The Cookie Clicker Mentality of V Rising (and Why I Struggle with Survival Crafters)
98The Cookie Clicker Mentality of V Rising (and Why I Struggle with Survival Crafters)
Thank you to the publisher for providing a code for coverage and critique purposes.
V Rising wasn't quite the game I was expecting, and I think it's better for it. However, a holdover of that realisation is understanding there's part of my brain that engages with games in an unhealthy way.
I don't have a problem, I can quit any time of course, but I think playing V Rising has brought to the centre of my brain a very particular issueI think I have with Clicker games, and something very telling about my own neurology, or at least the patterns i've formed over my life.
I like V Rising, I think I see problems with it that put me off too, but most importantly, I see something I'm not too sure I want to see in my Steam library with 300 hours plastered beside it.
Once we get into those big hour count numbers, I think those hours come less from intrigue and more from compulsion. I'm not arguing against the idea of compulsion, of course, but more so revealing something about my own relationship to it.
I've struggled often to get into live service games, mostly because of how jarring and invasive FOMO marketing is, but also because there are too many vying for your attention, and once you really start to focus on them, they sort of lose their charm. A quick raid on Destiny or win in Fortnite is a medium to get to some form of human connection, or the next rung of the battle pass. I've spent, what I'll say is a shameful amount of time in Tycoon-style games, almost certainly made by children in Fortnite, partly because it upgrades my battle pass, and partly because the rate at which you see new items, experience, and weapons is so consistent.
If a 10-hour single-player game is a sprint, V Rising is a marathon, and one I almost certainly have the lung capacity for. However, I can't help but feel like the pool of gaming lactic acid might just put me off running more. Numbers go up is a dangerous game when you kind of stop caring about the number.
Here's what happened when I played V Rising, and what it told me about myself
Speaking of numbers go up, just a few weeks ago, I sat short of 900 subscribers, and now I'm rapidly approaching 1500 subscribers. This is wonderful as it not only shows there's a little space for me here to share thoughts on the game, but also encourages me to keep putting them out there, and get weirder and more niche with it as I go. If you'd like to support, subscribing would greatly help me out.
One more thing while I’m here, I talk a little about the concepts parallel to addiction in this video — please consider that if addiction is a difficult subject for you. However, I’d like to say upfront that I am in no way intending to call V Rising addictive, but I do use the word in this video and talk about the concept in order to enunciate why compulsion and habit formation doesn’t equate addiction. On that same note, I do not in any way mean to imply that the comfort-seeking part of my brain searching for the familiar is that. I merely mean to demonstrate a part of my brain or habit forming that V Rising managed to hit at, and the parts of myself I saw through that.
First, before getting into those grander thoughts, let me tell you a little about V Rising. It's a survival crafter/action RPG, where you play a freshly risen vampire, hunting for blood, building a castle, and taking down more and more powerful enemies until you become the ultimate vampire lord. The story itself is more a backdrop for the gameplay and it rarely pauses your ability to keep playing, or at least it doesn't do so in the traditional sense. We'll get a little more into that later. Taking place after the last of the vampires are pushed into hiding effectively, you are both a wicked creature, and kind of an underdog, or, should I underbat. The basic loop has you farm resources, gather blood, hunt down animals and humans, then return before the sun goes up. Being out under that harsh glare will wipe you out in mere moments, and going out in the day requires hopping from tree to tree, only getting into battles when you are sure you will win, and cowering back when you are overrun. You fittingly feel both very powerful thanks to a set of skills, and a bit of a weakling, thanks to there always being a bigger fish.