I walk out of the room......
I don't need help, I need more money, the more the merrier :P

Sometimes I wonder if one of the main issues about having too many games isn't the proper way to play them; if I had more accesible devices "ready to play" I think that more gaming would be feasible.

That's why I moved to gaming on Android. I still don't play a lot, but because it's more accessible I play more than if I stuck to the PC.

Nurse Ratched, bluesky doesn't want to take his medicine!

I played all the Blackwell games last year, Deception and Epiphany are excellent games that deserve 5 stars because they succeed in their category which is dialogue-based adventure games that even beginners can play. Deception was my favorite of the series but all the Blackwell parts were too light on the puzzles for my taste. As for the story, I don't care too much about story. Gameplay and immersive atmosphere are more important to me. For some reason, I never really got into the mood with any of the Blackwell games although Deception came closest to making it onto my favorites list.

Even Primordia which objectively rated and in terms of quality is arguably the number one best game released by Wadjet didn't quite make the cut despite being a top notch game, it's just that I didn't enjoy myself as much as with e.g. Resonance. Perhaps I couldn't identify enough with the game world of Primordia. It's visually similar to Machinarium but the mood is different. In general, I prefer adventures that are based in the "normal boring world" and then take things from there. Fate of Atlantis, Gabriel Knight, stuff like that. Fantasy and sci fi elements are ok but they can be more exciting if introduced into a more relatable world, as a contrast. Gemini Rue also worked fine for me but was a bit too short. That game could really have used more length. Same for Beneath a Steel Sky which is a very well made game but I didn't find it memorable.

Currently, I'm not motivated to play any of my games, regardless of the difficulty. If it's too easy then it's a pointless borefest and if it's too hard then it's a frustrating grindfest. Sometimes games hit the difficulty just right, CLARC is a good example where the puzzles are just tricky enough to slow you down but never make your head explode. Some of the action sequences are borderline aggravating, I did get angry several times but overall it's quite manageable.

With almost all the games I have installed, I would have to force myself to continue. Just not having any fun, as simple as that. Doesn't mean the game is bad, I just don't see the point.

Just installed The Last Express the other day, a game of which I only played the demo back in the day.
I'm really getting tired of Dosbox games here because some of them don't work properly without fixes. Talking about problems many people experience such as mouse cursor issues. I currently don't have the patience to go and search for solutions, if a game doesn't work then that puts the nail in the coffin for me. I won't even bother contacting support. Their response time is very good but the help isn't overly useful, a Google search will net you more results quicker. Anyway, The Last Express is basically unplayable this way on my laptop, the vertical and horizontal speeds of the cursor are out of sync and the cursor moves in strange waves even if I move it straight.
The game is hailed as an absolute classic but even if the mouse would work properly, I doubt I'd continue to play this. Love the concept and setting but if there's anything I hate it's adventure games where you walk in jerky increments, and 1st person perspective in general**. It's annoying when you can't look around freely, that felt awkward even 20 years ago.
The gameplay also seems to be extremely limited in this game. I walked to the dining car, talked to the guy it seems one is supposed to talk to but then he runs off and a couple seconds later he dies and it's game over. I guess the idea of the game is that I'm expected to find this exciting and try to detective my around the problem of the guy dying again. Either way, another hall of fame game I'm throwing on the major disappointment pile.

**only applies to adventure games, if it's a RPG like Wizardry or Lands of Lore 1 then I'm fine with tile based movement and FPP.

Ah crap, I just preordered Technobabylon...why on Earth did I do that?! I mean, I have improved in my addiction and reduced the purchasing rate from 1 game every 2 days to 1 game every 15 days, but I had literally no control over this purchase.
I didn't even realize it was a preorder and that I can't play it yet, all I knew was that I had seen something about this game before and because it's a VGA adventure and from Wadjet, I knew I had to get this. $15 bucks, poof, gone! For only $7.50 more I could have gotten the entire Sabre bundle but no, I got hypnotized by the pixel promise and expected ecstasy of Technobabylon. I sure hope this will be money well spent. It's probably not too long but if the quality is right it's justifiable, plus the developer deserves to be supported. This is the first time I've preordered anything in my life, that kinda thing goes against my principle of not buying the cat in the bag, learned from much traveling and duking it out with people who try to scam me out of my money.
Now I'm faced with the problem of not being able to afford an extra gift copy as per my rules here which really places me in a dilemma. I could ill afford to even buy the game for myself since I haven't had my payday yet and I can even less afford to buy a gift copy. What to do, what to do. We can ill afford another Klendathu, urk.
If only I had a time machine, that way I could travel into the future and buy the extra gift copy when the game goes on sale and then come back with the code written on a piece of paper. Unfortunately, that wouldn't work though as the gift codes are most likely generated when the purchase is made, not determined beforehand.

That's where we differ. I play mostly for the story. That's why I don't mind if the game isn't putting much resistance in the way.

