For explorers it's not only about exploring open worlds. As you say, is also about exploring new ideas, learning stuff. Puzzle games like Portal, Baba is you, world of goo, Paquerette down the bunburrows, etc. are the very best for me. You don't explore new places here, you explore new ways to do something.
I feel some of these play personalities can be expanded upon, for example, jokers are not restricted to comedy or party games. They may find joy out of playing unconventional, wacky alternate playstyles, and getting a kick out of it when it works.
I think what you describe would be a mix of the joker and the creator (self expression/being unique). As he said in the beginning: nobody is perfectly one type but a mixture of them. So the "expansion" of these personalities is to basically combine them.
@@marquoire You think that's crazy? Try using spreadsheets to calculate if it's optimal to pass out any day, or what crop would be better to reach level 6 farming by spring 12 with the highest profit
i often find that games are too easy to organize, like i really want a game that its hard to make the most out of limited ressources with, and stardew money making is waaaay too easy for me, so i love playing artificial challenges like the no pierre no joja challenge. I really want to spend more time having to be smart with my ressources and producing smth on the other side!
this is part of why i love watching extended video essays for games i will never play, and KNOW i would not enjoy-pathologic is a big one. i ADORE hearing people talk about how the struggle and tense atmosphere so thoroughly added to the storytelling; yet i know i would get frustrated and freaked and quit long before i could get there
Yessssss! That’s exactly how I feel about pathologic! I think it is a beautiful game that I would absolutely recommend to someone else (and I have), but I will never play it because I would be miserable the whole time. I would hate the tension being that high and I don’t want the game to be that challenging all the time because it loses its fun for me.
I felt similar about Fallout until I changed the soundtrack for fun one day. I put the Skyrim soundtrack instead. Instantly all the tension was gone. I could explore to my hearts content without a sense of dread hanging over me the whole time. I look for little things like that now when playing a game. It's been fun figuring out if it's the gameplay itself (sometimes it is!) or if it's something else making me tense.
visual novels arent often talked about next to big triple a games, but they are the poster child of narrative driven games. if you like story rich games, you should deffo check them out. ace attorney and danganronpa are mystery classics, and VA-11 HALL-A is absolutely fantastic and gorgeous. other types of games that scratch that itch are hades, rain code, needy streamer overload, and a strange little unknown title called hotel sowls
You could get a lot of recommendations from asking "what kind of games I should play if I like Ace Attorney", especially since it's the visual novel game with the most influence. It's amazing how they managed to fit in a lot of style and story in those little GBA cartridges. For a recommendation, Ghost Tricks: Phantom Detective is pretty underrated. I also don't often see people talk about the Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney collab, that one was phenomenal.
@@nuviretto i live and die on the hill that Professor Layton needs more love in the states at the very least, i love that franchise so GOD DAMN MUCH (:
I’m a speech pathologist and recently at our clinic a Play Therapist was appointed and we all did our “play type” / “play personality” so this was really cool to see applied to video games
@@ednaoverboard1052 hello! We just had speech pathology week a few weeks ago. Hoping to finish up a pod episode about it soon. Do you celebrate something like Speech pathologist week?
I also think animal crossing has a great collecting element! The museum is amazing when it’s complete. I think it would be ideal for someone who has a mix of the creative and collector personality
I know it was mostly meant as a joke/satire, but no. I'm a PhD student in psychology, and play theory is still based on empirical observations. Astrology has NO science behind it. 😂
@@Pat43489I had the same problem with this comment. I'm no PhD haver or anything but this comment while funny just gives off a bad message. It's a certain type of mindset to me that seems bathed in ignorance. Not that I'm a shining example but from my own feels and reels the type of person to make this comment unironically is the type of person to have as many objectively wrong takes as they can have.
No. Astrology has no empirical base. Play science is based on qualitative data collected in a standardized way and analyzed. Happy to explain more as someone who is in the research world for my day job if you are interested.
I would add the "progressor" as another archtype. (Might be the same category as collector, in a way) But they find satisfaction through slowly progressing, like restaurant upgrades or unlocking new outfit styles or paying off your mortgage to tom nook. They lose interest once there is no more to meaningfully progress
I tried animal crossing new horizons, and after paying off the initial debt I got bored very quickly, since that was my entire goal and I didn't want to take on more debt
As soon as you started describing the storyteller, i thought to myself, "oh that sounds like me", and lo and behold, you then listed off two of my favourite games, Baldur's Gate 3 and Disco Elysium!
