Difficulty of games

I have previously blogged with some thoughts about playing a game for 15 minutes. There is something particularly about that time: it might still worthwhile. Often, I find playing a game for a length of time (45 minutes plus) is enough to put myself in the mindset of enjoying it. Of challenging myself, and taking something from it. Games like Deus Ex and Dragon Age are ideal for playing in the chunks of time available in the evening, or between work, eating, socialising and sleeping.

However, I have become increasingly lethargic in my gaming recently. I wonder if it is perhaps due to my desire to not die more than three times in the same place. For example, I have been playing through Dawn of War II and, like all good RTS games, it is a frantic game. I don't quite know what I'm doing at times. However, unlike when I played as the space marines (where each unit has its definable role) I am finding myself simply ctrl + a and right clicking on enemies. And this is happening fairly frequently.

Perhaps I should play on a higher difficulty. But there are some considerations with that:

1) Dying constantly because I don't know what I'm doing is a quick way to stop playing the game entirely.
2) I play the game for a positive experience.
3) Perhaps a positive experience is dying, but improving my perception of the game's tactics.

As so often is the case with strategy games, the strategy is to beat the mechanics of the game, rather than the puzzles inherently suggested. That is an unclear expression, let me give an example: Championship Manager (when Football Manager was called Championship Manager) used to reward tactics that placed your players in certain formations that didn't quite correspond to what would be effective in real life. I think that if you were slanted slightly left to right, the game would treat this as an outstanding tactic, and you would win more games. Or at least I read on a respected forum (The Dug Out.tv)

To understand these kind of tactics, you either have to play the game enough to sense them, or resort to search engine experience. Neither is how I want to spend my 15 minutes of gaming time.

However, I should like to waste some time judiciously. That is, to game and die, but feel that my death was not arbitrary. That I might be improving. Or at least to enjoy my experience of imagination - and to realise that needing to win in a game all the time need not be the point of every game, not least when it feels somewhat lethargic.

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15 minute gaming

The past four weeks have been busy. OFSTED and the like have compelled me to aim for the esoteric percentage improvement in my performance that demands an almost absolute immersion in the work. From the outside, you would see a workaholic.

And, as I step back, I wonder what kind of person is that to bring up our kids?

During such a time, I do not like to dedicate a significant amount of my leisure time to gaming, or even to watching films. I cannot remember the last time I sat and watched an entire film. Normally, instead, I watch 15-30 minutes. My attention span is not what it used to be.

It is with this mindset that I have enjoyed the following games over the past three weeks:

Deus Ex
Total War: Call of Warhammer (and Napoleon)
Men of War: Assault Squad
Space Marine

The thing about these games is that they lend themselves very well to 15 minute gaming. Deus Ex, having already been completed, allows me to tackle a mission, or a sidequest, in that time. Unfortunately, the lack of consistency mean that my character is hardly being roleplayed - one moment he's a pious cop, the next a maverick thug. Still, it's got a great soundtrack.

Total War keeps me ticking along. There are still the usual issues of poor AI and terrible collision detection. But as a wargame, it's the best we've got right now. Can see myself dropping it when MTW3 or the like comes out.

Men of War is typically chaotic. I never feel like I have a mastery of the game, or even that I quite know what I'm doing. I also become unduly confused with its reverse mouse clicking qualities.  Ah well: still one of the best in its genre.

But Space Marine is becoming strangely compelling. Played through for 45 mins to an hour, it can become tedious. Run, roll, shoot and look at brown. However, its simplicity is also a benefit: I can jump into it in moments, and then jump out. The most ludic game I play right now, and perhaps just what I need - some play.

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Teaching or Gaming or Writing?

I have two computers in my house: my work computer and my gaming computer. This is deliberate as I know that games can affect the way your computer works in all sorts of funny ways.

A few months ago, despite careful maintenance my gaming computer gave up the ghost on an upgrade to Windows 7. While this was worthwhile, I lost much of my gaming downloads. I say lost - I can always redownload them. However, I feel that my bandwidth might be hit too much. Such concerns, though, have meant that I have hardly gamed in the past few months. And I certainly haven't purchased (m)any new games.

I have made some narrative with my Total War, my Warband, my Deus Ex and my Men of War. I have been chugging through Dragon Age again, and quite happily so. However, in doing so I have found myself without any entirely ludic games. Nothing to pass the time with no purpose other than to play the game itself.

As often happens when I go through times with my hobbies such as this, I ask myself what purpose there might be in doing so. I am a man who endeavours to have little consequence outside the blogs I write onto hyper-real paper. I am also a product of graduating in the early 2000s. Already at that time the job market was extraordinarily slow, except (of course) if you wanted employment with transitory menial tasks, of which little to no training was required (although the ubiquitous 'experience' was.)

Various paths led me into teaching. Many observers have been kind enough to rate my teaching, and I am fortunate to feel like I am the judge of my own effectiveness. However, the job demands a lot. It also requires an extraordinary amount of energy. It is increasingly a young person's game, which is not really the way you want your education system to be run. Still, for the moment I am functioning well. But I still wonder what my purpose might be.

When still at school I was determined to find a job beyond any kind of status or financial reward. I think I thought writing might have been it. In fact, I have an audience of students who would read what I write. But my writing skills and energy have chilled to the point of having almost been frozen. I am fortunate to have a reasonably regular and wide readership of this blog, and some interesting correspondence because of it.

However, I hope that I build my writing energy into something a little more substantial. To take on smaller, more fun projects. To write over a period of several years. Instead, I currently write a novel that is entirely unsuitable for publication (even though I find it amusing!) And all that starts with reading.

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