How to play long games when you don't have time? (Topic)

In today's world, gamers with hard work, family, or other responsibilities find the thrill of reading accolades on Asssassiвn's Creed Odyssey or Red Dead Redemption echoes of desperation because they never have time to play them. How do you find the time to play a 60 hour project? Kesey MacDonald with Kotaku is wondering how to play long games when you don't have time? How do you find the strength and time to play, alternating with your daily responsibilities? She provides some tips for busy gamers to help them cope with running out of time to complete a long title.

Life Priorities

I am lucky in the sense that I play games for work and set aside a couple of days for this, which I could not have allocated if they were not related to my profession. My leisure time in general is very limited when I am not working or walking in the park with my child, I need to split my time between friends, my partner, family, books, movies, TV, gym, games and everything else that I usually want to do. I would not want to go back to my student days, but one of the many features of that age is that you have free time for hobbies. And so I wonder why I spent it sticking to Netflix series? Why ?!

Usually we have enough time to allocate 10 hours a week for the game, but if you are working, you will not be enough to complete a long title that everyone seems to be playing, but not you. But I found several ways to do it.

Pick one long game

When I was a teenager, money was my limiting factor. I could only afford one game every two months, so it had to be good. Now my limitation is the time, which I need to plan and allocate as carefully as the money in my childhood, when I saved up on the Gamecube in order to get it exactly on my birthday.

This means I can't keep playing games that waste my time, such as overly bloated open worlds, overly slow JRPGs, or online games that require too much attention to detail. In addition, there are clashes between a gigantic game like Assassin's Creed and a game as alive as Destiny. If you play them orally, you will disappoint yourself, feeling that you have not achieved anything in any of them. I recommend making the careful selection of one complex game and playing only that.

Take what you can

An important obstacle for me is that I will never, for example, have three full hours to play the game continuously. Those Sundays when I could sit in my pajamas all day playing XCOM, if not completely gone, will surely disappear for the foreseeable future. I keep my controller off PS4 and wonder what's the point? Anyway, after an hour I'll turn off the game ...

So take this hour! Use it to its fullest without depressing thoughts, because when it is, you can play here and now. You can complete a 60-hour game by giving yourself one hour every day for a month. Or you can wait two months in the hope that your spouse / husband will go to your parents for a week and you can play every night. But such dreams are unlikely to come true often.

Buy Nintendo Switch

It may sound like fanaticism, but Switch allows you to allocate time for the game, which would simply burn out without it. For example, 20 minutes on the subway, an hour while your child falls asleep, half an hour in bed before falling asleep. While on maternity leave I played 80 hours in Breath Of The Wilde in 30 minute sessions [this is exactly the reason why I learned to breastfeed while lying down]. Even if you hate Nintedno, you should admit that the Switch has all the indies and no more games that have been released since its release [even more, large projects are now ported to the switch, for example The Witcher 3 WIld Hunt - WorldOfTopics].

I could play a lot of cool little projects. Played 40 hours of Hallow Knight without spending a drop of time with her family or work.

If you have children or a partner you live with, play together

There is a golden age when kids are 3 to 10 years old and they may want to play with you or watch you play (after that they will exclusively want to play with their friends, and any game that you are interested in automatically becomes boring for them). Of course, sticking to kid-friendly games is more likely to limit your options, but if you can find a balance between something that is harmless to them and something that is interesting to you, you are great. In my case, it was Ni no Kuni 2.

It is also an opportunity to return to your childhood games, which you loved to play as a child, but forgot about them as a teenager. For example, return to your favorite Pokemon universe. I know a family that always plays Destiny as a whole.

And if your cohabitant is also fond of games, and can afford it, you should think about buying a second TV, so that you can play your big game with it at the same time. So, my husband and I were able to complete the entire series of Dark Souls.

Deal with spouse

If there's a big game you want to play, why not set aside a couple of nights when the kids sleep to play while your partner hangs out with friends. You can simply arrange in advance to have fun each day or two in your own company. The main thing is to correctly implement everything so that both of you feel comfortable, and one of you does not mind that the second one misses, for example, a party with friends because he just wants to play.

Let go of the blame

On maternity leave, I realized that spending time on games is important self-care, and not something that should cause feelings of guilt. I had a child and this is a responsibility. Sometimes it may seem like playing is not important enough to make time as if you should always prioritize work or parenting, or, I don't know, learning Italian. But you need time for yourself. So get home at 5:00 pm or give yourself permission to spend 35 minutes playing in the morning, rather than checking your work email before heading out to life's barricades.

I have met many people who said that they used to love video games, but now they have no place in their life due to lack of time. Or people who are disappointed that they won't be able to complete the same Red Dead Redemption 2. Well, you can always find activities that give you a different pleasure. But if these are games, you shouldn't feel guilty for taking the time to play them.

The Topic of Article: How to play long games when you don't have time?.
Author: Jake Pinkman