I've involuntarily developed an urge to play more video games over the past year (for reasons too long to go into). Instead of fighting it I thought I should it make it intellectually worthy.

So I built a list of classic games I've missed out starting from year 1996. The idea is to approach it like classic literature, the more they remain relevant the more longer they tend to do so. It also helps if they run on a non-gaming machine so I can take it outside.

I started with Myst a month back, the only game I could play when I was sick with Covid. The graphics have aged terribly, but the puzzles are simply brilliant. It work in a pressure-less that I could play in low-energy mode. I got near enough to the end, got trapped and called it done.

Unlike films, it's uncommon for games to stand the test of time. Myst (and possibly the entire series) is one of them.

I've now moved on to playing Fallout (1997). Here's the thing about RPGs, I was never into them. After some time in Fallout I finally understood why.

I was too much of a stick in the mud to role-play. Instead of being another character in a game, I've always insisted on being myself within games. I would build character stats that resemble my ideal self most closely and then get my identity attached to it. That was a bad idea, because invariably the game would beat me, the character dies and I would take it as a personal failure. It devastated me that even as the best version of myself I would lose, what hope is there for the real me.

Goes without saying that it was the wrong mental model. The correct posture for playing an RPG should be not-giving-a-fuck. Arguably the same for IRL too.

In such an orientation, I no longer care about the attributes given to my character. I would randomize them if I can and play the cards that are dealt, so to speak. If the character is meant to play defense, then I shall adapt to it (as soon as I've learned to interpret the stats).

Once I stop giving a fuck, it became easier to play a game not to win it but to expect it to surprise me.

In fact to win the game is for it to end. If winning is what matters most, then all game designers have to do make everything a repetitive grind. In such games, to win means to work hard. I have real-life to do that in, I don't need a game for that.

Similar to literature/TV/movies, what a game ultimately has to deliver is surprise. Death is easily preferred over lack of surprises.

As a player in an RPG, that might mean doing things that are out of character (the one you are born with).