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You know, I've been exposed to the notion of going through life in a similar fashion to playing any offshoot of a survival game. What ever survival game it is, is irrelevant. The concept is always the same. Be it Minecraft, Ark: Survival Evolved, Terraria, No Man's Sky, the Sims, the list goes on and on.
I've never really looked too far into given theories about this method, so I figured I might try to invent my own theory of it. For this experiment, I will simply call it "LifeCraft".
The game begins and you spawn in at level zero. Unable to fend for yourself, communicate or have any real understanding of the physical world around you, nor what the feelings you're experiencing are.
Over time, you learn to speak the language of those around you and you begin to understand things in a context of right and wrong.
You go through schooling, where your intelligence is leveled up, as well as social skills and are given personal aspirations. Even the ones who don't like being around others learn new skills in maintaining stealth.
There are an endless list of skills to be learned and your aspirations will largely impact the development of those skills.
So here you are, you're concious and aware and you're playing on permadeath mode, but it's not quite as frightening because other players have taken the time to build up communities and resources that make playing the game vastly easier. Just imagine what it would be like without shelter, food, water, electricity and things like transportation and worldwide communication.
You can learn practically any skill your heart desires almost exclusively online. Most of these skills will need to be reinforced with real world experience and trial and error. But luckily, you've got others to help you along the path of mastering any skill. Whether it be something simple like knitting or cooking, or something more complex like psychology or science. There is something out there that can improve your level in that skill and give you a better understanding of how to use that skill to play the game better, more efficiently.
The real question is how do you want to play the game? There are endless amounts of options to choose from and there are endless reasons to choose. Maybe you want to do something that is going to impact the community you live in, or perhaps you want to reshape a community that exists without a physical presence like say the gaming community, or maybe you don't really know what you want to do and that's alright. No one is going to expect you to play the game perfectly... well, any rational player won't expect that anyway. Unfortunately, there are many irrational players and even trolls and griefers.
But you're here and you do have basic objectives that have to be met. Those objectives can consist of any of the following:
- maintaining social attributes and ties. (Charisma build)
- maintaining financial stability and career development (Business build)
- maintaining a self sufficient method of living (Off-the-grid build)
- maintaining a personal haven and taking interest in the more logical or emotional side of life (Intelligence build)
There are many, many more builds available but these are just a few general ideas. How you experience the game will impact how you choose to build your character. Ranging from aspirations to skill sets and even late game objectives like reproduction, close ties and career decisions.
While the way you experience the game does impact how you play, your style of playing also impacts the game and sometimes this can lead to radiant quests that are always the same. Which can burn a player out when these are chosen as the main directive of the playthrough. Sub-quests and sidequests can become engulfing and may lead to dead ends and that's ok. Though it's not always easy to get out of those questlines.
Then there are the physiological worries such as hunger, thirst, tiredness, illnesses, addictions and many more.
Then there are the psychological worries such as happiness, inner peace, anger, depression, anxiety, love and a whole slew of others. Some of which can even develop into physical addictions themselves.
Overall, there are a lot of pitfalls in LifeCraft and the dev has seemingly given up on making any drastic changes to the game. Only coding small issues out for species of animals, allowing better survivability in the face of human players or external changes to the environment.
As a human main, it's your job to figure out how you want to impact LifeCraft and what you can actually accomplish. So even if you're too depressed to fully play the game, you can at least interact with the environment to help. Making sure your living space is clean is a good start and ensuring you are meeting basic physical needs such as hunger, sleep, shelter and thirst and sadly not all players can do this. Some players don't even have the option. That's not to say that you're playing wrong or that you have to change because another player doesn't have as much as you do. But it also means that you don't have to change your playstyle just because you think other players have more than you either.
Just do the best you can and don't be afraid to grow and learn. It's only a matter of time before the end credits roll so try to enjoy it while you can, if you can. Eventually, every screen says "game over".
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