Gaming Goals for 2018

My primary goal for 2018 is to whittle-down my enormous pile of shame! I've got too many games on the backlog that I need to clear before I even think about buying anything else. For once, I've actually not made any purchases on a Steam Sale, and I count that as a win at this point.

Goals:

  • Finish Prey, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Learn how to actually play EU4 and Stellaris
  • Teach my kids how to play the Switch and PS4 (they're 8 and 5, and LOVE games, so its a no-brainer)
  • Play more board games with my family and friends (The 7th Continent is coming in March, so that'll be a decent start, I think)

My gaming goals for 2018 build off the best things from the previous year.

  1. Finish Breath of the Wild and keep playing until I’m tired of exploring
  2. Return to and finish the Witcher
  3. Embrace the Switch as my main gaming platform, but find time to play the handful of PC games I really want to get to. Whatever of those games I get to this year, be happy about it
  4. Try to play another Switch game with the same dedication as I put in to Zelda this year. Maybe Mario.

As a father of 2 now.... for me itis simple

Advance through my backlog as much as possible
Buy less games and just the ones that I will enjoy.

Here is my priority

Finish Tales of Berseria / PS4
Finish Tales of Hearts R / Vita
Finish Dragon Quest VII / Remake 3DS
Uncharted 4
Finish Kings Quest on steam.... the new gmae

tboon wrote:

Play fewer games and read more books.

Why create a false dichotomy?

Audio books go hand in hand with strategy games and what better verisimilitude for a EUIV campaign than listening to a book about the Silk Road?

I realize I have too many boardgames and too many video games. My solution is to severely limit my purchases of boardgames and increase the playtime of the videogames I enjoy:

- Limit my boardgame purchases to about ten
- Play more JRPGs which is a genre that I love but have stopped played for reasons unknown (likely time)
- Play more Elite Dangerous - I have some goals for this like get my max my Imperial Rank and fly to the other end of the Galaxy etc..
- Allow my 5-year old daughter to have more time with the Switch
- Finish Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numaria (KSed both and haven't played either)
- Paint more minis

  • Play a little more frequently
  • Complete Baldur's Gate
  • Get my retro gaming room into shape
  • Try to find a weekly co-op game or two

So related to this, I did end up picking Kingdoms and Castles during the Steam sale with some Christmas money, and enjoyed the 4 or so hours I put into it.

I notice that with a lot of strategy games in particular, I get frustrated with the open-ended nature of them, or if not frustrated, overwhelmed. I think part of why I gravitate towards narrative games is that I have no idea how to have fun with a sandbox. In particular to city builders, I have a hard time re-doing work that I've done (laying out roads, creating buildings). It feels like I wasted my time if I have to demolish things and lay things out differently. Having buildings smashed by vikings or burned by a dragon in this game means I have been able to lay things out a little more efficiently and apply little lessons that I've learned. So I'm glad it's helping change my mindset a little bit.

At the same time I'm not sure how much drive I'll have to continue playing it once I max out my kingdom and/or get all the achievements. Interacting with the world is a little fiddly and tedious, and there are definitely times where I'm just waiting for things to happen, which a little boring. I see the developers are planning to add a few more things to the game, but I'm not sure it's going to fundamentally alter how I feel about it. I'll be curious to see if there's a builder/strategy game out there that strikes the perfect balance for me of looking good, not being too overwhelming, while still having a good amount of depth, and is fun enough to keep interacting with throughout the game. This may be an impossible bar to meet.

beanman101283 wrote:

At the same time I'm not sure how much drive I'll have to continue playing it once I max out my kingdom and/or get all the achievements. Interacting with the world is a little fiddly and tedious, and there are definitely times where I'm just waiting for things to happen, which a little boring. I see the developers are planning to add a few more things to the game, but I'm not sure it's going to fundamentally alter how I feel about it. I'll be curious to see if there's a builder/strategy game out there that strikes the perfect balance for me of looking good, not being too overwhelming, while still having a good amount of depth, and is fun enough to keep interacting with throughout the game. This may be an impossible bar to meet. :D

Yeah, that's kind of what happened to me with the game as well. I got about 6 hours in and there wasn't anything compelling for me to keep playing for.

What about Rimworld to scratch that itch for you? It's more of a colony builder/survival type game, but with a good blend of depth and strategy.

RnRClown wrote:
  • Get my retro gaming room into shape

This reminded me that I really want to get my RetroPie working and find some fun old co-op games to play with my wife. Maybe Secret of Mana or something similar.

