Is There Value in Gaming?

It should be clear by now—if not from this blog in general than from my previous post at least—that I see gaming as a complement to a person’s real-world endeavors and social circles, rather than a detriment to them. The strong networks I’ve created through gaming have been immensely valuable in my life, and the games themselves have led to new skills and job capabilities I wouldn’t have without them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m not alone in this. Lennon, the front-end web developer you met in the last post, has had similar experiences, explaining that his love of gaming has led to developing useful skills as well. In fact, Lennon says that “creating and using skill macros and short scripts in World of Warcraft to better communicate with teammates or make [his] gameplay more efficient taught [him] the basics of coding” which he now uses daily in his job as a front-end web developer.

I also spoke with Mai, a mom, gamer, and entrepreneur, who has taken up Gameboy restoration and repairs. She said this has led to new skills and know-how she almost certainly wouldn’t have gained if gaming hadn’t led her to the hobby.

However, it’s important, I think, to remember what games are at their base level before we go building other structures on top of their varied foundations. Not every game is built the same, and not every game and gaming style necessarily leads to marketable skills, and I'm here to argue that they shouldn't have to.

Most of us have been guilty of gussying up our skills on a resume, turning something like “worked as cashier” into “managed incoming transactions and maintained a balanced cashflow for a multi-billion dollar corporation” to impress a hiring manager. So too can ranked Overwatch players, for instance, highlight how coordinating ultimates to regain control of the payload has helped develop their skills of communication and teamwork in a high-stakes setting. But even if you (like me, I’m not ashamed to say) turn off all in-game player-to-player voice communication and play Mystery Heroes on low volume while watching Kim’s Convenience on your second monitor because all you want is to mess around and turn your brain off when you game... that’s ok too.

In fact, Lennon cautions falling into the trap of justifying a love of games (or of anything that brings you joy, I’d imagine) by validating it through “pointing out that it’s made [you] better at things other people find valuable.” Similar to how we don’t have to constantly justify the value of reading (as it is generally accepted as a good and useful way to spend your free time), so too gaming is, as Lennon says, good and valuable in and of itself. “Some games,” he says, “truly do feel like you're taking part in—not just reading about—an epic adventure.” If that epic adventure is on a page in a book, its value is understood. This shouldn’t change just by virtue of being on a screen instead. In fact, the characteristic of being interactive gives games an edge, in my opinion.

Even Mai, with her own real-world talents born of her gaming interests, doesn’t list income or resume building as the primary gains from her newfound skills. Instead, she explains, that restoring consoles is “a really fun outlet” and that she is “reminded of a carefree time in [her] life” when she works on the handheld devices. She sees value in the art of “giving the devices a second lifeline” while “staying true to [their] classic roots.” While it may lead to practical, hands-on skills, that endeavor sounds like one that is inherently rewarding no matter the outcome.

Lisa, the video game producer also featured in the previous article, has her own thoughts:

As someone in the game industry, I think a lot about what motivates people to play different games. Personally, I find that I have two primary motivators: 1) strategy mastery; something that allows me to go deep, number crunch, and play the game long game, and 2) immersive, character-driven storytelling; something that really pulls me in, gets inside my head, and makes me fall in love with a setting or a character.

In fact, games should be ok to love simply because we love them, period. Because we love the puzzles, the strategy, the story, the whatever—this should be enough. Games give us different worlds, different challenges, and different feelings and perspectives, and Lennon argues that “these are inherently good and enjoyable experiences without having to turn them into teaching tools for stuff people only think is valuable because you can monetize them.” Much how I likened Achaea to taking part in a new kind of interactive novel in my last post, Lennon agrees that playing a game is often like “you're playing a work of art, and in doing so, you are participating a bit in creating that art.”

What more justification could you possible need?

Of course, the value of gaming has perhaps never been more easily appreciated than during the recent year due to COVID-19. Gaming has been a popular pastime for ages, but serious and casual gamers alike—and surely even those who have never gamed before—have been loading up, logging in, and pressing play more than ever over the last year, whether as a coping mechanism, habit born of boredom, or the simple necessity of filling more time spent safely at home.

Unsurprisingly, gaming relationships have been invaluable during all this uncertainty and separation. Lennon, as one example, found a way to spend scheduled time with other people without having to leave the house through gaming. “My guild has a weekly hang out on Friday nights,” he explains, “where we just queue into random PvP games more as something to do while we drink and chat than as some sort of serious gaming time. We have a huge variety of people in the guild, so it’s usually a lively event.”

