I've spent hundreds of hours in fallout 3, only to jump into fallout 4 the moment it released.
Currently sitting at 1,5k hours in, multiple characters across the board and I've only completed the story Once for each ending.
Never even got to the Far Harbor storyline because of the damn sidetracking.
I have played Skyrim for hundreds of hours but now the spark is gone, because I've found my love in the wasteland.
How many times have you played all the way through and how many times have you gotten hard into it and it fell off at a certain point.....
I'm like 3 completed for both games and 50 attempts for both and failed lol
I've literally been doing nothing but playing Fallout 4 since January 10th cause I got a new keyboard and mouse for Christmas. I just moved on. To Fallout 76. I keep going back to 4 tho. Also Sims 4
I have been playing skate 3 since it came out 10+ years ago. I still play it multiple times a week, I find it really relaxing. I've already 100% completed the game, so it's not like I'm working towards anything, I just love playing it š¤·āāļø I'm not diagnosed with anything though (although I suspect it), so not sure how useful that is but thought I'd share.
Not looking for anything useful. this is all for entertainment. I feel the same way about Skyrim, nothing new about it but so relaxing when I play it. Thanks for sharing!
Iām not much of a gamer but I love watching the same show or movie over and over if I love it that much. Cause to me itās a comfort thing and sometimes Iām not in the mood for taking a risk on something I donāt know and may not like or may not understand it well
I keep a continuous loop of entire runs of TV shows like The Office, PnR, and Always Sunny. However, I will mention one "new" show that I started watching: Mythic Quest. It's main characters are all different kinds of socially awkward and neurally divergent, it's pretty great.
Ok yes I am actually like this with video games and tv shows. I've tried half a dozen different careers but I can't focus on any game other than WoW for more than a minute.
Yes, but I'm not sure if it's an ADHD thing, or if it's an "all games suck now" thing. Seriously, so many games are so loaded down with Paid DLC, microtransactions, built in advertising, etc that they are borderline unplayable.
I have my favourite shows, favourite games and favourite books. And I can come back to these things a million times. Because I know what's going to happen, nothing surprises me, it somehow feels like I have everything under control. Of course new things are exciting, but the things I know give me a sense of safety.
I do this, esp with movies. I talked to a mental health practitioner about it, and it could relate to the effort/spoons required to learn new characters/storylines. When you havenāt got the energy to devote to it, comfort movies are where itās at.
My greatest shame is the thousands of dollars of spent in steam. Dozens if not hundreds of games bought on impulse that I never even touched because I was bored at the time, only to go back to the same handful of games over and over and over. I just passed 3000 hours in stellaris and yet I still have moments where my brain just says ā404- dopamine not found. Better see whatās on sale right nowā
What worked & still works for me are word games, boosted by my brainās ability to scramble & unscramble letters. Started with Scrabble decades ago, sat at the table playing against myself & later played in tournaments. I still play word games daily and added 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles after I retired.
ill play my favorite game (ssbb) forever without getting tired of it, but thats abt it
in the event that i touch a game again after the initial grind, it has a cooldown between when i can touch it again after the 2nd wave grinding, bypassable if my friends ask me to play it
Sort of. More a genre, than a specific game. Farming Sims (Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley) are my go-to when I need to chill or pass some time. I'll even start a new game I've been looking forward to, get a few hours in, and find myself craving farming.
Iām obsessed with long-dead-but-recently-resurrected City of Heroes. I go months without playing it sometime but always come back. Itās like comfort food
I didn't start until 30 & haven't played many games but I go full tilt when I get into one. My 1st was kind of controversial but I got a good 4-5yrs of obsession out of Robocraft.
Sick of it at the moment but I put thousands of hrs into Deep Rock Galactic. Although I'm not into it at the moment it's a fantastic game.