Well, don't know what to say. Maybe you've outgrown games. How do you feel about other media, such as movies or books? Are you similarly judgemental when it comes to them?

And if you're not that happy with games, maybe you should stop buying them. :)

But I guess you're still trying to find that old feeling of fun. $15 isn't that much, and supporting a dev you like is a good thing, but jumping on the preorder wagon, especially for a game that doesn't fall into the "normal boring world" paradigm you claim to love, is maybe a bit too much.

Edit: Just noticed that you say you can't afford the game. In which case it's an even worse offence. Still, presumably GOG doesn't charge you until the release date (I never preordered, but that's the usual practice with stores), so hopefully by the 21st of May you'll have $15 saved for this (or $30, if you insist on a gift copy).

By the way, googled a bit and found that Wadjet Eye Games is just the publisher, not the developer, which might affect the "dev support" aspect of the purchase.

Still, you made me think of getting it myself, since it's an AGS game so would likely be able to run under Android. (But it's not like there aren't other games I can play.)

I can't stop.. I just can't... But considering that it's better for my health than smoking, I think it's not that bad...

Yep, I feel the same about games as I feel about comics/cartoon series/movies, it's all in the same category to me: willful waste of time. Which is why enjoyment is so important to me, I already know it's a waste of time so I really want to at least enjoy it. Meaning I stop playing a game or stop watching a movie when it stops being fun for longer than my patience threshold warrants - which nowadays is quite short.

That would of course be the logical thing to do but addiction ignores logic. If it weren't so and could simply be solved by applying logic, I wouldn't have had to make this thread.
Apparently, I keep hoping that the next purchase will bring happiness so as a result I keep purchasing and purchasing and as it turns out many other people have the same or a very similar problem..

Indeed, although I'm well aware that I'm highly unlikely to experience even remotely the same excitement nowadays as I used to experience as a teenager. Regardless of whether I'm reinstalling an old classic or getting my hands on a new game.

Actually, I wasn't precise enough. I'm a great fan of dystopian sci-fi settings like Beneath a Steel Sky as long as there are enough puzzles involving regular objects that we have in the present day. Gemini Rue is a great example, most puzzles don't require any space logic and work in pretty much the same way as a present day adventure without sci-fi elements would. Even when there are puzzles with sci-fi elements, it's not too otherworldly. A New Beginning also falls into that category. All games I enjoyed enough to keep playing until completion.
What I don't like as much is when alien logic is involved, can't really relate to that stuff too much. The insect chapter in Sanitarium for example, or many of the puzzles in The Dig (the ones not involving a shovel, basically). Sanitarium is a good game and The Dig is a very good one, and graphically one of the most beautiful VGA adventures of all times, but I prefer puzzles to be more rooted in RL. They can employ silly adventure game logic as did the rubber ducky puzzle in The Longest Journey just as long as it's not too abstract. I never liked Myst style puzzles much, I prefer combining items and building contraptions and interacting with hotspots rather than the esoteric open alien gate type of puzzles.

Secret Files Tunguska is a near perfect example of the kind of gameplay I enjoy in an adventure game. If story is the most important thing to you the series is probably underwhelming to you but there are so many inventory puzzles and that kept me going so I completed the entire series and I'd buy more if there were more sequels. Most of the puzzles are on the easy side but that's alright, means less instances of getting stuck. Getting stuck is my main problrm in adventure games as it destroys the immersion and prevents me from being motivated enough to continue - which has resulted in several dozen adventure game playthroughs coming to a halt of undefined length
.
Ideally, an adventure game would be like Fate of Atlantis but that's such a tall order to fill that if I kept my standards so high, I wouldn't enjoy anything of lesser quality.

By the 20th of May, I'll have recovered from the $15 I -already- spent haha, ok it's not that bad but I really have no extra cash to spare on anything not absolutely essential like food and rent.

Well, supporting the publisher and developer is in this case congruent because Wadjet did make the art, music and voice acting so they're actively involved in the creation of the game. More details over here:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/preorder_technobabylon_bb2ee/post45

Dave Gilbert says a test run of the game takes him 6-7 hours so I'd estimate that translates to about 10 hours or so for people playing it for the first time. That's a very good length and if I hadn't already preordered the game, I'd be sold on it right about now. I'm still faced with the challenge of having to buy the 2nd code for a gift but I'll have to figure something out regarding that. I dug that hole for me :)

Game purchasing addiction isn't as bad as smoking, naturally, but that doesn't mean one simply leaves the problem untreated. It might mutate into something bigger and worse, plus we should all strive to be our own best versions, as free of addictions as possible - if the addiction makes you unhappy. If you're not unhappy about it and if you can financially afford it, it's not that bad at all, sure.