I fit in Storyteller too-BG3, Dragon Age, & Mass Effect draw me in. I’m not a competitor at all, but I love Hades. What draws me to that one is the story and the character interactions. The combat is something I tolerate for the story.
same! my focus being so on story has led to interesting conversations with other gamers. Personally, I don't need as much synergy between story and gameplay as some of my friends-- I am willing to overlook slightly "off" gameplay if the story is strong enough, but it never goes the other way. If the story is weak, it could have wonderful mechanics and I would still be bored.
@@emmjaygames omg this! I got Skyrim the day it came out. After playing it for two months, I was so bored! Bethesda’s staff is not good at writing at all. So then I ended up playing DAO for the first time and loved it so much.
This is so interesting to me because BG3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I refunded Disco Elysium less than 2 hours in. With BG3, not knowing where to go is rarely a thing. You’re always progressing, gaining EXP and learning more. With Disco Elysium, in my experience you just get yelled at for exploring, everyone hates you and the world hates you being there. I think it brings to light the fact that, just like chick flicks or horror films both feature movies with stories, the kind of story a storyteller play person enjoys varies from person to person. If I don’t like who I am playing as and I am not rooting for them? No chance I will be interested in playing that game/experiencing that story.
I knew I was a collector when I heard the description and felt embarrassed. I identify with others like creator, storyteller and explorer, but there's something about the collector that makes me feel like I'm retreating into my lizard brain. I have a lot of achievements on steam and I keep track of every game I've ever played and which ones I've completed on an excel sheet.
i literally only play games that are BOTH have “story rich” and “choices matter” tags on steam. now everything makes sense. i’m a storyteller through and through. my favorite games are all of the the walking dead telltale series, LIFE IS STRANGE SERIES (!!! so excited for the newest one coming up soon!), and detroit: become human.
Being a collector can also be crippling. I was never able to finish The Last of Us because I "might" miss one of the boxes containing upgrade materials, and you could not go back to obtain them again.
In the early 2000s, I took to playing some of the big, long, sprawling RPGs with a FAQ because I would rather have some surprises spoiled than spend 100s of hours just to miss something important.
It is possible to work through this kind of perfectionism. In my own life I've found that inner work has provided significant dividends in terms of my enjoyment of life generally, not only in how I play games. Now, whether I choose to be a completionist on any given game is based on my enjoyment of whatever aspect of gameplay is on offer, rather than in spite of it.
If you’re a Storyteller and/or Collector, and maybe an Explorer, highly highly recommend a small indie darling called In Stars and Time. It’s a timeloop RPG with amazing writing and so so much depth in terms of stuff to discover and collect and see. Its narrative hits home, and its secrets run deep and obscure yet not so much so to where it’s a pain to get most of them. And you can find a lot of it without expecting it too. It’s great!
I’m definitely an Explorer type, but I actually despise open world games. I love discovering worlds and mechanics and lore, but I don’t want to waste 100+ hours in a gigantic map where maybe only 10% of it was actually interesting. I find myself more drawn to more bite-sized exploration games. Games like Outer Wilds and Rainworld are some of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Those games made me feel excited with every detailed I uncovered, any mechanic I mastered, every corner I turned I felt like I found something meaningful. Something I feel open world games rarely do for me since so much of it feels like pointless filler. (With one exception being RDR2) In case anyone else is interested in this sub genre of the “explorer” personality, that don’t wanna spend hours on open world games: Some other games that truly hit for me were Journey, Abzu, Exo One, Soma, Little Nightmares (1&2), Shadow of the Colossus, Subnautica and The Last Guardian.
Yes, I’m in the same boat! Two of my favorite games are shadow of the colossus and the last guardian and I love to explore those ruined worlds but I also love that there aren’t a million mechanics to keep track of, since I get overwhelmed very easily.
I think logic games and puzzles go into competitor, as it is about skill being highly tested (remember chess is also a sport!). But also creator or director for the case of ex. Bad Piggies. Detective would go most likely into Storyteller.
