My Big RPG Project
Every year about this time I start playing through Final Fantasy 1. The reason for this is because I consider this to be the game that really hooked me into, not only RPGs, but games as a whole. I've covered this a lot in other posts on my old blog site so I'm not going to rehash that by the off chance that I decide at some point in the future to turn around and repost those things over here. But something else tends to happen, not coincidentally, at the exact same time every year. And that is me wanting to do an age old project that I never really quite do. And that is playing a ton of RPGs.
This thought actually started probably about 15 years ago. A friend of mine and I had discovered the CRPG Addict and fell in love with the concept. Originally, this friend and I were going to do a little bit more. We had the concept of both playing the same game at the same time, and then coming together to podcast about it and probably blog about it at the same time. In a way, it was kind of like an RPG book club where we'd get together and play games, and come together and chat about them. I still think this would have been a lot of fun. In terms of finding a bunch of new games to play, having fun chatting with a friend, and getting other people's input as well (putting out a post and having people chime in and have their own takes on a game always gives me joy to have greater conversation about stuff).
But alas, that friend had a family, and I also had a kid, and so planning such things was difficult at best. Now, that friend is no longer in my life, the kid is, but she is fully grown and doesn't take up nearly as much time in my life as she once did, so I have a little more time around. The idea of playing through all the RPGs and taking notes and blogging about them has never really left my mind. But though I have no kid taking up much time, I still don't really have time. I have a full time job and I do eBay on the side, these two combined easily take up over 60 hours a week of my time and the time remaining I tend to be tired and not really in the mood to game. When I do game, I find myself playing games that I've already played a million times before so I don't really use as much brain power to play. Namely Civ 6 and Imperator: Rome. (I know, both are strategy games which generally require a lot of thinking, but it's all just pattern recognition so if you understand the patterns, you generally aren't thinking.).
On top of that, I do have undiagnosed ADHD (get diagnosed asap kids, I never wanted to when I was younger, but now that I'm older, doctors don't want to diagnose me anymore, it's strange). I definitely have an issue starting something and stopping it over and over again. Hell you can look at this blog as evidence, and even on this blog I have talked about having an exploration blog for No Man's Sky which another project I've tried several times and failed! I have heard that one thing with ADHD is that saying you are going to do something, essentially gives you the same dopamine rush as doing something, and while I've never thought of it on the level of dopamine... it kinda makes sense to me. I really don't get much joy out of finishing stuff, but I get a ton out of starting it!
So short story long, I've started perusing CRPGAddict yet again and going to myself, dang I wish I could do that! LoL. It is inevidable. I try not to even start things like this anymore because I know it is just going to lead to disappointing myself, but I can't help but think about it. This year's rendition of it has kind of a different tinge though. It has become... What steps could I take to actually force myself to do this thing?
Like I said, I really would love to do it. If anyone has ideas, I'm open. In the meantime, I'm gonna read CRPGAddict, wish that I could do something similar, and research ways to push past ADHD hurdles without medication since doctors won't help me.