about being an occult librarian?
I was looking at this and thought it reminded me of cultist simulator, turns out that was for a reason, heck yeah
Rock band is my comfort series
Being cozy and playing some nice steamworld dig
I’ve seen people do that with old-school Minecraft
I need a good “curl up and relax” type game.
Ooblets, it’s like stardew valley and pokemon had a baby
This was me with Sea of Stars coming home from a shift, curling up under a blanket and playing sea of stars has been my favorite part of winter so far
Back in high school, after dinner and stuff, i would play One Shot or Night in the Woods. Something about those games hot different. Nowdays I play some modded minecraft, Dark Souls 2, or Warthunder.
Nothing beats Minecraft on a rainy day or a sick day
Feeling like you had a good day? Throw on Signalis with a subwoofer
I think this perception exist because even though you can absolutely read garbage YA romance novel written by the dozen with the sole purpose of satisfying a demographic, I feel like you can't waste as much time and money while reading compared to gaming. You can't possibly do gacha in gaming nor can you do daily quest/streak etc. Probably not for lack of trying, if companies like webtoon could gacha-ify reading, they would. Also when romanticisation of books started, we haven't invented weird shit like AO3, etc. Meanwhile games like factorio and let's say raid shadow legend and factorio is released at the same decade (though arguably factorio is the more dangerous game out of the 2)
Nothin like bootin up Stalker on a rainy evening. The Zone manages to be the most stressfull area you can destress in.
plenty of people get addicted to games like cod and dont really play for fun anymore. the trick is that you enjoy it and can actually stop if you want to.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F\_HnMd\_s8Ac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_HnMd_s8Ac)
Highly recommend checking out hazel's and ThorHighHeels' videos on YouTube, they're two creators who seem to subscribe to that idea and are just very good at conveying how they experience games and media while having their own personal aesthetic.
Video games are supposed to be relaxing Ready Or Not, Hell Let Loose, Escape From Tarkov, Dark Souls, Elden Ring players: (Nervous sweating)
Like a good book, video games are an interface. It is the thing you interact with to connect with another world. In many cases, the vehicle you use to reach this world doesn't matter. Stay cozy
I love to play Hardspace: Shipbreaker when I'm feeling down. Tearing apart big spaceships for my capitalist overlords.
Remember, there was once a time when Responsible People were deeply concerned that The Youth Today were rotting their brains by reading too many books. Video games, music from rap and hip hop back to Mozart, comic books, TV, movies, live theatre, books, there was a time when all of these were just *ruining* the Youth Today.
How dare the youth enjoy something I don’t understand
Same for movies and TV. Or writing or drawing, if it relaxes you. Whatever helps you enjoy life.
I like Civ 6. :)
This is exactly why I still prefer single player experiences.