I see the addiction as a problem because every time I buy a game, I expect "game happiness" to increase and when that doesn't work then it has the opposite effect, leaving a "meh, I didn't really need to buy this, this isn't fun" feeling. As a result, the need to create more "game happiness" grows and I feel even more tempted to buy more games. It's like if an alcoholic would try to drink himself sober. Doesn't really work. The difference is that occasionally, I do find a game that increases happiness (e.g. Halfway) but that's a small percentage of all the games I have bought.

Ah a new month. This month my resolution will be not buy any games at all. No matter how crazy the sales. I cannot keep failing forever.

$20+ was a bit more money than I wanted to spend at once, but hey, like you said it's a pretty damn good discount for Star Wars games so I decided to go for it while I had the chance. Now I can fulfill the curiosities that I've had about the majority of those games (especially Jedi Academy and Battlefront II).... and have a DRM free version of KotOR 2. ;)

Yep, right when the first six LucasArts games appeared on GOG.com, I couldn't help but fork some money over to Disney ($10, to be exact, bought X-Wing) for finally coming to their senses and making some games from their back catalog available DRM free. Both this and how much people seem to love just about everything in the LucasArts catalog, and being a Star Wars fan myself; when a sale like this comes, it's too compelling to pass up.

(And hey, by starting this sale they fulfilled a wishlist entry that I created, so I have to show them gratitude by buying something from it :D)

After two months of crazy purchasing, plus picking up a few things in GAs, I probably really need to dial it back quite a bit too. It's not just the money, as tight as the budget is, it's that I spend almost all day tied to a PC in some fashion or other.

And the temptation to buy things on sales has only grown even as the surge in backlog means it's going to be hard to play all the games I have in any timely fashion, much less new acquisitions.

Someone commented on gaming being better than smoking, but as someone who sits most of the day at work, coming home and sitting for 3-5 more hours playing games is pretty bad for my health too. Should probably trade a few of those hours for yoga or cardio kickboxing or something ;)

I can sympathize, even though I've not created any wishlists I have voted on 99 games and 9 of those have been fulfilled so far - not all of which I have bought yet, and I kinda feel a bit guilty about it. A bit like asking for a second helping at dinner and then not being able to finish it. Awkward! :) (rarely ever happens to me though, I usually soldier through because that's the way I was raised. Finish yo plate!)

I wish there was a way to track wishes on the community wishlist. I have no exact recollection of what I voted for, it just shows the total number of wishes I've made. Would be nice if the stats (see screencap) would link to a list of all the games one has voted for. That way I could then transfer the fulfilled community wishes to my personal account wishlist and buy the games when they go on sale.

Looks like someone has even made a feature wishlist for those things, quite amazing how there already is a wishlist for everything:

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/a_means_to_track_wishes_on_gogcom

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/wishlist_ability_to_list_all_yout_wishes


Only thing I couldn't find is a wishlist for "world peace", guess there are more hipsters than hippies here (hipsters would probably say world peace is overrated)

Theoretically, one can keep failing endlessly, there is no level cap on failing aside from death. Which is why we need this therapy here!

One entire month is a solid goal, my personal record is only 26 days twice in a row so if you can stay clean for an entire month you'll have beaten me already. Of course, this is no competition as each of us fights against themselves but to see that others are trying might serve as inspiration to make a better effort for oneself.

If you're using the computer for work or creative endeavors (web design, making mods and graphics and music etc) then that's one thing but if you're not creating anything then sitting at the computer drains energy and gives you none back. This would apply to playing games, watching TV series etc.

Very true, sadly. The more backlog you have the more impossible it seems to get around to playing everything so one says "well, I already have so many games that I can't realistically play them all, now it doesn't matter anymore if I buy even more".


Not just probably, I'd say definitely. Occasionally, playing a game makes me feel happy and satisfied but it still just drains energy. The physical activities you listed are going to cost you energy but give you more in return, if you don't go crazy and overdo it. That relaxed feeling one has after doing sports (in moderation) is a way better feeling than any video game can give you. Unless it's Wii Fit maybe, but I have no experience with any of that stuff. The whole thing seems entirely bizarre to me but then again, whatever works.

(Apologies for the late response. For a few days I thought what to say exactly and how to say it succinctly, then forgot about it.)

It looks to me like your buying addiction is under control. The problem isn't that, it's your love-hate relationship with games.

I think that you're totally wrong about energy drain. Perhaps it's true for you, perhaps a result of your feeling of guilt. Regardless, you need to do something about that love-hate. From the games you said you played, it sounds like you're playing quite a bit, so you need to either get rid of the guilt or reduce the amount of gaming.

If you can realistically replace gaming time with something which feels productive to you, then by all means do it. You don't have to ditch gaming completely, just try to replace some of it with something else. If that works, well done, you can try to continue. If not, try to reduce guilt. We all need to unwind, and consuming content can be a good fertiliser for creativity (it's not for nothing that writers tend to be voracious readers and game creators are gamers).

Find some balance and try to enjoy it.

(I realise that to an extent the problem is also with money, although if that's the major issue then being less selective is a solution.)