Lith's Diary - March (Patreon)

Dear Diary,
This month has been... intense! I guess that last month was a lot of struggling to stop spending time on stuff that was "not fun and not work," and... this month was kinda the opposite. Actually, I've kinda... spent way too much time playing games and getting completely, horrendously absorbed into them to the point it was a little detrimental to my health! But um... I think I'm getting better! I'm still getting work done, and enough of it that I feel at least somewhat proud of myself, but wow. I went from barely gaming at all to, um...

Well. It started with finally getting back into Kerbal Space Program. I have a lot of fond memories of that game, and this time, I finally went through with trying it out loaded up with mods. Last time I played it, I only had the one basic mod for some functionality that really should be in the game (and they did actually add some of it recently), but this time I went all out. And it was awesome! It really took a lot of the rough edges off the game while still keeping things challenging, and I lost days to the game, just refining my rockets and precisely charting trips into orbit, then to the Mun, and then to Minmus. And... I stopped. Right about the spot I stopped last time, actually, which is kinda frustrating? I was really hoping to at least get to Duna this time.

But honestly... it was just getting too stressful. I found myself really tense the whole time I was playing, treating it a little too much like a high-pressure situation where I had to get every last little thing perfect. Which... is probably a good way to run a realistic spaceflight? But it was getting to be too much for me. My play time should be to help me clear my head and get a break from work, but I realized that my work was stressing me out, and then my play was stressing me out more, and it just wasn't working. I was heavily addicted, but I broke it, because it was kinda scaring me.

And... two days later, Satisfactory came out.

Now, as I've mentioned, I really like "boring" games. I like resource management, trading, building things up, all that. A lot of other kinds of games, I'll play them mainly for the satisfaction of managing all the resources just right to achieve victory just by "out-growing" the challenges. And... this game is a love letter to that kind of gameplay. It drops you on this beautiful, lush alien planet full of natural resources, and it's up to you to mine, build smelting facilities, build mining facilities, build part-construction facilities, and gradually develop this fully-automated network for turning raw resources into complicated machinery. The game absolutely lives up to its title, because it scratched that itch for me like nobody's business. I fell head-first into this game, and it kept surprising me.

I probably spent twenty hours hiding away in my own little corner of the map, building and building and building with the resources I had on hand. Then, I needed to find oil. And... when I scanned, all the oil was mind-bogglingly far away. So I put together the building supplies I'd need, strapped on my mechanically augmented running shoes, stocked up on food, pulled out my alien-whacking stick, and ran across literally miles of map, slowly losing my mind. This place is HUGE! The map is just titanic, all of it hand-crafted and beautiful and full of weird biomes and secrets. I had no idea the whole time I was building back home that all this was out here! Monsters, soaring vistas, strange plantlife, massive caverns running under it all.

The game is still under development, but there's still tons of content. I played for forty hours in just a few days before I finished most of the tech tree that's available, and I could've kept going. It sounds like later on, they're going to add freaking trains for connecting distant sections of the game, hauling all your resources around, and honestly, I could see trains being needed. Hunt down resources all around the map to connect to your network, all drawing into one mega-factory hub, feeding massive quantities of advanced technological goods into a dang space elevator. When I wasn't playing it, I kept thinking about better ways to set up my factory and make things more efficient, and it kept going after I finished the content. Now, I've got an idea I want to try so much for a new factory that I've kinda started a new game. I'm doing better about only playing so much and getting work done, but man. This game has me in its clutches.

So that's been my month! Work has been stressful and challenging, but at least I'm working hard and playing hard. ...And learning that there's such a thing as playing too hard. Oof.

I heard "oof" is a meme now? Because of some game that is also a meme. I said oof before it was a thing, so it's kinda frustrating. Now I feel like I can't say it without people thinking I'm getting in on the dumb meme! Mimetics! What even are you!

Anyway, looking back, I guess I'm still struggling some with balancing everything in my life, but I feel like I say that a lot here. I keep hoping I'll "figure it out" sometime, but maybe life isn't simple enough to really let something as complicated as the balance of every type of activity I end up doing over a month just "balance out" for good. If all I can do is fight to keep it closer to balanced, maybe I'll just have to accept that. Maybe I should stop complaining about it, then. Hmm.

Well, either way, I think this month was still an improvement over the problems I had last month. It hasn't been perfect, but it's been passionate, and I've certainly been enjoying myself. How about you, Diary? I hope you've found things to be passionate about, that give you a reason to get out of bed and look forward to your day. I know sometimes I've been missing those, and... it really helps keep me going, you know? I think I need to work to make sure I have things to be passionate about in my life more often. Give myself things to get excited over. It's not easy to keep those on hand, of course, but I think it's important to try.

So don't forget to work some passion and excitement into your life, Diary-- you deserve it! You're always so helpful, always there for me and listening to my problems and even helping Lithier, I want to make sure you're taking care of yourself too, and living a life that's not just healthy, but enjoyable. So take some time to think about what you really, honestly enjoy, what Satisfies you, and... make sure you work some of it in, okay? It's okay to spoil yourself a little.

Just a little bit. For me.

Until next time... enjoy yourself!
-Lith