Beyond the social connections, gaming has been able to provide a sort of comfort to many throughout the pandemic. Lisa says she was surprised by how some of her habits changed with the advent of COVID-19 restrictions. "The most interesting, unique thing to come out of COVID,” she explains, “was my unwillingness to play new games. When I did have the energy to play something, I wanted something familiar that could help me relax or distract myself. I found myself very resistant to playing new things because I just didn’t have the energy to learn new rulesets or worlds.” I can absolutely relate. I had what I now realize was perhaps a terrible idea to take advantage of my newfound free time at the beginning of our stay-at-home order to finally play The Last of Us. Maybe a worldwide pandemic is not the best time to dive into a highly emotional game about navigating a post-apocalyptic world in which an infection has wrought havoc on mankind. Instead, I found myself returning to Hearthstone, Banished, The Sims and other calm, slower-paced, and familiar games for a while, and in them, like Lisa, I found a comfort I sorely needed.

COVID has, of course, also affected with whom we game. There’s been a lot of those outside-in connections, where people bring their real-life friends into their gaming worlds, sometimes for the very first time. The weekly D&D game I used to attend was, of course, called off when it was no longer safe to hang with friends indoors, and instead I played different Jackbox games over Steam with those friends, and they even eventually put up a Minecraft server to play on together. Patrick, the gaming paramedic mentioned in the last article, was already using games as a way to spend time with his nephews who live several states away, and he's not unique in making that long-distance family connection through this medium. Tragger, a freelance graphic designer, says she’s using gaming to keep up with her friends and family as well. “Some of my family lives across the country, so we use gaming as a way of hanging out,” she says.

That all being said, it can be worrisome that perhaps we’ve leaned in too hard over all this time at home. Louie, the gamer and business owner you met in the previous post, says he struggled in the beginning of the pandemic. “A couple games I was really looking forward to released,” Louie said, citing the Final Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil 3 remakes as two he was particularly looking forward to. When the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders started up, Louie explained, “I did not really have an understanding of how to occupy my time, and some of these games honestly weren’t helpful for that. I spent probably far too long playing.” He eventually got better at managing his time, he says, but I think many gamers encountered similar issues during the pandemic. I know I did.

Lennon already discussed his concerns about too much time gaming in the previous article, but he also has concerns when it comes to stepping away from games and back out into the world in earnest. “I do know I need to get back out and do other things. 2020 was consumed with gaming, COVID and politics, and it’s all I know how to talk about anymore. And when you go to chat with a stranger or just make small talk in a bar, you can’t really open with ‘I’m a raging anarchist,’ and COVID isn’t something people want to focus on, and so I’m left with like... the nuances of low level World of Warcraft PVP as something that I think about enough to talk about. And you can hear people’s eyes roll into the back of their heads the instant you mention it.” It’s funny, because this is exactly the thing I would love for someone to bring up at a bar, but in the end, of course I know what he means.

And as things slowly start opening up and people get vaccinated and interested in in-person hangs again, finding out how to be IRL social again will be a bridge we will have to cross when we come to it. There’s no discounting, however, the value that gaming has given us over these several confusing, isolating months. Lisa has seen this firsthand, and she shared a story with me to demonstrate the way she’s watched gaming bring family members together the previous year:

I bought the latest Animal Crossing game for my sister in March 2020, knowing that it was a series that she loved. Since then, she and my mom have played it together every night. Last I checked my sister’s play hours, she has averaged playing this game for 3.5 hours daily since she received it.

Even though my mom is in Florida and my sister is in Los Angeles, they get on FaceTime every evening for hours, my sister shares her screen, and they play together—my mom knows every villager, every seasonal event, just as much about this game as if she played it herself. It’s a major source of connection for them, and she even regularly thanks me for buying this game for “both of them.”

