Well three times means I mean it, I guess. I’ve now managed to track every game I’ve played (more or less) over the last three years. I’m enjoying the tracking, and I think, generally I’ve been a little more mindful when playing. I’m looking forward to 2019 when my thesis is finished, and I can open up what I’m playing.
This post is a wrap up of 2018, including a look at what I’ve played, what I’ve enjoyed and some thoughts about games I had this year.
Top Games by Time Played
In total I’ve played 42 different games in 2018 and played for a total of 568 hours. The game I played the least was Dragon Fly! on my phone. Mini Metro was in the middle of my pack at just above 3 hours and for the second year running, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was my most played game at 87 hours.
By play time, my top 10 games of 2018 were:
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 87
- Paper Mario: Color Splash - 55
- Civilization VI - 53
- Stardew Valley - 50
- Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival - 49
- Pokémon Go - 47
- Europa Universalis 4 - 32
- Final Fantasy XII - 27
- Into The Breach - 25
- Mario Golf: World Tour - 20
A lot of the other playing hasn’t been as intentional I’d hoped. I played Color Splash and FFXII mostly as games to relax at the end of the day, but I do know what I’m playing and they’re not quite what I’d hoped for. Also every time I play a Final Fantasy game it drops in my esteem, FFXII is hella slow and my attempt to lean into that has not been as successful as I hoped (he said 27 hours later).
Civ VI and EU 4 were also not as intentional as I hoped, mostly played when my brain wasn’t interested in doing much else (even when there was much else to do) . In 2019, I want to get a handle on that and enjoy them significantly more. I stopped playing Stardew, because I didn’t want to play it the way I was playing Civ and EU 4, and hopefully Mindfullness 2019 (™) will push me back that way as well (although it also deserves a slow drip so you don’t push too hard into the virtual part of the world).
Amiibo Fest is great and part of my weekend ritual. PoGo is also a staple and even a motivation to … actually go outside (results less effective while cold).
Top Games by My Rating
This year my favourite games were (in alphabetical order):
- Earthbound
- Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Stardew Valley
- Tetris
- Sunless Sea
Thoughts
I play games for a lot of reasons. I like to play games for the experience, for the art, for the escape and for the fun. 2018 was not the best year for me in general. I was very stressed and think I really didn’t do a great job of getting myself to the places I wanted to be, in a lot of different ways.
A lot of the games I played were much more for the escape than for anything else. That’s okay, but I’d rather be able to play for a lot of different reasons, rather than just that my brain is too tired to do much else. I liked all of the games in my top 10, to be clear, but a lot of them are good without being outstanding.
I didn’t buy games in 2018, and [as I already mentioned], I didn’t even play a lot of games released in 2018. I have to say that, while I feel like there are a lot of very good games, there aren’t a huge number of games that I really want to go back and play from this year. Celeste sticks in my mind, as do Dragon Quest XI and Octopath Traveler (and Tetris Effect I suppose).
I hope that in 2019 I’m able to play more and play for more reasons. There are a lot of games I’m looking forward to catching up on and I’m also excited to catch up on the Switch (and maybe the PS4) and to dive into a ton of really great games … or maybe I’ll just play the new Animal Crossing all year.
No comments:
Post a Comment