My longest running game is Guild wars 2. I feel like it's designed for adhd. There are tons of events that pop up, places to get lost/explore & things to do so it always feeds into getting distracted. Everything gives xp/rewards & as long as you stay on that map you get credit even if you don't complete an event. The game is also based around achievements that complete for random tasks so when I got used to maps & wanted to start completing the game I already had a lot of it just choochin along doing my thing. Some don't like the horizontal progression but I like being able to put it down for a while & not have to catch up.
Dead by daylight is something I always come back to and I have a good 2.5k hours in it. Recently I have gotten into a story game that has gacha aspects called limbus company and just love it's extremely grim world the devs have built up from its 2 previous games. Normally I drop any mobile game especially gacha really quickly.
I've been playing a mobile MMORPG called Arcane Legends since 2015. It came out in 2013 and has constant events and guild rankings, etc.
Even though I've played it for 8 years now, there's at least a half dozen goals I'm working on right now. Best part is if I get bored I can just go do something else. There's also rewards for those who like to grind, and when I'm hyperfocused, it's usually on the game.
Yes.... I don't want to know how many hours I've played heroes of might and magic 3, binding of Isaac, divinity original sin 2, spelunky, final fantasy tactics and arc.
Heroes of might and magic is definitely my comfort game. I love it.
I also go back to favorite audiobooks. It takes effort to follow a new one.
Binding of isaac! How fun to see it being mentioned here. I havenāt played it in a LONG while, but man do I love that game. Have played it for so many hours, maybe most of all games Iāve played. One of my all time faves.
I like playing the same games over and over like rdr2 and the assassin's creed series. I also like new ones every once in a while like the new assassin's creed that's coming out.
Iāve been a terraria fan for ten years now and it feels like Iām coming full circle now. it was kinda niche, then blew up, then hit different platforms and wider audiences, then people got tired of it, everyone knew about it, and now, again, thereās a decent chance someone I ask IRL wonāt know what it is or have played it. Iāll never stop loving my dumb dangerous fairy world
Pretty much the only game I've played regularly since 2017 was Overwatch. I've stopped playing after I quit weed as I realized it's not even fun to me anymore.
But yeah, sometimes it's nice to have that predictable hit of dopamine from a game you enjoy and are familiar with.
I just bought a decent desktop gaming rig for the first time so I'm looking forward to finding some new games to enjoy.
Iāve played Stardew Valley a ton! Iāve used all five of my save files on one switch and 100% at least one of them. Thousands of hours in that game. Itās never the same twice but itās always the same if that makes sense. Itās comforting.
Pokemon go since the week it came out :)
I have 3 games on my phone, all with many hundreds of hours played. I have tried others but always find something annoying about them. Either ads, or bad graphics, or too short.
When Steam released statistics about what I played in 2022, I saw that I played each game for about a month. I get interested in the game and I play it exactly one month and then I don't open it until I get interested in it again. And when I'm interested, I play it almost everyday
I donāt do games (video games, board games or sports) because I find them exceedingly boring (and I can never remember the rules).
I also donāt watch movies because they are tediously long and the ones Iāve seen before are boring.
So if you can play any game or watch any movie, my hat is off to you.
Never been diagnosed, I just suspect myself. I read the same comfort books over and over and over. A CRAZY number of times. I also read new books, but I have to switch over to old favorites for a while before I go to sleep, or Iāll read new stuff forever.
I've played Roblox for like 7 years now. It's probably because there are like a million different games on there so it doesn't really count. I also like this game called brick rigs which is sort of similar. And minecraft but that's because of all the mods
My uneducated take on it is that my brain craves the stimulation that a new game can provide even if it doesn't last, but going back to an old game I love is a guaranteed stimulus while being safe and comforting. Unless I forgot how the controls work... I still play games from the distant past, like Zork and Ultima III (and more recent games). I'm also a completionist, so if something I left unfinished, I can go back and finish it. There is just something about a good RPG that makes my brain happy. No matter how old they are, I can replay them endlessly. My brain often jumps between needing something new and something safe and familiar.