It’s so magical to hear them gossip about this game, especially because my mom has made it clear that she never really understood gaming as a pastime (despite being with my dad, a massive gamer, since high school—and myself going into it professionally), but last summer she sent me a text out of the blue that warmed my heart like few things have in my life:

“I wanted to let you know that I now understand the ‘power’ of video games. Animal Crossing is bringing so much joy to me and Kelly and I feel like we are living vicariously through this game :). It’s weird to say it is true ;) I FINALLY GET IT and I’m a game fan forever because of it :)”

For anyone who has felt the isolation of the last year weigh heavily on them, it's probably no surprise that families and friends are finding new ways to reach each other, share interests, and spend time and grow together, even when apart. I think this difficult time has done a lot to show us the value of games beyond the resume-fluffing new skills and aptitudes often pointed to in order to defend late nights spent in the virtual world of our choosing. Across these last two posts, we've explored relationship building, a sense of control, getting up close and personal with art, guided, attainable progress, and measured achievements—all of which are good in and of themselves and are perhaps made even more valuable to us in a time when those things may be otherwise difficult to experience.

Despite all that games have to offer, however, many people worry that gaming may act as an impairment to healthy adjustment and relationship building. In my next article, the third and final one in this series, I’ll discuss gaming and mental health, and while it would be silly to pretend that there can be no detrimental relationship there, I think there are a lot of positive correlations that are worth exploring as well.

-- This is part two of a three-part series. Read part one here. Part three is here. Need some more fun gaming streams from cool folks? Find Lennon at youtube.com/ChopsTV

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How Imaginary Worlds Can Lead to Real Life Connections

Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands is perhaps not a game you’ve heard of, but it is one that has been hugely impactful in my life. It’s a text-based MMORPG, and it is the most immersive and engaging game I’ve ever played. It introduced me to roleplaying as well as its own version of coding and hooked me with endless vivid scenery to explore, cutthroat in-game politics, intense and complex combat, myriad deities that grant boons with one hand and shoot zaps of lightning from the other, scandalous romances, and deep friendships all at once. It honestly has everything… except, you know, pictures.

My favorite way to explain Achaea (or perhaps any multiplayer game without graphics) is to say that playing is like you’re in a novel and are writing your character’s arc live while someone is doing the same for each of the player-controlled characters around you. The best part is that, similar to real life, while you might see yourself as the main protagonist, the other characters in this real-time “novel” think they’re each the hero of the story, and you’re all inhabiting this universe alongside each other, building your characters and crafting their lives, each reacting to the stories being constructed around them in order to exist together—whether as friends or enemies or something in between—in one single, cohesive world. Things can get just as complicated, dramatic, death-defying, and deep as you want them to be, and it’s easy to get sucked in.

A brief and woefully incomplete glimpse into Achaea.

Achaeans were some of the first friends of mine to really encourage my writing. When I moved across the country alone, from Arkansas to New York City, Achaeans were the first people who helped me settle in and invited me into their homes and friend groups. Achaeans are some of the first people I met (and are sometimes still the only people I know) from certain countries around the world. I’ve become best friends with Achaeans. I’ve dated and fallen in love with them. I’ve been in the wedding party of friends I met through the game. I’ve shared some of my darkest secrets and biggest successes with Achaeans. In a way that no other game has been for me since, Achaea is truly a community.

My hypothesis for why that’s so is that text-gaming is unlike any other gaming style. You have much more control over your character, from the way they look to even how they speak and move. They still exist within the confines of the universe, of course: your race and class choices determine your stats and combat, you take damage and heal it with elixirs or magic, and you react to the environment and items around you just like in any other fantasy game, but there is more customization, freedom of gameplay, character motivation, and drive to be unique in manner and personality than in any other game I’ve ever seen—and this is all a product of the fact that there aren’t graphics to limit you. It’s no surprise that you can very easily end up pouring your heart into all those little touches and flourishes, and when you put that much thought and love into your character, those who interact with and help mold, motivate, and complicate things for your little creation end up meaning something not only to the character you control, but to you, the player, as well.

That all being said, I don’t think this phenomenon is unique to Achaea. I still keep up with folks I was matched with again and again during the Overwatch beta years ago. I cried with my WoW guild over Discord back in the day when we finally downed Yogg-Saron for the first time. These connections are everywhere in multiplayer games.

Because of this, I feel very strongly that any type of gaming can lay the groundwork for a real, tangible community of players, and that the connections we make as we move through these digital worlds together are real, are important, and are valid.

