The other aspect is there are plenty of people that like to think like programmers, but have no experience programming and the barrier to entry for a videogame is substantially lower than even figuring out a "hello world!" program for someone who wouldn't even know how to pick a programming language.
It's instant gratification: I don't have as much fun practicing at .75x speed with a metronome to learn the hard part of a piece. Instead a video game tells me how great I am at "guitar" by being able to push buttons and strum on the beat, not to mention that I hear the sounds of my favorite songs come out when I do it.
For a similar reason, I like Rocksmith (guitar hero but with a real guitar), but the gratification is not quite so instant. They gamify the practicing part but I still need to do it, otherwise the part I'm playing actually sounds bad. And sight-reading is so much harder when there are more than 5 buttons.
Designing a satisfying skill progression takes a lot of work. I know what I will have to do if I, say, take up mandolin again seriously, and it's daunting- and worse, maybe it won't even lead to a satisfying or useful end... I will still do that at some point. I had the same feeling about cello or pedal steel guitar, and they all turned out okay.
At the same time I totally understand why following simple tutorials, running a preset course, climbing an established route, riding already-cleared bike trails, or playing a video game with few possible outcomes can be satisfying.
On the topic of complex games a la Factorio: I've been playing a lot of Age of Empires II with my friends lately and have come to enjoy it. I previously shied away from RTSes because I was terrified of the meta but I've gotten decent enough to consistently beat the CPU on Moderate. I have no shot of ever commanding an army of trebuchets and knights in real life so doing it on my ThinkPad via Proton is the next best thing :-D
- YouTuber “spirit of the law”
- watching some build order guides. Fast feudal and fast castle build orders are super useful
- watching commentated games of the Viper
If I’d spent all the time playing Guitar Hero playing an actual guitar instead, I’d be a real guitar hero.
I could also be a pro skater.
Being a simulated guitar hero and simulated pro skater is more enriching than the likely baseline of having zero experience with either.
And, video games can help in discovering real world passions — the number of guitarists who found their inspirational spark through Guitar Hero is likely significant. Same for Factorio or Minecraft -> programming.
From game I get instant gratification as if I play by the game guide/rules I can have something satisfying built in one evening.
however, this is the trap i always fall into - i have these vague targets like "learn vue" and spend the whole weekend trying to figure out how to install node on a windows machine and run a basic test
Personally I have a list of things to learn that could easily take several lifetimes.
e.g: making bluetooth 10% more energy efficient in the next few revisions
In fact there are probably infinitely many.
If you just walk up to the mailing list with the complete designs, documents, experimental results, schematics, trade offs, feasibility studies, you know what you're going to get? People saying "whoa, hey, great work but let's talk about this. I see here you've made assumption X about implementation area Y and that actually conflicts with the direction that we had in mind for the upcoming release, so let's talk more. To start, we'd like to see if we can explore option Z, thoughts?"
That ain't fun. It's rewarding but it ain't fun. Not like sitting down and messing with Legos in your own house is fun, or building a silly factory in Factorio is fun.
I know a person who 2x'ed BTLE transfer speeds by herself by coming up with a new protocol to talk to iPhones w/o the need for one of Apple's security chips.
Sufficient brainpower can do amazing things.
Nobody is going to believe anyone short of that bar would have even fully understood the bluetooth specification. So even a regular genius, 99.9th percentile HN user, would have a starting credibility of roughly zero.
But there are likely infinitely many waiting for that 99.9999th percentile HN reader to come along.
Also saw Facebook's experimental Diplomacy AI. Wish that were usable the time we lost a player.
From what I can tell, it seems like generally they're doing RAG over the game's wiki, and then reading it to you in an attractive-lady voice.
I find that pretty amusing.
It's perhaps too long, overflows the parser stack.
It's the trucking game for truckers in my mind, only a madman would play it after work.
Exactly yes, I wouldn't say it's only for engineers, it is perfect for smart people who chose a different path in life and need to feed this part of their brain with a fun simplified simulation of what it's like to be an engineer.
Of course, engineers would love this game, but we already engage in this type of activity all day much more intensely precisely because we love it, we already know how to do more interesting and valuable things with the same effort.
Similarly, I really lost the appetite for hard decision-making strategy games when I founded my startup. I was already having to take plenty of hard decisions, thank you very much, the real thing is much more interesting and more than enough.
By far the best decision-making game I have played, incredible writing, world building and character development too.
It’s about being president but surprisingly similar to being a founder. No matter the scale, there is always a small inner circle and it’s just as much about the people as the technical aspects, which is also always similar: estimating outcomes based on evidence, logic, experience and advice.