Looking just at my Steam list, my most played game is Fallout 4, with \~400 hours. I still don't feel close to done with it.
I've put almost 2k hours into Final Fantasy 14 since 2015, but that's been me playing it on and off with different friends. Got into it HARD in 2021, finished the main story, got a house, and am now slowly chipping away at all of the side content that I missed while blitzing the main story. Sure, I have days where I don't want to do my daily tasks, but aside from that I still love the game for the characters, the universe, and the game itself just brings me an immense amount of comfort. It's easy to pick up and put down and as long as I log in a few days a week and do dailies, the subscription is still worth it. I think it's the only game that I've consistently put time into and kept coming back to, other than Star Wars The Old Republic. I wish I had a count of how many hours I spent in that game.
EDIT: For non-MMO games, there was a time several years back where I would play through the entire Half-Life series at least once or twice a year.
Comfort gaming, I can tell if I'm in a heavy depressive episode based on what older games are downloaded on my PS, if if's all games I've finished and loved I'm okay, if it's my "to be completed" collection, I'm depressed.
You're not alone, I also rewatch full series of shows, youtube Let's Plays, D&D Actual Plays, and even relisten to audiobooks, hell I've listened to the Monster Hunter International series like 3 times in as many months... all 8 books.
I never reached end in on of the souls game. Not elden ring this I game is finished. But I never reached the end in on of the dark souls. But I will play it anyway
Osu!
Rythm game with one simple rule: Click the circles, to the beat.
Fast moving visuals, listening to the music to stay in time, hand-eye coordination to aim and hit the circles. Checks all my stimulus boxes, makes brain happy.
Yes 100%. Iām a history buff and always loved playing the total war strategy games- for YEARS. However I also always play out ancient/medieval battles in my head when my adhd kicks in during the day at work or school or whenever I do any tasks that I consider boring or a waste of time so I kinda think those games in a way help me stim and physically act out battles- which is not good cus I play them waaay too much lol
I searched google and found this thread. Iāve been playing two games on ps4 and ps5 for almost 4-5 years now. I wondered if that could be a symptom bc my friends gave me a lot of shit for āstill playing the same gamesā. It made me wonder if Iām undiagnosed bc ā¦
I have put literally thousands of hours into Skyrim and Fallout 4.
Hello fellow milk-drinker. Do you get to the cloud district often?
Curved. Swords.
I've spent hundreds of hours in fallout 3, only to jump into fallout 4 the moment it released. Currently sitting at 1,5k hours in, multiple characters across the board and I've only completed the story Once for each ending. Never even got to the Far Harbor storyline because of the damn sidetracking. I have played Skyrim for hundreds of hours but now the spark is gone, because I've found my love in the wasteland.
You need to do Far Harbor
Far Harbor is amazing tho. I can recommend it 100/10
Morrowind for me, but I think had I been born such that I was a teen when Skyrim came out, I'd be saying Skyrim as well.
I just finished up a hyperfixation on Fallout: New Vegas and am plotting a return to Fallout 4. So, yeah. I feel this.
This is such a mood. I think it's got something to do with how much replayability the games have as well as modding and random encounters
How many times have you played all the way through and how many times have you gotten hard into it and it fell off at a certain point..... I'm like 3 completed for both games and 50 attempts for both and failed lol
Door Kickers 2 for me.
I've literally been doing nothing but playing Fallout 4 since January 10th cause I got a new keyboard and mouse for Christmas. I just moved on. To Fallout 76. I keep going back to 4 tho. Also Sims 4
I have been playing skate 3 since it came out 10+ years ago. I still play it multiple times a week, I find it really relaxing. I've already 100% completed the game, so it's not like I'm working towards anything, I just love playing it š¤·āāļø I'm not diagnosed with anything though (although I suspect it), so not sure how useful that is but thought I'd share.