And I’m not alone in that. I interviewed several other gamers to get their take on relationships that extend beyond in-game interactions. Lennon, a front-end web developer who spends most nights a week engaging in long gaming sessions, says that, like me, he’s met a few people he’d consider real friends through gaming. He clarifies that these are, in fact, the “I'd help you hide a body” kind of friends, not just the “we could have an awkward beer together sometime if we ever end up in the same town” sort of friends, and I know exactly what he means. Patrick, a father, paramedic, and self-proclaimed nerd, has had a similar experience. He says that he has been able to "make friends in other states and countries that [he] never would have met otherwise,” many of whom he considers to be lifelong friends. Lisa, a video game producer who is into everything from RPGs to strategy games and city builders, says that she’s made most of her real-life friends through gaming. “As a kid,” she explains, “all of my friends were also into video games. When I wasn’t playing video games with friends, I was pretending to be the characters from them while we ran around outside.” As someone who spent a ton of her childhood crashing through the woods pretending to be Lara Croft, I can easily relate.

Perhaps a surprise to those who don’t seek them out, gaming relationships can sometimes come easily in a way that making friends as an adult often does not. Gaming friendships are developed by shared interests, sure, but also proximity and circumstance, similar to how many kids find that their very best friends happened to have been in the same classes as them since first grade. Like school, games often provide a regularly scheduled meeting of the same folks who are engaging in the same experiences, and it gives people something that’s easy to bond over. It’s an experience we oftentimes don’t get as adults. Anyone who has ever moved to a totally new city alone and tried to make friends without being in a classroom or a traditional work setting can tell you, making friends without a common thread can be exhausting. Gaming gives us that link that we’re so often missing when attempting to forge new adult relationships, and it can make all the difference.

Lisa explains to me that she’s had periods in her life where her online communities were her very best friends, but not because of a lack of real-life companions; she had those too. Online relationships are regularly formed in addition to school, work, and neighborhood friendships, and are simply another place to make connections and find common ground, and the bonds formed there can be equally as meaningful as the ones formed in person and are often maintained in the same way. Similar to how many of us have those old friends from school on Facebook and reach out from time to time, so too Lisa keeps in touch with gaming friends from across the years through social media. She still considers the folks from these online communities some of her closest friends, and keeps up with them, she says, “just as [she] would any close friend from school who no longer lives nearby.”

And much like we may take trips to visit old college roommates or meet up with childhood friends if we happen to be in the same city, so too do gaming friends take trips and make time to see each other. I’ve gone to a few meet-ups myself, from meticulously planned conventions and slapped-together gatherings at parks and house parties alike, and I’ve walked away with lasting friendships every time. Gaming, and making connections through gaming, isn’t limited by age or personality or playstyle, so these meet-ups are often a wonderful mix of all sorts of different kinds of folks who meld together over a common interest, and it creates a diverse and inclusive mix of people that often makes each experience as novel as it is rewarding.

Lisa recounts how her dad, also a gamer, would often warn her about being careful about meeting up with these “internet strangers.” But even a cautious father can see the value in the relationships formed through keyboards and controllers, as Lisa explains:

Fast forward about 6 years into [my dad's] WoW career, and I’m preparing to move across the country for graduate school and my industry. My dad was planning to come out and help me move, as we’ve always been close. As we’re planning, he asked me (a bit sheepishly) if I would mind having lunch with him and a friend from World of Warcraft—another dad who had continually joined and left guilds along with my dad over the course of the last 6 years, sticking together in scenarios where it was usually a bunch of college students and these two “old guys.” I was ecstatic to see that my dad had formed a connection with someone, and was thrilled to watch them recount stories together over lunch. This is one of my favorite “meeting in real life” stories. It felt like my dad had given video games to me, but I had warmed him up to the idea of making meaningful connections through them.

The value of these connections is clear. Lisa's dad might or might not have thought of it that way until they met in person, but he had had a true friend in his guildmate for over half a decade, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

But what about the stereotype of the shut-in, anti-social gamer? While as with everything there certainly is the possibility that you can overdo it, most people seem to balance gaming and the real world just fine. (In fact, at least one study could find no evidence that even violent video games have an effect on prosocial behavior.) Even so, gamers themselves are often sensitive to the stereotypes and can be found measuring themselves against the whispers of a life wasted in front of a screen. There is always the fear that gaming might be replacing a person’s social life rather than enhancing it, and Lennon has found himself weighing this compromise carefully. He explained that he was gaming so much during COVID that he worried it might have slipped into the territory of gaming addiction. Since it wasn’t safe to go out, his time playing had nearly doubled, and especially in such confusing and unprecedented times, it can be hard to gauge whether that’s a product of circumstance or habit driven by unchecked desire. After Lennon got vaccinated and passed the two-week mark, however, he “took a whole-ass week off gaming and just spent [his] nights hitting the spots [he’d] missed over the past year.” If real addiction had taken root, this likely wouldn’t have been such a simple feat. Lennon adds that “it wasn’t even intentional; it just happened,” continuing that “as soon as it was reasonably safe to do so, gaming took a backseat to being around other people.” This further demonstrates the point that for most people, even people who may have ramped up their gaming during the extended hours at home over this past year, gaming can be an important part of your social life without taking over the whole thing.

