I love games. I love the medium as an art form, telling stories interactively, the world building, the gameplay etc. I just wish developers considered more accessibility options. Sure, these days lots of games get released with special controls for the lesser able and colorblind modes etc. But what about people with small children? People who need to be able to pause the game and run off for a few, or several, minutes?
When we had one kid, my wife and I were able to split our parenting duties very nicely, so we both had plenty of time to keep up with our social life and hobbies. However, when we got our second kid, it was clear that locking myself up in my office to tinker and play games, no longer felt good.
So I decided to buy a laptop. This way, I could tinker and play games in the living room and easily switch to help out with the kids. I really love being able to combine my hobby with my fatherly duties like this. Quickly swapping between writing code and changing diapers, or pausing a game to help my eldest build a block tower.
This is also where one of my annoyances exists though. One of my favorite parts of games is the online social aspect. I do thoroughly enjoy the single player experiences, especially when a good story is told. But I also love playing challenging games with friends, having a laugh while puzzling our way through complex mechanics.
Currently though, my life exists of early nights when I have night duty, or late nights while keeping an ear open to the cries for help from my children. It is great when I play a single player game, that just lets me pause the action to rush off to my crying child. It is very different when engaging a boss with 10 people relying on me to do a complicated dance. So I tend to only play single player games during these evenings.
This is where I get a little annoyed though. There are plenty of online games that have solo activities, World of Warcraft being one of them. Why do these games not offer a 'parent duty'-pause function? World of Warcraft was released 20 years ago, surely lots of players are in a similar position to mine, right? I can't possibly be the only one feeling like such a feature would benefit my game experience?
When we had one kid, my wife and I were able to split our parenting duties very nicely, so we both had plenty of time to keep up with our social life and hobbies. However, when we got our second kid, it was clear that locking myself up in my office to tinker and play games, no longer felt good.
So I decided to buy a laptop. This way, I could tinker and play games in the living room and easily switch to help out with the kids. I really love being able to combine my hobby with my fatherly duties like this. Quickly swapping between writing code and changing diapers, or pausing a game to help my eldest build a block tower.
This is also where one of my annoyances exists though. One of my favorite parts of games is the online social aspect. I do thoroughly enjoy the single player experiences, especially when a good story is told. But I also love playing challenging games with friends, having a laugh while puzzling our way through complex mechanics.
Currently though, my life exists of early nights when I have night duty, or late nights while keeping an ear open to the cries for help from my children. It is great when I play a single player game, that just lets me pause the action to rush off to my crying child. It is very different when engaging a boss with 10 people relying on me to do a complicated dance. So I tend to only play single player games during these evenings.
This is where I get a little annoyed though. There are plenty of online games that have solo activities, World of Warcraft being one of them. Why do these games not offer a 'parent duty'-pause function? World of Warcraft was released 20 years ago, surely lots of players are in a similar position to mine, right? I can't possibly be the only one feeling like such a feature would benefit my game experience?