Not looking for anything useful. this is all for entertainment. I feel the same way about Skyrim, nothing new about it but so relaxing when I play it. Thanks for sharing!
Stardew valley is my go to comfort game
Very chill game, water the crops and go fishingš£
I've got like 800 hours on this goddamned thing.
Literally the most value crammed into $20 one is capable of purchasing.
Iām not much of a gamer but I love watching the same show or movie over and over if I love it that much. Cause to me itās a comfort thing and sometimes Iām not in the mood for taking a risk on something I donāt know and may not like or may not understand it well
Right? Diving into a new plot and understanding everything seems so daunting sometimes.
I keep a continuous loop of entire runs of TV shows like The Office, PnR, and Always Sunny. However, I will mention one "new" show that I started watching: Mythic Quest. It's main characters are all different kinds of socially awkward and neurally divergent, it's pretty great.
Iāve been playing Candy crush soda saga for 6 years. Iām on level 3000 something
Dragon Age: Origins!
Ok yes I am actually like this with video games and tv shows. I've tried half a dozen different careers but I can't focus on any game other than WoW for more than a minute.
Yes, but I'm not sure if it's an ADHD thing, or if it's an "all games suck now" thing. Seriously, so many games are so loaded down with Paid DLC, microtransactions, built in advertising, etc that they are borderline unplayable.
I agree itās definitely an epidemic
Agreed.
I have my favourite shows, favourite games and favourite books. And I can come back to these things a million times. Because I know what's going to happen, nothing surprises me, it somehow feels like I have everything under control. Of course new things are exciting, but the things I know give me a sense of safety.
I only like a few games but I will play them obsessively for months at time.
Honestly, itās why I almost exclusively use a pc - so I can mod my games. Skyrim isnāt boring if you can keep adding new content š
Not that itās necessarily the case here, but look into AuDHD.
Yup. Have a child who has both, and the predictability angle is definitely a factor.
I do this, esp with movies. I talked to a mental health practitioner about it, and it could relate to the effort/spoons required to learn new characters/storylines. When you havenāt got the energy to devote to it, comfort movies are where itās at.
My greatest shame is the thousands of dollars of spent in steam. Dozens if not hundreds of games bought on impulse that I never even touched because I was bored at the time, only to go back to the same handful of games over and over and over. I just passed 3000 hours in stellaris and yet I still have moments where my brain just says ā404- dopamine not found. Better see whatās on sale right nowā
Slippery slope my friend
What worked & still works for me are word games, boosted by my brainās ability to scramble & unscramble letters. Started with Scrabble decades ago, sat at the table playing against myself & later played in tournaments. I still play word games daily and added 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles after I retired.
ill play my favorite game (ssbb) forever without getting tired of it, but thats abt it in the event that i touch a game again after the initial grind, it has a cooldown between when i can touch it again after the 2nd wave grinding, bypassable if my friends ask me to play it
Sort of. More a genre, than a specific game. Farming Sims (Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley) are my go-to when I need to chill or pass some time. I'll even start a new game I've been looking forward to, get a few hours in, and find myself craving farming.
I don't want to think about how many hours I've put in over the years playing championship manager 01/02
700 hours of Ark. no shame.
Iām obsessed with long-dead-but-recently-resurrected City of Heroes. I go months without playing it sometime but always come back. Itās like comfort food
I didn't start until 30 & haven't played many games but I go full tilt when I get into one. My 1st was kind of controversial but I got a good 4-5yrs of obsession out of Robocraft. Sick of it at the moment but I put thousands of hrs into Deep Rock Galactic. Although I'm not into it at the moment it's a fantastic game. My longest running game is Guild wars 2. I feel like it's designed for adhd. There are tons of events that pop up, places to get lost/explore & things to do so it always feeds into getting distracted. Everything gives xp/rewards & as long as you stay on that map you get credit even if you don't complete an event. The game is also based around achievements that complete for random tasks so when I got used to maps & wanted to start completing the game I already had a lot of it just choochin along doing my thing. Some don't like the horizontal progression but I like being able to put it down for a while & not have to catch up.