In fact, I think each of the folks I spoke to for this article would say that gaming is often a way to enhance one’s social life. I certainly would. And while my experience with Achaea was mostly from the inside out—that is to say that I met people from inside the game and then got to know them in the real world after—it doesn’t always go this way. Patrick plays probably three to four days a week, and he enjoys everything from Final Fantasy to Pokémon to Counterstrike and Overwatch. While he has this same inside-out experience, like meeting friends through Elder Scrolls Online and keeping in touch with them long after he’s stopped playing the game, it’s gone the other way for him as well. Gaming is something Patrick loves sharing with his wife, nephews, nieces, and his own children. This outside-in approach—bringing in people you love from your non-gaming life to share gaming experiences with you—is one that can be just as rewarding and fun. It can also be a way to connect when friends and families are apart, like when Patrick, for instance, games with his nephews, who live several states away.

In the time of Zoom happy hours, social media watch parties, TikTok dances, and online dating apps, it's probably no hard sell that time spent with technology can lead to person-to-person connections, and gaming is no different. But in addition to the individual relationships that playing games can strengthen and provide, gaming can also connect us to life experiences, to dearly held memories, and to feelings of love and togetherness in a way that I think is often discounted. Even as children, these special connections are being formed. Louie, a successful business owner and lifelong gamer, has the perfect example of how, in his and his brother's experience, gaming as kids drew "real-life connections with people we already knew and respected in ways that made adults a little more accessible to us.” Luis demonstrates that childhood connection with an anecdote, recounting how his love of gaming as a kid led to an experience that helped him understand and appreciate his parents from a new perspective:

My father would come pick me up around 7pm on Friday every other weekend for visitation. Essentially, as soon as we got to his house, he would start playing a game. It was always something that was for adults, or at least too complex to be a children’s game, and I would watch […] him play until the wee hours of the morning. The truth was that it was a PS1 with one memory card and one TV, so I was staying up to try to get a turn if he ever got tired and I could play, but I don’t think it ever happened once. I tried and tried to stay awake, but I just couldn’t. The next morning, I would generally wake up before him and I would dominate the TV for most of the hours that the sun was out (not the best time to play Resident Evil), and he would come give me tips and tricks and poke fun at me for making mistakes. Then something happened that cemented this era of games in my mind forever. My mom and dad did not and do not like each other […] and neither of them hid their feelings from me or my brother, but when Christmas—I want to say ‘99—came around, my mom and my dad actually got together and bought me a PlayStation 1 of my very own. I remember how peculiar this was to me, but how much it meant that not only could I play a game whenever I wanted, but that even with the disdain they had for each other, my parents could come together and make something really special happen for me.

For many of us, gaming has been an important and memorable part of our lives for years, if not decades, and whether they start from within the game or outside it, the significance of the connections that are forged through playing—either through making memories at home, strengthening bonds with far-away family, forging new friendships or finding new ways to maintain old ones—cannot be discounted.

It’s perhaps no surprise that the value of these connections has grown exponentially during the recent pandemic. Many people are meeting new friends online, but perhaps just as importantly if not more so, tons of people are using gaming to keep themselves connected to the people in their lives that they've been forced to be distant from for over a year. In part two of this series, we’ll explore the value of gaming, from what skills can be gained through regular play (and whether we should even care) to the way gaming has been a lifeline to many people during COVID-19 restrictions. We'll also discuss the concerns of certain gamers when it comes to playing too much and find at least one person who is a new convert to the "power" of video games.

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This is part one of a three-part series. Part two can be found here.

Need some more fun gaming streams from cool folks? Find Lennon at youtube.com/ChopsTV

Did I make you interested in text-based MMORPGs? I can't recommend them enough! Check out Iron Realms Entertainment to see if there's one that catches your eye. (Not a sponsor, I just love them.)