I don't have big gaming goals for the year but I would like to:

1. Continue the "no new game purchases unless you are going to play it within the same calendar month." In 2017, I was pretty good about this.
2. Keep an eye on the amount of cheap digital games purchased on super sale--of the 12 PSN games that I bought in 2017 before the holidays, I only played 2 of them.
3. Give some Western RPG a try--I have played several JRPGs but never even tried one of the Western versions. I have the Mass Effect trilogy on PSN along with unopened copies of Oblivion and Witcher 3 in the pile.
4. Do something with the fancy gold Zelda 3DS that is gathering dust. I think that I have posted about this before on GWJ but I got a really good deal on a limited edition gold 3DS with Zelda pre-installed. During the same Black Friday weekend, Gamestop had a crazy sale on PS Vita so I got one of those as well. The Vita arrived first and I had several games to play as a PS+ customer. I have not even opened the 3DS box yet. I think that I might need to just open it up, play the couple 3DS games that I have and unload the system. My kids aren't really interested in it and I feel guilty for buying it along with a few games for it and not even opening the box.
5. Keep the game inventory spreadsheet updated. I put together a full inventory of physical and digital games over the holidays and I need to keep it updated so that my pile purchases don't get out of control.

I'm not quite sure where to put this, but maybe here would be a the best place...

One of the things that I'd like to do this year is play some of the older RPGs that I've never gotten around to playing. I know we have Sally Nasty's Monthly Gaming thing and the 3-month JRPG Gaming club. But Sally Nasty's Club focuses on a wide range of games, and the JRPG club focuses on JRPGs.

Would anyone here be interested in being part of a Classic RPG Gaming Club?

I was thinking maybe bi-monthly would be a good time frame, so there would be two months to play one RPG.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Would anyone here be interested in being part of a Classic RPG Gaming Club?

*raises a hand*

Already removed all game deal subscriptions from my in box and avoided numerous "deals". So far standing strong in my no new games in 2018 goal.

RnRClown wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Would anyone here be interested in being part of a Classic RPG Gaming Club?

*raises a hand*

If it were a quarterly club, I might be interested. Two months per game is too quick for me.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

If it were a quarterly club, I might be interested. Two months per game is too quick for me.

Oh. Me, too. I make slow progress.

RnRClown wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Would anyone here be interested in being part of a Classic RPG Gaming Club?

*raises a hand*

ClockworkHouse wrote:
RnRClown wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Would anyone here be interested in being part of a Classic RPG Gaming Club?

*raises a hand*

If it were a quarterly club, I might be interested. Two months per game is too quick for me.

Cool! That makes three of us.

I was thinking two months might be nice so there was momentum with the game, but three months would work for me, too. That might be more realistic come to think of it.

I'll start a separate thread for this to catch more attention and see if it might be something to actually do.

EDIT: GWJ Classic RPG Club thread is now up.

I know I'm resurrecting a dead thread, but this is something I've been thinking about a lot this year, and June is a great time for checking in on 2018 goals.

My big one, going into the year, was to be more social with my hobbies. Like (probably) many people on this board, I'm a pretty avid gamer and reader, but both of those tend to be things I do by myself. That is, I tend to prefer and play a lot of long, one-player games, and I tend to read a lot of books that I enjoy but don't discuss with other people. That makes my biggest hobbies somewhat isolating and introverted, when I really enjoy sharing them with other people! Finding my way onto a board like this tends to track with that goal.

The second big-picture goal is to finish more games Earlier this year I started using Backloggery to track my backlog, and I made it a point of including everything, including every game I can remember finishing (although I'm sure I didn't get them all) and every little game that came in a Humble Bundle, even if I only wanted one or two items. Because of that, my number's huge, and I don't think I'll ever finish the backlog. But that's ok! I want to be more focused, picking games to play that I know I'll enjoy and that I'll want to finish. I also want to pick more low-hanging fruit, finishing things that are well-designed, and that I'll enjoy, but which are not monster challenges. For instance, right now, I'm working my way through Guacamelee!

My third big-picture goal is to play in a way that lets me enjoy gaming more. Here's what I mean by that: I find that games are a really good stress reliever for me, and I tend to play them in my downtime when I want to relax. But that can also lead me to playing games just to pass the time, or playing games when I'm not even necessarily having fun playing them, like a coping strategy that gone beyond its usefulness. I want to reduce that, and make sure that when I'm playing something, I'm having a really good time. So overall I'm trying to be more selective and intentional about what I play.

It's actually a good time to look at this thread again, considering we're roughly halfway through the year and we can see how we've been doing.

My old posts here said I wanted to work on the backlog, not let the fear of missing out influence me too much, and try some more strategy games.

So far this year I've made some progress on the backlog, completing one giant game (Final Fantasy XII), nearly done one medium sized game (Mafia III), and knocking a couple smaller indie games off the list. I also did try another strategy game, Kingdoms and Castles, like I was hoping to. I haven't tried any other new ones, though.

