With the idea of Swing I’ve been trying to drive towards goals, small and large. Regular habits and milestones keep momentum, and the big experiments, even those that fail, are attempts to really try something. As I found myself more and more enthralled by Old School Runescape, I got thinking how the way I was playing the game would be a pretty good way to think about my real life goals as well.
When OSRS Took Over
For a handful of posts, I’ve mentioned a recent dive into the world of Old School Runescape. This game, and most other live service or MMOs, has an everlasting treadmill of goal after goal. From experience and levels to gear and cosmetics, these games drive player engagement by providing something new to do with a reward on the other side.
Every game has a goal and usually a fail state, a winner and a loser – sometimes multiple of one or the other. Many games have a clear target for what a player’s goals are, but some leave them vague on purpose.
Runescape’s sandbox approach puts the player in control of their goals. After a brief tutorial on how the game’s basic systems work, the player is dropped into the world and sets out on whatever journey they have in mind. There are ways the game nudges the player, such as quests and even the activity advisor which both provide some direction, but none of these systems are required by the game. That’s how people have made niche goal-based accounts such as chunk locked, tileman, etc.
The first real goal I set for myself was to complete all the quests and earn the Quest Cape. Earlier this year, I accomplished that goal, and did so just before Varlamore The Final Dawn was released adding a few more quests. I did knock those out after the update was live, and it was fun tackling the new quests.
With this major goal completed, I found myself into the real grind of the game. Hundreds of hours leveling, thousands of boss kills for drops, and countless hours plotting and planning what to do next. I constantly found myself thinking about what to do next in game. OSRS was overwriting the actual goals I set for myself. Instead of post topics or projects to work on, I would plan out what skill to train or boss to grind. I would make excuses to play for just a little bit at any time. Having the app on my phone made it easy to do a small task here or there, even while on vacation with friends.
This mental takeover was interrupted by stumbling on this video, where a longtime player explained his reasons for quitting. It led me to reflect on how much I was giving the game, and while I don’t plan to quit for good, I don’t know when, or actually if, I will go back. I can see some new quests or a planned group event with some friends bring me back for a bit.
Transferring Game Goals to Life
As I started to peel away from the game, I began using my mindset while playing directed towards positive goals and tasks, and I’m not the only one. In the last few weeks, I’ve found at least two YouTube series of people using Runescape as a way to spark real life goals.
Touch Grass follows a player who goes by Sumo who is locking Runescape’s skill system behind a certain threshold of real life activity. For example, to raise combat stats he has to workout for an extended period, and while similar the Agility skill is locked behind rock climbing. I’m excited to see what he comes up with next.
A simpler, but still interesting approach, is Gym Locked, in which grinds are accompanied by some kind of exercise with major milestones like quests locked behind completing those initial tasks.
Both of these directly link game play with real life action, a step in the right direction, but I’m hoping for a way that doesn’t rely on continuing to play. I’m hoping to instead leverage the mindset of planned repetition, milestones and solid rewards to drive personal goals and projects.
A Fresh Outlook
Over the last few weeks, I’ve taken a step back from going deep on any projects, and trying small actions to see what sticks. With how deep I was wrapped up in OSRS, it became hard to find what I was really passionate about.
Most recently, I’ve fallen down the Linux rabbit hole (Arch btw) and having dipped my toes into really customizing the system. I have an old Lenovo Thinkpad, aka the standard Linux device, and decided to revitalize it with a fresh install of Linux. I set it up to dual boot with Windows years ago, but never used the Linux install. This time I went all in and completely deleted Windows form the machine.
I know there is a lot more to try out with Linux but am going to stick with this setup for a while to see what I like and dislike. The exposure to Linux tinkering, has got my really thinking about setting up a home server/homelab. Having some kind of personal server is something I’ve considered for years, but saw it as a far future project. Setting up something small to get started seems like a fun side project for tinkering. Before making any purchases, I’m really considering my use cases and specific tasks for what I actually want or need. Homelabbing can be a slippery slope in spending, so going to do my best to be very careful about what I purchase for any kind of project.
Sticking with tech, the I’ve gotten back into game development. For now, I’m working with Godot, an engine I’ve only started abandoned projects on, with an extremely simple incremental game, or more colloquially a “clicker game.” This type of game offers an easy base to build systems a top. I got the idea after watching this video where a developer and some friends turned Oregon Trail into this kind of game. Starting with the simple concept, there are a ton of mechanics all built on the simple action of clicking on a wagon. What I have thus far is certainly not reinventing the wheel, but after a long time away from making games, it’s nice to start with a super simple idea.
For each of these projects, I’m breaking down the bigger milestones to simple tasks. Admittedly, the piece I’m really missing from this is the satisfying reward. The dopamine rush of a level up or rare drop is hard to beat. While the satisfaction of tackling a challenge does offer some reward, I feel there needs to be a little something extra to get that real kick. In the past, I’ve tried BeeMinder or other punishment systems, but to me they haven’t really been successful in motivating me, just providing an extra layer of stress on top of the task at hand. If you have any ideas for reward systems, please share your thoughts in the comments.
Trying Out Before Buying In 