4mo ago

What video game genres induce hyperfocus in you?

Maybe this doesn't need to be said but this is a different question to which video game genres do you enjoy. For example, I enjoy playing Dota 2. Every few months or so, I'll play it for a couple of weeks and put it back down. I'll never play more than two or three matches and I feel 'present' for the duration.

Paradox grand strategy games (especially EUIV), however, I can start playing at 7am and in a blink of an eye it can be 11pm and I won't have eaten or used the toilet or anything. I can do this for multiple days in a row. Furthermore, I don't often feel like I'm 'enjoying' it. I'm just consumed by it.

I'm intrigued to hear whether or not anyone recognises this difference in themselves. If you have any insight as to why you're consumed by some games and not others, I'd be very interested.

80 comments

Any Paradox game. Oxygen Not Included. Factorio. Civilization. Rimworld. Dwarf Fortress. The list goes on.
For me I think it's about having non-stop and parallel mini problems/puzzles/goals. By the time one task is finished. There's two more to take its place.
- This is definitely important in making the very most engaging base-builders - a pleasing mixture of longer term goals (manufacture this piece that I can eventually put in a future science pack or whatnot) and under-performing pieces of your older infrastructure that you have to scale up or re-plan is just so helpful for getting you into that flow state.
- An observation inspired by your comment. I love video game narratives; I often hate video game storytelling. PDS games tell me stories but there's no cutscenes or stop in gameplay and the narratives are all dynamic.
  I imagine Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress could be very dangerous for me.
  
  Dwarf Fortress is, imo, much less crack-y than something like Factorio. It takes much less constant attention by how slow the game moves and how long your plans take to work out. I find my time in DF to be meditative and relaxing because I'm working towards a clear goal but can relax a lot of my reactions... Factorio is a game where you can do as fast as you can think (outside the early game) - even if you're waiting on something there is always something else to obsess over.

Factory games. Resource management... I get all caught up rebalancing inputs and outputs... This building needs an expansion to fit the new gears project... Over here we need more room for screws... Plates!?!? Why are all the plates gone!!!!! 🤬
- And next thing you know it's the next morning. Which is why I don't play factorio too often.
  
  All hail the Omnissiah.
- I've only ever caught this with Factorio but it had me pretty bad. Do you have any other recommendations? I bought Dyson Sphere Program on sale but haven't tried it yet.
  
  Satisfactory for me. I also bought Dyson Sphere on sale, but also haven't tried it yet.
  
  Shapez 2 recently released in early access (still has release sale). While I love Factorio, Shapez has no enemies and infinite resources. Might make it more boring, but sometimes I find it really nice to just build some belts and not to worry about some sub-base being run over.
- Logistics Gang Rise Up!

Factorio. At one point I binged so much that I started seeing conveyor belts in my sleep.
- Ah, the Tetris effect

factorio has stolen months from me
- You're not alone. Factorio induces hyperfocus in the neurotypical. You and I never stood a chance.
  
  I only have 1000 hours in Factorio, what are you up to?
  This also my be a bad ideal telling you, but there is a DLC coming out for Factorio and boy does it look good.

No one for rougelikes?
I dont even like them that much is just the only things I can play sometimes.

I’m surprised that no one have mention Tetris.

Honestly, it's depressing, but nothing solo anymore. Games were such a big part of my life, but now I can only focus and enjoy them with a friend. It can be the most basic game, but as long as I have a friend I'm locked in. Anytime I try playing a game just for me, it's like the dopamine just isn't generated 😭

For me it’s ARPGs, but specifically its Path of Exile. The visual stimulation combined with the dopamine hit when something good drops, plus a long term goal to make your character better. They release a new league every 3-4 months and I always pray it doesn’t consume my life for more than 2 weeks
- It's also my favourite place to kill monsters, take their stuff and use it to get better at killing monsters and taking their stuff. I do feel like it has so much build space to explore I find building without some reference to a guide frustrating, but it manages that progression well and the atlas passive trees are a neat way to let you customize what content you want to engage with.
- Yup. When your starter hits right and you get some decent currency early on, it's a blackhole of time. I was just about to stop and a map runner gifted me a HH and now I'm sucked back in.

For me, it's Fallout, Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Hearthstone and Stardew Valley.
But pretty much anything like those will do it if I'm enjoying myself.
- With TES, Fallout and Stardew, I've definitely had something approaching hyperfocus. Not as severe as my PDS hyperfocus. Never with MMOs though. I've played a decent amount of a few but could never play more than one or two hours per day.
  
  In WoW, I was a solo player that wanted to do everything. So, I'd go to a town, grab all the quests, and start crossing them off until it was time to go to the next one. And in between, I just spend hours wandering around looking for flowers to pick or ore to mine.