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Spending a Night at the Rusty Lake Hotel

I'd never played any of the Rusty Lake games when I saw Rusty Lake Hotel was briefly free on Steam and decided to give it a shot, and boy did I have no idea what I was getting myself into. I decided to stream my introduction to the franchise, and I'm really glad I did. I'm pleased that my shock and awe will be documented for future generations to come (mostly for them to laugh at), and the reactions in my chat were priceless. I'm also glad I didn't look too closely at what the game was really about, because I feel strongly that my surprise and frustration and wonder (and horror!) were that much more enhanced by truly not understanding what I was about to experience.

And that’s why I want to make this what I’m going to call an “inverted review.” I’m going to tell you my thoughts about the game in general—what would usually be my final remarks—right here at the top with no spoilers. Then I’ll get into my experience below, which will contain spoilers for the game. Obviously I’ll give you a heads up so you can stop reading before then, but I do hope you’ll come back and finish after you beat the game yourself!

If you’ve already played or don’t plan on it, go ahead and read through. I have absolutely no doubt you’ll be laughing at me by the time you’re done, and I honestly can’t blame you.

My Overall Thoughts (No Spoilers)

Rusty Lake Hotel is hilarious and horrifying in the best possible way. You think you understand what’s going on, but you'll never be able to predict exactly what's coming. There will be a new curve ball, a new concept, and new surprises on every level. Sometimes it’s frustrating, but it’s always rewarding, and it's especially fun to play with friends.

It took me less than three hours to beat the whole game, but I had my stream helping me, so we probably moved through things more quickly than I would have alone. That being said, you can definitely lose yourself in the story and finish in one sitting, if that’s your thing. If not, though, it’s also very easy to break it up into bite-sized pieces.

Overall, I definitely recommend the game, but I will stress that despite the cute, cartoony graphics, it is not family friendly, so yours kids are probably not the best helpers if you're looking to make it a team effort. Otherwise, I recommend turning down the lights, getting yourself a drink and maybe a puzzle-savvy friend or two, and diving in.

Continue reading to wonder at the game's inventive storytelling, to gasp about the things that left me shocked and horrified, to laugh with me (at me?) as I recount my utter failures, and to have several things spoiled for you if you haven’t played before:

Gameplay Discussion (Spoilers Below!)

The premise of Rusty Lake Hotel is that there are five guests staying with you—a boar, a pigeon, a rabbit, a deer, and a pheasant—and you will be serving dinners to them over the course of five nights. It’s your job to gather ingredients for the dinners, and despite the fact that in addition to vegetables and herbs, the recipes called for items such as “rabbit leg” and “pheasant breast,” I didn’t catch on immediately. Maybe you already have.

If you know me, perhaps you're not surprised that I managed to make myself look like an idiot my first ten seconds into the game. “Use the arrows to move around,” it said. So what did I do? Put my fingers on WASD and tried to do something. “Duh,” I thought to myself when nothing happened. “It said to use the arrow keys.”

No. It did not.

For the uninitiated, there are little black arrows on the edges of the screen that you click in order to move from panel to panel in a room. If it took me three steps to figure that part out, I worried we were in for a loooong night. Thankfully, though, I got the hang of things pretty quickly.

But not too quickly.

My first mistake.

If you’ve played before, you know Mr. Owl calls you on the phone at the reception desk before you go upstairs. He says “hello” and then you click through the dialogue for him to give you further instructions. I had gotten the “click for dialogue” part of the game down by this point, so I clicked away… and clicked right off the phone onto an interactive item in the background, ending the call. So, I missed Mr. Owl’s first hint. Which means I didn’t go to the correct first room. Which also means I was off to a great start.

Without Mr. Owl’s valuable guidance, I wandered the halls and chose Mrs. Pheasant’s room at random to begin. And let me tell you, while this wasn’t the correct answer as far as completing a perfect game goes, I think it was the best possible scenario for someone who had never experienced anything Rusty Lake before.

When I saw the game on Steam, I purposefully chose not to read much about it. I very quickly skimmed the description, just glancing for keywords, and thought I absorbed that this was a point-and-click (yes) murder mystery (no).

So I did go into the game expecting murder, at least. I thought one of our guests would be killed, and I’d be figuring out who did it.

Again, no.

There is no figuring out who did it. I did it. Or, rather, I will be doing it... once I can figure out the puzzles. But I didn’t know that yet.