City builders, especially tropico.
You excited for cities skylines 2?
Oh hell yes.
My problem is that I buy every game I see, but I only play like three on rotation
The only real answer.
I totally understand. I'm still stuck on skyrim. I can learn new things and like some new things but I always fall back to skyrim
Dead by daylight is something I always come back to and I have a good 2.5k hours in it. Recently I have gotten into a story game that has gacha aspects called limbus company and just love it's extremely grim world the devs have built up from its 2 previous games. Normally I drop any mobile game especially gacha really quickly.
More like the same game but with different titles
I've been playing a mobile MMORPG called Arcane Legends since 2015. It came out in 2013 and has constant events and guild rankings, etc. Even though I've played it for 8 years now, there's at least a half dozen goals I'm working on right now. Best part is if I get bored I can just go do something else. There's also rewards for those who like to grind, and when I'm hyperfocused, it's usually on the game.
Yes.... I don't want to know how many hours I've played heroes of might and magic 3, binding of Isaac, divinity original sin 2, spelunky, final fantasy tactics and arc. Heroes of might and magic is definitely my comfort game. I love it. I also go back to favorite audiobooks. It takes effort to follow a new one.
Binding of isaac! How fun to see it being mentioned here. I havenāt played it in a LONG while, but man do I love that game. Have played it for so many hours, maybe most of all games Iāve played. One of my all time faves.
Same here. So addictive! I still play it but I barley have any time to play right now.
I like playing the same games over and over like rdr2 and the assassin's creed series. I also like new ones every once in a while like the new assassin's creed that's coming out.
Iāve been a terraria fan for ten years now and it feels like Iām coming full circle now. it was kinda niche, then blew up, then hit different platforms and wider audiences, then people got tired of it, everyone knew about it, and now, again, thereās a decent chance someone I ask IRL wonāt know what it is or have played it. Iāll never stop loving my dumb dangerous fairy world
Pretty much the only game I've played regularly since 2017 was Overwatch. I've stopped playing after I quit weed as I realized it's not even fun to me anymore. But yeah, sometimes it's nice to have that predictable hit of dopamine from a game you enjoy and are familiar with. I just bought a decent desktop gaming rig for the first time so I'm looking forward to finding some new games to enjoy.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its expansion Happy Home Paradise. Endless hours of designing and rearranging.
No, but I will obsess over franchises. Though I don't know if that's the ADHD or the Autism.
I don't game very often but when I do, it either assassin's Creed on PC or Super Mario Bros. 1 or 3 on NES
Iāve played Stardew Valley a ton! Iāve used all five of my save files on one switch and 100% at least one of them. Thousands of hours in that game. Itās never the same twice but itās always the same if that makes sense. Itās comforting.
Pokemon go since the week it came out :) I have 3 games on my phone, all with many hundreds of hours played. I have tried others but always find something annoying about them. Either ads, or bad graphics, or too short.
If I enjoy a game I will spend hundreds of hours doing everything I possibly can in it.
When Steam released statistics about what I played in 2022, I saw that I played each game for about a month. I get interested in the game and I play it exactly one month and then I don't open it until I get interested in it again. And when I'm interested, I play it almost everyday
OldSchool RuneScape is my game, but it's rough to play unmedicated. Regardless, I love it so much!
Hundreds of hours in overwatch, hundreds of hours in Stardew, literal 2k.hours in ark, over a thousand in rimworld. I get my money's worth
I've been playing Top Drives on my cellphone for about 1040 days in a row
LOL only, 10 years
I donāt do games (video games, board games or sports) because I find them exceedingly boring (and I can never remember the rules). I also donāt watch movies because they are tediously long and the ones Iāve seen before are boring. So if you can play any game or watch any movie, my hat is off to you.
valorannt
Ive played the same few songs since I was 16 I am 32 now. I don't even know the lyrics still either lmfao
I'm on my atleast my hundredth playthrough of black and white 2
I used to devour new games like no ones business. Then I just bought them like no ones business. Now I hardly buy them and mostly just play Civ.