Euro Truck Simulator
Kerbal Space Program
- KSP pulls me in for awhile until some bullshit bug ruins a mission I spent hours on

Comment as to why I think PDS grand strategy games have this effect on me. PDS games are 'real time with pause' and they have overlapping systems that work on different timelines. It means that there's rarely a point to 'offramp' oneself, when you complete one task, you're simultaneously 70% through another task, and it's so easy just to chain 'well, I'll wait for this to finish' endlessly.
Competitive multiplayer matches like Dota however, with discrete matches where everything resets, gives me a (healthy) chance to 'disengage'. I couldn't ever imagine getting hyper-focused on them but I know that a lot of people are, which intrigues me.
- I couldn't ever imagine getting hyper-focused on them but I know that a lot of people are, which intrigues me.
  "Just one more..."
  
  So, this is exactly why I started this thread! Rationally, I can see how it'd consume an ADHDer but emotionally, it just doesn't make sense. Just because I haven't personally experienced it. It's why I'm intrigued to hear from people. Though most of the responses so far are other genres I too have hyperfocused on.
- I used to love playing DOTA 2, and with the new Ringmaster drop I played a few matches, but I'm being driven away by toxic teammates. Despite playing Unranked Turbo matches exclusively, I'll still get people flaming my hero pick, or play style, or pausing for mean spirited reasons. It's seemingly every match now. How has your experience been?
  
  Mute early and often.
  
  Sorry, my previous comment wasn't very helpful. I still only have like 70hrs online play in Dota. I'm very new. I dislike hearing when I play badly but I know that I am playing badly but I'm trying to get better, so it doesn't bother me.
  If I was actually somewhat good and I had people flaming me, it might bother me more. I kinda get that it sucks for people in Unranked queue when I play badly, so I just mute them and try to play better.

Management games where I can play really slowly and focus on small details, normally on very hard mode too so a lot of the easy ones don't make the cut.
Football Manager and Software Inc are probably the ones I go back to most often.
Also 99% of the games I play I never complete...

Quick and twitchy FPS games. Reason I was so upset when roblox ditched wine support is because it deprived me of my daily dose of randomizer and bad business.

Satisfactory minecraft and monster hunter

As a general rule, I tend to focus on a title or a series of {books,tv,movies,games,musician,etc}, consume it to death over the course of a handful of weeks/months, then lose interest and never touch it ever again.
I had a big Soulslike phase in the middle of the pandemic. Before that it was Rocket League. I’ve gamed very little these last months in between a million consecutive life events, but the little time I had to play was almost exclusively on Monster Hunter (I just reached Iceborne in MHW).
The one game I had a legitimately problematic relationship with was Counter Strike, as a teen and young adult. Nowadays, I still have the general game sense but the reflexes and skills are long gone, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to getting to a level I’d feel good at.

Power wash sim has stolen 100 hours from me in about a month of ownership.

Yeah, anything competitive is too stressful for me to be able to just play for hours on end. I'm playing Deadlock at the moment and I'm typically taking a break after every one or two games just to control my mood.
Football Manager was the worst for me I'd say. Consumed months at a time. Civilization can eat a day easily if you're not careful. Really, anything I can control the pace of that I get interested in and that doesn't have a story. I enjoy narrative games, but they require a different type of focus and concentration that takes a lot more energy. I can't play those for days on end, even hours on end. I can get obsessed by them, and I can play tons of hours over the course of a week, but I don't hyperfocus on them the same way.
Anything management or strategy however, where you're working for incremental progress and "just one more turn"? That's dangerous. Last little obsession I had was Esports Godfather, a MOBA themed deckbuilder/autobattler/management game that has probably been my surprise hit of the year and which was gloriously addicting.
Furthermore, I don't often feel like I'm 'enjoying' it. I'm just consumed by it.
Recognise this feeling very well, from a lot of things when I hyperfocus on it. It's almost a sensation like nausea, that palpable feeling of not being in control, for me at least. Especially bad when I briefly snap into self-awareness - but not enough to break out of the hyperfocus.
- I tried a few times to get into FM but it never stuck. Which always felt faintly ridiculous. Almost as if I was someone who really wanted to get into heroin and was disappointed they couldn't get themselves addicted 😂
  I did however get that fix from Motorsport Manager. It's way more 'game-y' and less simulation-like than FM but it gave me a faint taste of what an FM addiction must feel like.

I am not sure what to call the genera but there is something so very consuming and soothing about Papers Please. It’s hard to describe how that game pokes just the right parts of my brain meat but it does. A major part of the game is learning patterns and picking out the pieces that are out of place and my goodness does my brain get a kick out of finding typos, inconsistent city locations, and mis-matching information between documents. I need to process an avalanche of information quickly but it doesn’t feel overwhelming, instead it is oddly soothing. The game is also short enough that I can binge and get to the end without ruining my life unlike something more open ended like Oxygen not Included.

