I recently got a job after finishing university, all is good. However, after 5 full days of being behind desk job, I feel a bit exhausted of being behind desk.
Thus my desire to game on PC has soured immensely. Despite having a huge backlog and actually want to finish games.
I’m debating to purchase a Steam Deck OLED in the hope, I can actually play some decent games on there without getting fatigue of desk/ screens but that’s a big investment (€670-700).
So I was wondering; how do the adults of Lemmy with 5 full days of work still get the time and desire to play their games?
My suggestion is to either change the context you play games in, or pick games that are very cognitively different from what you normally do at work.
You can change your context with a new console, but I think it may be cheaper to do something like buying a controller and playing games while standing up, or on your couch/armchair, or playing games while sitting on a yoga ball. The point is to trick your brain, because it’s associated sitting at a desk in front of a computer with boring tedium. Change the presentation and your subconscious will interpret it differently.
You can also achieve this by identifying the things that you have to do in your job that mirror videogame genres you enjoy and picking a game that shares few of those qualities.
I worked at the post office for years, doing mail processing, and my enjoyment of management and resource distribution style games went down sharply during that time because of the cognitive overlap- I played more roguelikes and RPGs as a consequence.
Any portable console is amazing for this, as you can literally change the whole context on a whim. A steam deck is nice, but even a used older console like a PSP / Vita or 3DS is amazing for a reasonable amount of money. As most of these systems no longer have legal ways to buy new games, I see no harm in pirating the games. I am doing this with a 3DS right now and going through the systems hit games is just an amazing ride. Currently enjoying Super Mario 3D Land and Bravely Default.
Yeah! Also, sometimes I use emulators that work well on phones to play older games, I had fun playing Final Fantasy Legends 2 with RetroArch.