Once I get successful in it, I'm like "but I should be making money in the real world, not this world" as I do have side projects. the game does turn into a slog, if you approach it that way
The advantage a game like factorio has over DtD is that you can kind of abandon huge sections and "start fresh" while still collecting rent from the work you did earlier to fund your new excursions. I guess DtD does this to a degree, but there's a lot less freedom of intellectual movement.
This is why I like Against the Storm. It is a novel (if familiar) challenge every time, and every time you "beat the odds" the game forces you to move on to the next harder challenge, "you beat this puzzle, you need a harder on."
so thats what made it too much like real life for me, because you're like struggling but then pretending like you are flexing (look at the size of my house! my farm!), but really everyone barely made it at all
maybe Against the Storm as a single player journey makes more sense
Against the Storm is all about setting up complex production chains, not necessarily linking them explicitly like in Factorio, but more about balancing resource availability and assigning workers. It's a lot like other resource-focused city builders like Anno, but it is very well designed to impose a constant pressure on the player, always on a rush to meet goals before the whole thing crumbles, constantly putting out fires in the system (sometimes literal fires).
The name is perfect, in that you build this complex machine, and it is constantly stress-tested by periodic hazards. It's an awesome rush to "hold-fast", scramble to desperately fix things, constantly on the edge, hoping that the storm will end soon because the whole thing is about to crumble, while rushing to fulfil the objectives so you can get out of there before it gets too bad.
Frospunk evokes this feeling really well too. I suppose Factorio is kinda similar with the alien attacks. Come to think of it, the pressure to feed the family and the final scramble for points in Agricola are not so dissimilar either.
Life is a slog if approached that way. Spending your time chasing more money instead of enjoying life is the quickest way to have a miserable existence.
But I wasn’t looking for devil’s advocate or solutions, us guys need to affirm each other’s experiences more often.
I also do enjoy very profitable sessions in life, the pursuit of money itself is fulfilling for me as it already is a massive multiplayer game pvp. Additionally, I would usually prefer to be doing entertainment options exclusive to the level of profits that have been manifested. But I love the existence that allows me to play video games with no consequence.
> there are many different levels each
the expansion adds separate planets and multiple space-platforms. So it moves away from the monolith and towards multiple smaller factories. (In the end-game you probably and up with a massive monolith again, but until then you will have multiple medium-sized factories).
> ... classic tower defense and using the layout of the map to your advantage to extract resources and kill bad guys
Each new area add some unique defense-need, e.g. in space you have to shoot at incoming asteroids, and on the lava-planet, you have to build temporary mining-outposts, that get eaten by worms after a couple of minutes. (The other planes probably add something like that too, but I haven't played so far yet)
The timeline (quick returns, but a long scale of challenges you can build up to. Lots of side projects out there with 0 users.)
You can play with friends
You can also pay 1/4 attention until you need to design something complex in the game. I find it fun, I can turn my brain off for a bit but then re/engage for the fun complex stuff.
I stopped playing as much myself because I wanted to either work on professional development (side projects, learning more) or actually make things with my hands (woodworking, chair making, fixing an old truck) that were real breaks from software engineering, and easier to share with my kids.
* edited for clarity, typos
It's called replayability, the crucial selling point of every successful game.
I haven't played Factorio so far; for those who haven't programmed, do you think you're learning something new and somewhat transferable?
I also build side projects - but from the game I get instant gratification as I can build decent city with goal I have in one evening whereas side project to have anything I can say is pleasing takes much more time than one evening.
Games don't have annoying blockers like trying to use some new library, cities I build also did not work first times I was playing because I was noob - but even libraries frameworks I use on daily basis always have some kinks I have to figure out so it takes multiple evening anyway.
You don't have to make it your job.
In a similar way I think more people should change a flat tire or change the oil in their car. I think it will make them more aware, but they don't have to become a mechanic.
[1] A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society.
You're on big space rock, dude.
“Observe pattern, build pattern while learning and optimizing pattern fit, delight.”
What makes a side project better than Factorio?
I agree that "contributing to society" has no intrinsic value. It is my own.
I feel like I waste my time when I play video games, but this is recent. I used to play a lot till age 24 or something. This feeling stops me from playing, but even if I do end up playing, I feel guilty afterwards that my time went to something that ultimately "does not matter". That said, playing something for fun is entertainment, it should matter, but I still get those feelings nevertheless. I hope this makes sense. I am not trying to argue that "fun" does not matter, I suppose I am just not so fun anymore. :P
It depends though, if I play a video game with my girlfriend it is alright.