Vampire Survivor.
It's very much like a Dragon Ball super fusion. For the next 20-30 minutes... I am fused with the game.
- I love Vampire Survivors. Have you played Halls of Torment?

I can barely put down Ace Attorney style games. I love experiences where I get to unravel a mystery.
It's also really easy to spend a long time grinding in old school Maple. Just monotonous enough to be soothing, just active enough to keep my attention on it.

League of Legends. It's a cancer game. Don't play it.

Basebuilders, 4Xs, Incrementals, and Survival Crafters
Once I burn out I try to stay away as long as possible for the sake of getting other things done and having a sane sleep schedule.
Compare with RPGs, farm sims, platformers, action adventure games, and roguelikes, which I can pick up and put down much more easily without disrupting other aspects of my life.
- Thanks for providing examples that you enjoy but don't induce hyper-focus. I relate to the 'consciously' avoiding aspect. Sadly PDS games are only ever like 2GB downloads, so uninstalling them only buys me like an hour of freedom.
  What are Incrementals, out of curiosity?
  
  Incremental games are a bit of an "I know it when I see it" grouping, but two typical characteristics are progression systems nested within each other and game loops that start simple but "flower" into a number of more detailed and mutually interacting ones over the course of play.
  Universal Paperclips is a nice example, casting you as a newly built AI with the goal of making as many paperclips as you can. You start out able to make paperclips and sell them to humans for funds you can then use to invest in more capabilities. You work on building trust with the humans so they'll let you do more things, and on making more clips faster, and there is a lot of escalation from these humble beginnings. Some other good ones are Cookie Clicker and, if you're into programming puzzles, Bitburner.
  
  "Numbers get bigger, spend number1 to make number2 get bigger faster, spend number2 to make number3 get bigger faster..."

Transport Fever 2
- Oh my god, same. Tycoons, City Builders like Transport Fever or Cities Skyline. I don't play them for months or years, then I spend like a week playing for hours and forgetting time, then I stop again for months
  
  Factorio does this for me, you just forget time and suddenly it's 3 am and you are about to finish yellow science but you could still optimize a lot.
  
  City builders and colony builders are major time sinks. Anything with micro-tasks. I just need to finish this one building, I just need to finish this prisoner recruit, I just need to ... And then it's 3 am and you have to wake up at 6 for work. Civilization games do this to me too.

Rhythm games. Diablo clones. ATS, ETS, and BeamNG.drive.
- Personal fave Diablo clone?
  
  Last Epoch. It's new and very fun.

I got absolutely consumed by Dead cells. I put more hours into it in a few months than I did a game I've been playing with a friend for 5 years at the time. There's another game in the same Genre that I can't rember the name of, but the high skill, PVE games like those if they catch my eye, oof, I go HARD.

Minecraft, if I've got a project to do.
I run a local server so that I can play with my kid, but I'm the one who has to actually get things done. Simple things like looking for diamonds is enough to keep me playing for hours. I'll find a vein, and I think that's not enough, I need to find more, so I'll find half a dozen more veins, but then my brain switches to the 'I may as well carry on' mindset.
I mined a mountain down to ground level recently because the top was spoiling the view from our village, and once I started, it was quite soothing.

Anything that gives me an adrenaline rush. Which usually only happens against real human players, but the first time through a good difficult game like a souls like works too.

Games where the purpose is to optimize productivity, efficiency, and achieving accomplishments improve effectiveness. Or complex/realistic simulation games. So games like SimCity, Tropico, Kerbal Space Program, and MS Flight Simulator 2020.
It's just too rewardingggg 🫨

High speed first person shooters like Titanfall 2 or the finals; the complete opposite, meticulous, and slow shooters like Rainbow 6: Siege

Menu Simulators like Warframe and Path of Exile

Rogue-likes, especially if each run is long. Man, the number of times I booted up One Way Heroics for "just a quick run" and realize hours later that I should've gone to bed long ago.

Samurai Gunn

4X games, specifically any of the Civilization games I’ve played (everything but SMAC & Civ: Beyond Earth).
MMORPG, specifically Elder Scrolls Online.
- Have you ever tried a Paradox Grand Strategy game?
  
  I have not tried any of their games, actually.

Rimworld, Against the Storm, Dwarf Fortress, and other similar games.
Any game where there is no clear end and continuous engagement and problems to solve is dangerous for me.

Splatoon

Really big and complex games like Rimworld and the Paradox or Hooded Horse games can really suck me in.

80 comments