Disclaimer: What this article is and what it is not
- It's abount my current status.
- It expresses my fear of losing interest on everything.
- It doesn't speak bad of the game industry.
- Nor do I try to convince you to behave like me. Although it saves money, it's horrible.
"Playing saps the will"
The heading is a literal translation of the Chinese idiom 「玩物丧志」. 80% of the parents in China believes in this phrase, mine included. So I was strictly kept away from most ways of entertainment in my early years. During this period I developed distinct interests among the age group such as disassembling gadgets, programming and some music skills. Also due to the same reason, I've never had or even touched any device whose sole functionality is gaming (i.e. a gaming console, or even a Tamagotchi).
The only way to play video games I was aware of then was to go to a stupid website within a intranet of my area. There was a deeply hidden link where a lot of flash games are hosted. There were plenty mockups of the Super Mario series, 「魔塔」[1] replicas and some strategic games, which definitely contributed to the shaping of my game preferences.
The only non-flash game played by me when I was in the elementary school was Road Rash 2002.
The only non-flash game I played during junior high school was Ballance. (although I also played a custom map (the tower defense one) for Warcraft III, a little Red Alert 2 and beat hazard, these never became my dominating game choice.) I played through the main content in the first month. But as for the DLC (Level 13, 「速度」/"Sudu"), I didn't pass it until the last day of Feburary this year. After going through the first 12 levels, I devoted myself to modding and later, cloning the entire game. I even made a new but somehow stupid game with the same engine called WHG3D. I still faced the pressure from my parents because they didn't want me do such "improper business".
Of course I played solitaire and minesweeper, but at this time I wasn't aware of the actual rules of minesweeper so all I did was clicking randomly.
Clumsy me
After getting into senior high school, and later, the StupiD University, I got more time of my own. I was able to play more than ever, but suddenly I found out I was too clumsy to play...
I tried...
- osu! but I was so clumsy that I couldn't play even with a touchscreen at the lowest difficulty.
- the Touhou project but I am so clumsy that I couldn't even make it through the normal difficulty of most releases. More on this later.
- Minecraft but I was constantly killed by myself using custom potions
- Snakebird but I was so dumb that I couldn't even make it through the fifth level.
- Portal and Portal 2 but I always got stuck in infinite loops.
- Neverball but I don't even know how to jump properly.
These games are actually playable for me:
- Minesweeper: finally I am not clicking randomly anymore. I tried to be hardcore at this one but my highscores were capped at 130 seconds on hard. Not even close to 100 seconds.
- 2048: once you get the trick, you can pass it infinity times.
- Patience: although I have little patience, I play patience. If I got stuck, I just redeal.
- Minecraft: still I was constantly killed by myself using custom potions.
- sequels of BTD: these games suck and lags a lot.
- chrome://dino: not really playable. I don't know what the fifth digit of the score is for because I can literally see nothing after reaching 2400.
Finally...
All of these leads to my current situation: I still play those "playable" games. For example I can reach round 100 in BMC with a level 35 city on most maps with ease and I can get to 4096 in 2048 without much effort, but I always suffer from a strong feeling of voidness [2] after stopping playing. I am unsure about the source of such feeling, but it is definitely related to playing games. The feeling is so strong that I often stuck for hours before I can actually start getting my jobs done.
Probably due to the fear of creating more voidness, I refuse to learn playing a new game. Also I am gradually losing interest in the games I am still playing. This could be concerning because once I lost interest in every game I may be bored to death. All I can do now is to hope that I would have developed other interests to entertain myself then.
The Touhou project and Clumsy me cont'd
I came across this when I was in junior high school. At that time I thought this was merely girls shooting unknown substance while avoiding other unknown substance coming in all directions.
Later I found the music of this series interesting and started actually playing it. Before long I started adoring those cute [3] characters as well. I changed my wallpapers on all my devices to pictures of those characters so that I can see them everywhere. Also I my favourite playlists were replaced by the in-game music.
But all of these can't hide the fact that I suck at this game. I can't play through the Normal difficulty of most releases, some not even the Easy difficulty. This is probably due to some erroneous mechanics of my control system -- sometimes when my intent was to press a certain key, I may press another one instead. [4]Strangely this happens only when I am playing games, it seldom happens when I am typing. Just in case you are wondering, I type faster than most Chinese computer users, at around 330 cpm or 66 wpm. However this doesn't help me become a decent gamer.
What makes everything even worse is that I've got heart disease, making it impossible for me to play any games that require high tension or may cause great excitement. These games may really harm me.
Any advice on how to fix me is highly appreciated.