As someone who was limited in their interaction with video games growing up by their parents, I naturally took every second in any way I could to play them. Whether it was at the test booths in the local tech shops, at a friend’s house, or illegally downloaded on my home computer, I tried every method possible to enjoy something that remained part of a different world. I also supplemented my gaming experience for hours of walk-throughs, let’s plays and video game analysis video, learning niche tricks for games I would never be able to play. Eventually, after arriving at the University, my connection ith videogames went from mobile games and emulators to Super Smash-bros in the house lounge, and eventually games I bought with internship money for my custom built PC, and I became fully immersed in a world that had remained barred for so long. This unique experience of someone with extensive knowledge of a game but no physical experience shaped the way I interacted with every game I played, and with Stardew it manifested as a desire to learn every detail and “beat the game” as soon as possible, and since my first playthrough was with a friend who had the same mindset, days in Stardew became full of calculations, leveling, grinding, and calculating again. We kept this up for a couple of Stardew years, but eventually, I stopped playing the game and did not pick it back up until the beginning of this course.
When I started up my new world, I instantly realized how much I missed the convenience of the upgraded tools and a large efficient farm so I began grinding in the same way I had before, this time alone. The second time around, I had a better understanding of what goes on in the world of Stardew but a lot of the advancement lost its luster, and I realized I did not enjoy the game as much as I had before. The opportunity to play with a group of people that I did not know allowed me to learn things about Stardew valley and about myself that had rarely crossed my mind. In this group session, I spent the first half watching people play and plan a strategy involving the synchronization of fishing and planting crops, as well as the division of tasks to progress quickly, however, this plan fell apart quickly, as some people spent the day walking around aimlessly or only focused on talking to the residents. At first, I tried to give the people tips on how to be more efficient or prod them to be productive, since there was such a limited amount of time, but eventually, I realized that they were enjoying themselves so much more just sitting on the park swing on a rainy day. I started to think about all the various dimensions of Stardew valley, and how the sandbox approach to playing the game provided so many places to explore. I realized how my playstyle over the last couple of hours mirrored that of the main character’s life, grinding away to level up even after it was not as enjoyable. There was a parallel there with my personal life as well, as someone who remained focused on improvement and getting to the next step limited how much time I spent slowing down and enjoying the life I was living. Similarly in the context of this course, the way I interpreted the readings were through the eyes of someone fully integrated within the gaming community, and It’s especially difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone with no previous experience, who doesn’t have defaults in mind for the controls of every game or can guess the outcome of an event by relying on tropes common in games. How do we go about understanding this fresh gaming experience for our own? When considering the view from a developer’s perspective, how do you think of making a swing with no purpose other than being a place to sit, relax, and enjoy the rain?
