Day 1132
Last week, after an announcement that reminded me I own this game, I restarted playing Book of Travels, and then uninstalled it this week.
Even though, it is not a terrible game, it's not even a bad game, it's actually a great game, it's just the thought of playing it, felt like I was forcing myself to do work.
And before anyone says that is a sign of a bad game, I felt that way about Baldur's Gate 3.
For someone who likes exploration games and the feeling of discovery, I don't actually like to be completely without any direction. I especially seem to not like having massive amount of choices and very little direction. A fact that puts me in direct contention with any game whose premise is about the journey unique to the player.
Because at its heart, that is what both Baldur's Gate 3 and Book of Travels has in common. They are games where focus is on the unique journey a player takes through their game. This means you're given a choice of where to go, what rumours or pieces of lore to follow and how you will get there. It also means that the nuances of the game mechanics is up to the player to discover.
For Baldur's Gate 3, I wasn't throw into the deep end, because I had already played D&D 5E prior to BG3, so I knew what to expect out of those game mechanics. This also meant that character creation wasn't a guess for me, as I knew exactly what would suit my particular play style. So, I was a bit better off BG3, it's just my tendency to poke every single goddamn thing meant that in 2 hours of gameplay I was still in the same location and getting over overwhelmed.
For Book of Travels, because the mechanics are new to me, and self-discovery of the mechanics was part of the game play, that made the feeling of being overwhelmed even worse. Coupled by the fact this was a very old school adventure game in design meant that I had to pen and paper every single rumour or possible quest line.
What tipped me over into uninstalling it was the realization there was a survival component to it, if I let my character starve for too long she will die. I should note at this moment that this society only barters items, and she had very little of worth, and I had run into very little in the ways of food. At first, I thought I could handle it, because I did have a direction to go in, but I also was fighting my need to poke at every single thing.
So, in the end, I decided I wasn't going to try to navigate that, because the thought of playing it was giving me mild anxiety.
It is a pity, because the concept is a great one. The game is beautiful in a fariytale like art style, and the concept of the world is interesting. However, it is a game meant for a particular demographic of players, of which I am not one of them.