Keeping the FOMO at bay has been a mixed bag. Certain big titles like God of War I've managed to resist, while the recent release of The Elder Scrolls Online's latest expansion finally made me cave and drop several dozen hours into it. The announcement of Fallout 76 finally made me start Fallout 4, which has been on my backlog for a while. Nothing like a new entry in a series to make you finally go back and play the entries you already have.

The rest of the year will be spent playing backlog games, resisting Steam sales, and getting ready for the fall glut of new games. There are a couple I know I'm getting, and I may reward my backlog clearing with a few items on the Steam wishlist. We'll see how it goes!

I need to work on that kanjiklub thing.

Oh, yes, this is definitely a good time to revisit this. I can't believe it's June already!

I started with the following things, and thought I should check in and see how I'm doing.

1) Design, build, and ship a game.
2) Spend consistent time increasing my skills at game development: programming, art, game design theory, etc.

I feel like I've made good progress with these, despite a month or two of getting sidetracked. I've completed four of the five courses in the Michigan State Game Design Specialization, and am 75% of the way through another Unity course on Udemy.

I'm doing Wizard Jam 7 now, and trying to make a simple, unoriginal 2D platformer from scratch. Making progress.

In the back half of the year, I want to continue building skill and spend more time working on actual games rather than learning how to make games, and would definitely like to get a full game done of some shape. But on the whole I'm happy with my progress here.

3) Connect more with the gamedev community, both locally and online. (Ideally I'd like to find a coach/mentor.)

Thanks to dibs' prodding, I've joined a game jam, and am hoping to do more of this now that it's summer and I have a bit more time. Happy with this so far.

4) Sample more games from a design perspective. Broaden my play.

Okay here. I've tried to stay focused on Pillars of Eternity for the CRPG Club, but from a game design perspective I've enjoyed the conversations surrounding play in that game. I'm happy with how things are going, and am looking forward to playing more and different games this summer.

5) Have fun with this all.

Really happy with the fun I'm having learning to build games. Although it was often frustrating at first, now that I'm getting some momentum and a feeling that I'm improving (slowly), it's a ton of fun.

Skraut wrote:

Don't know, maybe for me this IS more of a Pile of Shame thing, but I think it is just me needing to find ways of being ok with how I'm spending my limited time. I always have fun in the moment, yet lately it seems like somehow find a way of regretting it when I'm done.

So for me, my goal is to find a way past those feelings, and just enjoy what I'm doing when I'm doing it, and once I'm done.

Interestingly I feel like I've sort of come a long way towards this. I've learned to let go of some of the fear of missing out stuff, play want I want to play, and haven't had as much immediate regret when I'm done. I know that my time's limited and I've spent less time agonizing over what I want to play, just pick something, have fun, and when I'm not, stop. I think I've just been able to get into a better mindset, and I've been looking forward to game time more, and enjoying it when I take it.

Skraut wrote:

My other goal is to get back into game development some more. Work has been really stressful of late, so the last thing I want to do when I get home is stare at more code, but I do miss creating.

Well, I started off well with this. Participated in the Global Game Jam, and made a game in January, and then, just stopped. Work got super stressful. I got super burned out. I didn't want to look at code at work, and I sure didn't want to look at any more at home.

It hasn't been easy to let go of this, but it some ways I feel like it has allowed more of the guilt free play I have been enjoying. I have a very long and twisted relationship with game development. I developed games for the Playstation and Dreamcast for a few years, and while it was what I thought was my "Dream Job" I got chewed up and spat out hard by the experience, leaving the company on such bad terms that they pulled my name out of the credits for the games I've worked on. In the nearly 20 years since I've started numerous games and projects, and not started a million others that were floating around in my head, because I wanted a "do-over" of my professional game dev experience. The problem, at least for me, is that there's so much emotional baggage that comes with working on games, that the joy of creation gets lost.

I'm not saying I've totally let go forever, but being ok with letting go, has let me enjoy other things

RnRClown wrote:
  • Play a little more frequently
  • Complete Baldur's Gate
  • Get my retro gaming room into shape
  • Try to find a weekly co-op game or two

I had quite modest goals that would return quite rich rewards.

I have been playing a tad more frequently, in tandem with working a bit less, and this has increased my happiness, and my calm, immeasurably. It's the little things.

I have yet to start Baldur's Gate this year. I really should. I want to.

The retro room is coming along. It's not particularly organized, but it has expanded, and my wife and I have spent more time there. Again, the little things.

I have not found a weekly co-op game. The CRPG Club has offset this, though. The shared conversation is great.

ARISE THREAD!

Looking back on the year I did pretty good with one of my goals, playing with less stress. I feel like I avoided FOMO, and just in general had more fun. Thanks to the RPG club, I finished more games than I have in a while, I also started more games, and let others fall off when I was "done" without feeling like I needed to finish.

