The lighter side of ADHD
I wish every game had an ultra easy/explorer mode for this reason. I have zero interest in having to become “good” at a game in order to move forward. I’d love to give Elden Ring and such another try but I’m just a regular dude with a job and a family. I’m not trying to make video gaming a new “skill”, I just want to play the stupid game for a bit, put it down, maybe forget about it for a month before I have time to pick it back up again…
The newer Deus Ex games had something like that, the loading screen would be a "Previously on Human Revolution" sequence like with a TV series
The solution is to have dynamic personalized tutorials.
Lets take Death Stranding 2 for example, since I think its played a lot by working adults.
Death Stranding has a lot of story, relationships, and game mechanics they slowly throw at you. But when you take a break for 1-3 months it can definitely be difficult to remember what you were doing and how to do it.
They already have tutorials in their VR system, but that just goes over the basics. It would be neat if the game took the metrics they collect on you, to teach you how to use your most common moves and such.
It would also be neat if they could have a mentor system where the tutorial would then teach you new mechanics you ignored if it would help you out immediately (totally optional of course).
I don't care. I play helter-skelter anyway. Just jumping around to whatever is fun, forgetting where I was, repeating stuff I liked. Never finishing the game. It's all good.
This is what I love fallout 4. Yeah it's not the best story, or game, but It's like it was made for ADHD people. Constant sidetracking, few timed quests, even less that matter at all, easy to jump into and just spread chaos at a moments notice. Its pretty easy, even on hard or survival, eventually you become so OP it's like playing God and flooding the earth.
I quite liked this in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
This was incredibly helpful for me, as I took a long pause between playing after ending up on the second map
Dragon Quest XI does this, you also can talk to party members that will remind the player of different aspects of the story. It's actually quite well crafted
Pokemon FireRed (and LeafGreen) does this!
By the way, these "flashbacks" aren't static images. Your player sprite would be animated doing the last thing it did in that frame!
Also, the controls are simple enough in this game. No need for any tutorials.
This was such a great implementation. I want this in literally every game.
This is a must have feature in today's world. My busy adult life taught me to avoid anything with a steep learning curve and almost anything with open world
Kim's dialogue in disco elysium is pretty much this dressed up as a conversation
Disco Elysium is not that big of a game though.
I mean, any deckard cain-like character can act as the "catch me up on what's going on" menu
Blizzard would totally paywall that as we speak
I miss tutorials on the start screen.
Also minecraft books are a good idea, but lack the "hey btw youre gonna get busy and drop this game for 6 months and have no idea what your goals are. Care to take a note?"
My solution is a captains log after video game sessions, but i forget sometimes
This is why i never finished Bloodbourne.. twice. Fantastic game. Take a month off. Load in, walk around in a few circles. Absolutely nothing to reference for what my goal or progress toward it was. Probably taking notes would help, yeah.
Steam overlay has a "Notes" feature to keep your thoughts and allows you to resize however you want and optionally overlay it on top of your game instead of having it hide when you minimize the steam overlay, for quick referencing recipes/guide info etc. it also persists through sessions. I frequently use this in survival games or rogue like games to write myself a debrief before I get off at the end of the night knowing that I won't remember certain details tomorrow.
Wait whaaat? That's really cool.
One of my favourite games atm is "Into the dead: our darkest days". It's a survival rogue like, basically like this war of mine, but set in texas in the 80s with zombies.
It's fantastic, but too often when revisiting a scavenge site I forget which rooms I've gone in and what resources are available/I need to bring.
I've wished they'd implement a "pen" feature for the map (like project zomboid), or spray paint you could bring to mark a door, for the entire time I've played it. But steam notes sounds like a fantastic solution, assuming they don't implement something in game.
I'll comeback after month sometimes and be like "shit, what do I need here again?" but even just the next day I'll forget some stuff
Oh nice, is it tied to the game or global notes?
This is the main reason I hate quests. I would start something, not play for a month or so, come back and having to figure out where I had left off. By the time I was caught up, my gaming time was over.
Detailed quest log/journal is a must. I hate it when quest logs don't show what you've already completed.
Ok, I have to break into the office to steal the trophy but WHY? Talk to Fred, WHO THE FUCK IS FRED?
Honestly, we need more ADHD-friendly accessibility features in life overall.
I really hate that ADHD doesn't get taken seriously as a disability, because having it certainly makes me feel disabled compared to most people.
Disabilities in general don't get taken seriously. In addition to ADHD, I have an eye deformity that requires $5000/year special contact lenses and just keep getting told to pound dirt :/
Death stranding 2 does this perfectly. Gives a summare of the story so far when it seems like it has been a while since I played last time.
Press [X] to reload muscle memory
(Tho it's a hella good feeling putting old 1k hours of training to good use & finding that you can still play effortlessly-ish. You are just 10+ years older now, no biggie. You'll be dead soon, so play the damn game.)
Is that the Nine Inch nails Guy?
Also grinding should be less difficult. Like we get twice the exp or money
I really like the fact that Dave the diver - after dying multiple times to a boss - offered me to double my damage for the next try. 😁
This would be the best gift
Too real. Was really hard coming back to Celeste and any of the Witchers.
It took me years to complete skyrims main story because I load in and have no idea what character I have or what I was doing so I would start again.
That and my chronic obsession with getting side tracked
Doesnt the gba line of pokemon games have a feature like this? I think it recaps what you did last time.
This is my biggest hurdle to No Man's Sky, NGL. Thankfully, there's an option to reset a quest to a more local star system, but that can be tedious if one's near the end of said quest, as it completely undoes any progress before moving the marker to a spot closer to me.
Maybe I'll get to it this time, maybe I'll get distracted and run out of playtime.
That's the real game, ya know? 🤷🏼♂️
Please! I'm half way through BotW and every time I pick it back up I need this.
It's a Zelda game? You traverse Hyrule trying to defeat a manbearpig by the name of Ganon and once in a while the princess shows up and gives you some encouragement.
You never get to the final boss or trigger story cutscenes in BOTW. If you do that you’re playing it wrong.
Ha! Maybe this is why even after playing all the others up to it, I still haven't played BOTW. (Skyward Sword didn't do much for me, either.)
There's no real story in botw though? Just look at your quest log and that should be enough
I was playing a Professor Layton game and it had a recap of the past thing you were doing every time you opened the game. Loved it, so helpful