I use scaffolding to cut down trees in Minecraft

I have something to admit about video games. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by playing a game, and I restart it and abandon the game altogether. Be it mild OCD, a desire for control, or whatever else - I have this desire to play a game in a very specific way, and if I, for whatever reason, can’t - well, back to the beginning, or next onto a different game.

Let me elaborate.

Last month I decided to try out Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning. It’s a fine game, kind of an offline MMO with a generic story and protagonist, but some interesting ideas around combat and character building. I sunk 5-or-so hours into the experience, and largely enjoyed it - but at some point I just got overwhelmed by the inventory management, the skills, and the mess of quests the games throws at you.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning - Too many things ot keep track of in my head sometimes.

Playing a game started stressing me out.

So I restarted the game, with a more clear idea of what I want to do and how I’ll approach the game. I’m going to play a strength/magic-type guardian protagonist, wielding massive warhammers and substituting damage with nimble chakrams (oh man, chakrams take me back to 1999 Xena: Warrior Princess for PlayStation 1). I decided which type of quests I will take on and method for completing the quests - I’ll wrap up the quests in one area before moving onto another. I decided in advance which items I will pick up, and which types of items I’ll mark as junk. Which skills I’ll invest in and which ones I’ll ignore. Which crafting materials I will pick up, and which ones I’ll ignore (oh god, this game has so many crafting materials).

Does that sound a little psychotic? Maybe. Have I done this before? Yes. But here’s the “best” part. I’ve played for another 5 hours, with my well balanced, non-overwhelming character, and I got bored of the game. Granted, these days my patience for average games is somewhat low, and 10 hours in an okay-ish game might be all I could muster. But replaying the same segment twice in a different order had something to do with this, I’m sure.

So, yeah. Here I am, with a game that’s not overwhelming me, but a game that’s ultimately boring to me.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered - Are we sure he’s dead?

Most frequently I’ve done this before after taking a break with a game. This is likely to be more familiar to an average reader: you boot up a game (especially a complex RPG) after a couple of months or years, and there’s no way in hell you remember what skills you have, what are all those items in the inventory, and where you are in the main quest. Restart, here we come.

There are other odd things I’ve done in games in my desire to optimize, or maybe play in a very specific way. There was that Oblivion playthrough where I refused to jump because it didn’t feel like my paladin would have a high acrobatics score.

This connects to the topic of optimizing the fun away, but I think this anxiety lies deeper. Yes, some game design elements naturally heighten the anxiety - build optimization, timed rewards, consumables we’re afraid to use… Yet, feels like there’s something more to this?

Here’s a scenario: let’s look at games that don’t allow for free saving and loading - most recently can think of Baldur’s Gate III’s honor mode. In a way, I find it easier to play games that don’t allow me to “save scum”, locking in my mistakes, and freeing me from the “what ifs”. This helps with controlling some anxiety.

I find honor mode relaxing because I can just focus on playing the game and not worry about the “mistakes” I can not undo. Yes, I recognize that I might be one of the only people to utter “Baldur’s Gate III’s honor mode is relaxing”.

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (PlayStation 1) - So many chores to complete, but only so little time and energy.

I was playing Harvest Moon: Back to Nature on my retro handheld. Guess what - retro emulators allow you to easily save and load state. And I couldn’t stop myself from cheating at every horse race, tomato fight, or a chicken duel in the game. Do I feel ashamed? Not that much, but it does make me wonder if I’m circumventing the intended experience, whatever that might be.

Actually, Harvest Moon (or more recent titles like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing) is a great example to dig into. These are meant to be relaxing games about stepping away from the stresses of daily life and farming and socializing to your heart’s content… Yet, when I play, I find myself trying to hyperoptimize every day - like I have a timer to race against (okay, Harvest Moon actually does have a timer to accomplish a few things, but it’s laughably generous). Up at 6, water everything, feed the animals, replenish energy, harvest and sell crops, socialize, pop into the store for seeds, sneak in some fishing, gathering, or mining, back home by midnight with not a minute to spare. How’s this supposed to be relaxing again? I always quit playing before finishing the first year.

But not every weird thing I do is in the name of perceived optimal play.

You know how in Minecraft, if you remove a bottom block from a tree, the rest of the tree just hangs there - up in the air? For whatever reason, that really irks me. So yours truly might put up some scaffolding to chop down a particularly large tree because the idea of a floating piece of tree is preposterous to me. In a game with floating islands. Yeah, I don’t know why.

Minecraft: What the hell is this? Why’s the tree floating? And you know what’s the worst part? I put those blocks back in after taking the screenshots.

Same in games where I can manipulate voxel terrain - mining out deposits in Astroneer or No Man’s Sky come with their own stressors, because I want the holes in the ground to look aesthetically pleasing, and if not - at least semirealistic, meaning no floating chunks. So a trip for a couple of units of iron turns into a full-on mining operation. And sometimes that’s enough of a bother to stop playing. Here we are again, I’ve turned the act of playing a game into stressful work.

Finally - here’s another way that games have overwhelmed me, and I got in my own way. Notes, journals, audio recordings, and books. In Skyrim - if I open a note or a book, I’m going to read it. The whole way through (screw you, “The Real Barenziah”). After all, can’t have a wrong “books read” stat, can I?

Maybe this is just who I am as a player - someone who needs scaffolding to cut down virtual trees in a game with floating islands. Someone who finds Baldur’s Gate III’s honor mode “relaxing.” Someone who reads every page of “The Real Barenziah” while dragons wait patiently outside.

Tell me I’m not alone in this. Tell me about the weird rule you can’t break, the stupid thing that makes you restart. I like to think we all have our own ways of ruining games for ourselves, but maybe I’m just weird in my own unique ways.