As far as doing more game development, I did the Global Game Jam at the start of the year, but life got too busy afterwards, and I really didn't go back to doing any development. If I had, it probably would have introduced more stress and I wouldn't have been as successful with the first part.

Kergguz wrote:

It's probably quite pointless for me to declare 'tackle the pile' as a goal for 2018, since I do it every year and rarely make any meaningful headway. I declare games in the monthly pile threads fairly often but quite often fail in that endeavour. I will certainly do my best to at least not add to the pile. If I buy new stuff I want to play it straight away.

One of the biggest problems for me when it comes to pile management is that I'm naturally drawn to games that don't have an obvious end. My steam wishlist has the likes of Rimworld and Oxygen not Included on it... this year I played a bunch of Euro Truck Simulator, Heroes of the Storm, Stellaris, Crusader Kings... I'm never going to finish these games and yet they add to my perception of the pile growing.

Things did not change. I did at least buy stuff that I intended to play there and then. The problem was I tended to only play whatever it was for a few hours then move on.

Other than playing Civ and Kingdoms & Castles, I didn't manage to play more strategy games this year, but that was a stretch anyway.

I cleared many games off the pile, including some longstanding ones. Those felt really good.

Due to Christmas gifts and my own fickle nature, I am now juggling four cataclysmically long games: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2, Final Fantasy XIV, and God of War.

I suspect one of next year's goals will be "Don't stress about jumping back and forth between multiple games."

So how did I do?

ClockworkHouse wrote:
CptDomano wrote:

4. Actually finish a Monster Hunter game :laughing:

Two of my goals for the coming year are somewhat similar: I'd like to finish a Western RPG, and I'd like to finish a JRPG. I start many of these each year, but I only rarely see them through to the end. I want to aim to finish one of each in 2018, either that I start in the new year or that I've already begun.

I smoked this one. I didn't finish one Western RPG, I finished two. I didn't finish one JRPG, I finished thirteen.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Play more retro and retro-inspired games

My other goal is similar: I bought an SNES Classic earlier this year, but I've only turned it on a time or two. I'd like to spend some quality time in the next year with it, with both the original games it came with and a selection of side-loaded ones.

Oof. I'm pretty sure my SNES Classic is sitting exactly where it was when I posted this last year, literally untouched in that time.

Oh wow, I forgot about this thread. Let's see those rules I gave myself!

ccesarano wrote:

1. Don't buy a game unless I know I want to play it.

2. Don't buy a game if I have any misgivings about it.

3. Don't buy a game because others are praising it to high heaven.

4. Don't play a game just because it's new.

5. Old games have more material to mine for writing and video content than new games.

Well, despite having a few purchasing regrets this year, the only one that was a result of rules violation was Vampyr. Rule 5 is kind of pointless at this point for me, so we can scratch that off for next year. Otherwise, don't see much reason to revise these.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Play more retro and retro-inspired games

My other goal is similar: I bought an SNES Classic earlier this year, but I've only turned it on a time or two. I'd like to spend some quality time in the next year with it, with both the original games it came with and a selection of side-loaded ones.

Oof. I'm pretty sure my SNES Classic is sitting exactly where it was when I posted this last year, literally untouched in that time.[/quote]

Time for a SNES Classic Game Club?

Oh, I'll have to check mine!

Can we get a new thread for 2019? I have a stupid idea that I'm going to try for next year.

2018 in Review for me

Goals
1) Design, build, and ship a game.
2) Spend consistent time increasing my skills at game development: programming, art, game design theory, etc.
3) Connect more with the gamedev community, both locally and online. (Ideally I'd like to find a coach/mentor.)
4) Sample more games from a design perspective. Broaden my play.
5) Have fun with this all.

Results
I did pretty well on the whole, surprisingly.
1 - Not there yet, but I'm almost done with a game I've built, and think I can push and finish it before the end of the year.
2 - I worked on game development over 100 days this year, not quite as good as I was hoping but on the whole good progress.
3 - I did a game jam this summer and got to connect with a lot more developers. I can ramp this up next year.
4 - The CRPG Club, JRPG Club, and now the Adventure Club got me playing a good number of games I wouldn't have played otherwise. I've also explored a good number of other categories. Good results here.
5 - On the whole, yes. Sometimes I beat myself up too much for not working on these things, or I expect too much of myself, or I got discouraged and gave up for a bit, but on the whole I've had a very good gaming year.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Oh, I'll have to check mine!

Can we get a new thread for 2019? I have a stupid idea that I'm going to try for next year.

Feel free to start one, I've started the previous ones, but have no idea what I'd put in for my goals for next year, so don't know how to start it.