It seems I’m writing a lot about games here, I probably should write another book post, but well, it’s what fills my mind more often than not, and I seem to have more opinions about games than books for some reason, even though I enjoy both a lot.

It’s fascinating reading other people talking about playing games with guides, which feels weird to me, maybe it’s because I’m from the “olden times” when we didn’t have constant access to the internet in the time that I started playing games. For me a huge part of playing a game is figuring out a vague and constantly evolving understanding of the game, it feels like reading a guide would and get that spoonfed into me would really take away a huge part of what I like about playing them.

Playing with a guide feels more to me like doing the thing as effectively as possible to move on to consume the next thing. And it’s not something that I like, I like it when I can do mistakes, something that I may have to work around later, of course I don’t always get the hidden secrets, I don’t get to see everything a game has to offer, but what I do get is a playthrough that feels mine, I get the joy of figuring out something, it’s actually kind of joyful to see that something I’ve been doing for a long time maybe wasn’t right, and now that I figured out the thing I’m supposed to do I have a weird extra skill that I wouldn’t have developed had I just followed the “correct way” the whole time.

Exploration is one thing that I love about game, that feeling of not knowing what is around the next corner, then sometimes finding nothing, others finding something cool that can help me or hinder me. Also not knowing how enemies work before I’ve been facing them for a while, working out the way that I like to tackle them, and being surprised by a boss coming and then having to deal with it is fun to me. Then going back through an area and finding something I didn’t notice the first time around either because I thought I missed something or on the way back to a place when playing a metroidvania (search action, gatepunk or whatever you want to call the genre).

I guess some of the same feelings that I have that goes against guides are the same about min-maxing, it kind of feels like some people are optimising the fun out of a game, following the path of least resistance like that feels weird to me, I guess it’s just how I think about games, if a game is fun I shouldn’t need a guide, because just moving around, doing the little tight loop feels good, just running around and fighting feels fun, that’s already something, and then coming across new and interesting things is a bonus that comes on top.

Some games also does something similar, like the minimap with 1000 question marks on it that seemed to be so popular in the wake of the witcher 3, it’s overwhelming, and it just doesn’t feel as good to explore when you see exactly where everything is, and you just tick them off the list one after the other. I kind of want to miss things, and see them later, it just makes the world feel more alive, and it feels more satisfying when I do find it.

And some times still I do cave in, I get really lost and look at a guide for a section, but every time I feel kind of not so great afterwards, because when you start looking at a guide, it gets so much more easy to do it the next time, and the magic seeps out of the game for me. Of course some games are way better than others at actually pointing you in the right direction, or subtly signposting things, if a game doesn’t do that it’s a deficit that can be kind of helped by having a guide to look at. I just wish that more of them were kind of hints, rather than a recipe to follow.

This aversion to following guides also is something that I think leads to me having more fun with a game that is either linear or a small open world, since I’m not following a guide an open world game often makes me feel lost, and not knowing where to go and what to do, which is kind of weird since I love getting lost in a metroidvania, the difference there being that the game is made with that in mind, and mostly you have a map showing what you have explored, where you can go, and where you have yet to venture.

All of this is of course just my opinion and how I’m enjoying playing games, and if it’s not how you enjoy them you’re free to ignore this old man yelling at clouds and just play it how you enjoy it, it’s your journey and fun after all.