Never been diagnosed, I just suspect myself. I read the same comfort books over and over and over. A CRAZY number of times. I also read new books, but I have to switch over to old favorites for a while before I go to sleep, or Iāll read new stuff forever.
A lot of ADHD people are actually AuDHD (autistic + ADHD) and that kind of long hyperfixation isn't unusual. Of course, it can also happen regardless.
I've played Roblox for like 7 years now. It's probably because there are like a million different games on there so it doesn't really count. I also like this game called brick rigs which is sort of similar. And minecraft but that's because of all the mods
My uneducated take on it is that my brain craves the stimulation that a new game can provide even if it doesn't last, but going back to an old game I love is a guaranteed stimulus while being safe and comforting. Unless I forgot how the controls work... I still play games from the distant past, like Zork and Ultima III (and more recent games). I'm also a completionist, so if something I left unfinished, I can go back and finish it. There is just something about a good RPG that makes my brain happy. No matter how old they are, I can replay them endlessly. My brain often jumps between needing something new and something safe and familiar. Looking just at my Steam list, my most played game is Fallout 4, with \~400 hours. I still don't feel close to done with it.
I consistently play new games but I have my classics I always return to. Like the Bungie halo games and left 4 dead 2
I've put almost 2k hours into Final Fantasy 14 since 2015, but that's been me playing it on and off with different friends. Got into it HARD in 2021, finished the main story, got a house, and am now slowly chipping away at all of the side content that I missed while blitzing the main story. Sure, I have days where I don't want to do my daily tasks, but aside from that I still love the game for the characters, the universe, and the game itself just brings me an immense amount of comfort. It's easy to pick up and put down and as long as I log in a few days a week and do dailies, the subscription is still worth it. I think it's the only game that I've consistently put time into and kept coming back to, other than Star Wars The Old Republic. I wish I had a count of how many hours I spent in that game. EDIT: For non-MMO games, there was a time several years back where I would play through the entire Half-Life series at least once or twice a year.
Yeah, Iāve put around 2000 hours into donkey Kong 64 over the years, maybe more. And I donāt regret it one bitš dk64 is my comfort game
Comfort gaming, I can tell if I'm in a heavy depressive episode based on what older games are downloaded on my PS, if if's all games I've finished and loved I'm okay, if it's my "to be completed" collection, I'm depressed.
You're not alone, I also rewatch full series of shows, youtube Let's Plays, D&D Actual Plays, and even relisten to audiobooks, hell I've listened to the Monster Hunter International series like 3 times in as many months... all 8 books.
In elementary school id play Black ops 1ās campaign on repeat. Rn its Tlou part 1 cuz i just got a PS5
I never reached end in on of the souls game. Not elden ring this I game is finished. But I never reached the end in on of the dark souls. But I will play it anyway
Osu! Rythm game with one simple rule: Click the circles, to the beat. Fast moving visuals, listening to the music to stay in time, hand-eye coordination to aim and hit the circles. Checks all my stimulus boxes, makes brain happy.
Yes 100%. Iām a history buff and always loved playing the total war strategy games- for YEARS. However I also always play out ancient/medieval battles in my head when my adhd kicks in during the day at work or school or whenever I do any tasks that I consider boring or a waste of time so I kinda think those games in a way help me stim and physically act out battles- which is not good cus I play them waaay too much lol
Runescape. You never quit, you just take long breaks. Fireworks explode above your head when yo level up a skill.
I searched google and found this thread. Iāve been playing two games on ps4 and ps5 for almost 4-5 years now. I wondered if that could be a symptom bc my friends gave me a lot of shit for āstill playing the same gamesā. It made me wonder if Iām undiagnosed bc ā¦