So I enter Mrs. Pheasant’s room, waiting for a murder to be thrust upon me to solve, and it takes me embarrassingly long to get the hang of the game, finding keys behind picture frames, using objects in the room as clues for how to interact with other items, etc. Thankfully, I had quite a few people in my chat who were more than happy to help, and it was great fun working things out together that way. (Plus, sheesh, how long would it have taken me without their assistance? I shudder to think.)

A brief clip of me thinking I know what's going on at this point. Ha.

The object of Mrs. Pheasant’s room is to take publicity photos for her one-woman, er… one-bird play in which she performs all three roles. After more time than I’d like to admit, I finally get three pictures of her taken in different costumes—one for each of her characters. Cool! Done.

Not done.

She wants one more picture. There’s no guidance here for the final photo like there was for the others. There are no more costume pieces, no more roles to enact, and no more clues that I can see. Except I do have an unused item in my inventory: a pistol.

“Guys, do you think I shoot her?” I ask my chat, laughing nervously. But surely not. So I click around some more before finally just giving up and moving back to Mrs. Pheasant, activating the pistol in my inventory, and clicking on her.

And she puts the pistol under her chin.

And then she tells me, for the thousandth time at this point, to take her picture.

So I did.

And this is how I was introduced to death at The Rusty Lake Hotel.

My face when I actually realized where this was going.

I was shocked, but also really enjoyed this as a first look into the dark side of the game. I think this one surprised me more than any of the more straightforward murder rooms would have, so it was really fun to go all-in on the being horrified right out of the gate.

After that first room, I got the hang of things a lot better (though I still needed help from my viewers for sure). While I felt like I understood the nature of the game pretty well after my time with Mrs. Pheasant, Mr. Boar’s room really threw me a curve ball. My chat and I were cracking up as I fed him boar-shit sandwiches (yes, really) and got a contact high from opium (also yes, really).

Still in disbelief. A clip on how not to treat your guests.

Even the lobby wasn’t without a few puzzles and adventures. I always clicked around before going upstairs just in case there were any new clues to be found, and when a shooting star (I think?) temporarily knocked out the lights at the hotel, I got a creepy surprise when a flash of glowing eyes in the upper corner of a dark room clued me into the fact that the bat-concierge was there, hanging upside down in the shadows.

Is that the only way he knew how to give me a clue? Really?

Terrifying.

Finally, I ended where I should have began—Mr. Deer’s room.

Mr. Owl would have led me to this room first, but I'm honestly glad I missed that phone call, because I have a gripe about this room: it’s too dang hard! If I had started in this room, the difficulty that comes with not quite understanding the game yet in conjunction with that freaking water glasses puzzle might have made me rage quit. (Ok, not really, but that was easily my least favorite part of the whole experience.)

There were some basic math problems throughout the game and the bug puzzle in Mrs. Pigeon’s room wasn’t my favorite for similar reasons to the water glasses—that is to say, it's not about reading clues or interpreting hints but simply about being able to do it correctly—but the water glasses frustrated me in a way that those other things didn’t. The math was simple, just easy substitution. The bug puzzle was much less challenging and went very quickly. But this one… Maybe it’s because puzzles like this are just not my thing, or maybe it’s because I was nearly two and a half hours in at this point and it was after midnight, but it took me and my chat working together twenty minutes to solve it. Twenty minutes in a game that takes maybe three hours is a long time to be working on a single puzzle.

Here's a clip of me on a not infuriating portion of the room.

What frustrated me so much about the water glasses is what I said before: it wasn’t a matter of finding clues or interpreting hints; it was simply a matter of “figure out this nine-step process out don’t beat the room.”

And here’s the kicker—we didn’t figure it out. The whole chat and I were working on it for all that time, and eventually we all agreed: just Google it. So I did. I cheated.

Mr. Owl would be so disappointed.

But other than the water-puzzle frustration, I had an excellent time playing. And I mean, you know you’re having a fun time with a video game when you have a notebook in front of you that looks like this when you’re done, right?

That’s not even a joke; I had a really great time!

Not only do I want to play again and get a perfect game, I want to play all of the games by the Rusty Lake folks, starting with the Cube Escape series, and I think that’ll be what I’m streaming for the next few weeks!

What’s your favorite puzzle game? Are there any puzzle types that make you rage too? Let me know in the comments.

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