I have a confession to make. In addition to my backlog/Steam pile of shame, I have roughly thirty games in my ‘demos’ category. I add them whenever there’s a Next Fest on Steam or a Wholesome Direct. It’s kind of a secondary Wishlist for me, but it’s also a good way to check out a game without paying for it.
Side note: I used to be a casual game player. All the casual game websites had an hour demo for the vast majority of the games. This was taken for granted, and i’ts been heartening to see that more and more indie devs are doing this. I wish Triple A games would, but they don’t need to. The main reason is to draw people into playing the game, which is usually the biggest hurdle to overcome.
I try to be open-minded about demos, but there are a few things that will make me quit out immediately. One is first-person point of view. It makes me nauseous to a varying degree, ranging from mild discomfort to feeling like I’m going to vomit. If there’s an FOV, I can fiddle with that to mitigate it to some degree, but it’s always there, regardess.
Number two is platforming. I just can’t do it, and I’m old enough that I’m not going to bother trying it again.
Side note: I really really really wish people would understand when I say I can’t do something, gamewise, I mean it literally. It’s not a question of ‘gitting gud’ or practice. I. Cannot. Do. It. It’s a physical limitation, not a mentality or an attitude. I had an argument with someone in the chat of one of Krupa’s plat streams about PvP. It’s rampant in the From games, and I hate it. I will jump off a cliff rather than give them the satisfaction of killing me.
This other person, let’s call them Lee, argued robustly that it was just a matter of practice. “You had to practice to get good at PvE,” they said. Oh, sweet summer child. First of all, I never have gotten good at PvE. I can do it, but that’s not the same thing. Secondly, they are two completely different thing Fighting against AI or the environment is still within my control to some extent. Fighting against another person, someone who only does that? Yeah, no. Oh, and I say that because anyone PvPing randos at this point means that’s all they do. Which means they’re fucking good at it.
Lee just would not let it go. I was willing to drop the topic with a ‘let’s agree to disagree’, but they could not stop reiterating that I just had to practice and within time, I would be able to do it. Like, dude. No. Stop. I spent hours in Dark Souls parrying the Silver Knights in Anor Londo (everyone suggests this enemy to practice on because they have a very predictable moveset). By the end of my practice session, I could parry the ones with the straight swords about 75% of the time and not even half the time for the spear guys.