Recently I started playing video games consistently for the first time in a decade plus. I’ve found it to be a good mental workout — especially when starting a fresh game and all the controls / rules are new and must be learned quickly — and of course it’s fun to go back and play all kinds of bucket list games.
So far I’ve played bits of:
-Kingdom Rush (tower defense game)
-GTA San Andreas (action adventure open world)
-Stardew Valley (indie farming sim)
My favorite among the bunch is Stardew Valley. Simply incredible that it’s designed by one person over many hardcore years of grind and struggle, he composed and performed the music, conceptualized and made the art, the code, the logic, etc. Wow. Though farming games generally don’t appeal to me, the city building aspects, delving into the mines (more adventure + battle), all of collecting + hoarding + resource gathering, those parts are fun.
Next up I bought Sleeping Dogs — an action adventure with aspects of Yakuza and GTA, set in Hong Kong amidst the triads.
I also wanna play Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Rimworld, the list keeps growing. Truly a golden age for gaming, every new decade brings better tech, better art, better production values, more variety… can’t wait to see what AI does for the whole category.