@@Mautar55 I would say besides being a competitor it could also be part of being an explorer (what also another person commenting suggested), and I think I agree, exploring can mean different solutions and learning new ideas (im also a programmer by day)
i feel like they def fit into explorer! i love escape rooms and detective games due to the way they get you to explore every part of the environment and story of the game. some examples would be the room series or ace attorney, as when playing them you really have to take in every angle of your environment and manipulate it to find the solutions
For explorers i would add metroidvanias. Even though they arent "open world" they offer a great sense of exploration and mapping out a new world. But i agree they are also great for collectors
I am an Explorer and I love Hollow Knight and really enjoy the Ori Games, as well as Metroid Dread. So I think it fits. Although I initially thought they are best suited for Competitors (though that depends on the difficulty), or Kinesthetic.
I am primarily an explorer but I find the backtracking in metroidvanias generally tiring because of how repetitive it is. But I can play roguelikes for hours on end (besides the usual open worlds)
Interesting connection. I feel you missed a few really obvious (at least to me) recommendations. For the explorer, Outer Wilds is by far the best game at giving you a sense of discovery that I've played. And for the joker, Untitled Goose Game has you literally playing as a mischievous goose pranking humans.
instead of saying : « you missed a few really obvious recommandations » which has the tone of reproach, you could have said something like : « about the explorer type, i want to add Outer Wilds, which is great for x y z reasons ». Feels more positive and adds to the conversation instead of trying to poke at « errors » the creator has made. Just my two cents, have a great day/night !!
Ha! I started playing Stardew in 2019 and have about 4,500 hours. I’ve played vanilla and modded, not sure how many farms because I’ve deleted some. And even with that many hours I haven’t 100% the Steam achievements, mostly because I haven’t played to perfection since 1.6 released, and the two Journey of the Prairie King achievements.
"and going for perfection... again" I feel seen. I have never not gone for perfection on SDV, and in ONI I have always gone for an all achievement run even though it limits the opening to practically only one particular grind that has knock on consequences for ages after.
I’d say my dominant personality is storyteller with my secondaries being director and creator. The Sims is one of my absolute favourite game series and I agree that it fits well in creator as you said, with the creating of sims and houses, but it also fits perfectly in storyteller and director imo I love to create storylines in my head for my sims and play out their lives seeing where things go for them, and the managing of their needs and daily routines satisfies the director part of my personality. It’s really the perfect combo of all 3 and I guess that’s why I love it so much, and you can definitely see how some people will heavily engage in one aspect more than another. People who will pretty much only engage in the creator side (building houses, making sims), people who go hard on their storytelling and perhaps aren’t very interested in building a house or something themselves, people who approach it from a more joker play style, people who can’t really handle the director side at all and cheat needs and money up lol, so many different approaches to take. Lines up with my childhood play too, I was always in my dollhouse or doing imagination play (…talking to myself in the backyard lol). The Sims was originally called Dollhouse while in development after all.
If you want to try something similar with a few more ‘gamey’ aspects, check out RimWorld. Its very different tonally and thematically, but the story creation, I feel, is a lot more engaging than the Sims.
Interesting trivia: the original Sims game in the 90s was originally titled "Dollhouse" while it was in development, but the creators changed it to "The Sims" to appeal to a male audience as well as a female audience. The sims is literally a virtual dollhouse!
Totally agree with that. It was never one of my favorite games, but when I played the sims, I did not really care about creating them (I gave my best that they looked nice, but didn‘t put too much effort in it) and I didn‘t care about building houses (I just moved into pre-furnished houses or built an ugly one myself). I just cared about playing a story with the sims I have.
I’m not even much of a gamer, but honestly, this already makes so much more sense!! My friends and family love video games, but every time they try to recommend me something, it just doesn’t appeal to me. I relate to the storyteller the most with the joker and the creator following that. The games other people keep recommending to me are competitive, exploring, or collecting focused, which are the ones I tend to like the least (not always, but usually) Thank you so much for making this video! I think this’ll help me to understand my play style a bit better and help me understand my friend’s and family’s tastes too
Haha it sounds like The Sims is up your alley. You get to imagine storylines for your sims, create builds and sims and ofc there is a lot of fun to be found in the ridiculous ways of torturing them!
This video makes me believe that it is possible to be all play types and that apparently i am all play types (at least when it comes to games). However, three do speak to me more than the others, Collector, Director, and Creator
for competitive folks, i recomend rhythm games, theyre almost entirely all about getting better and beating harder stages (we literally only distinguish charts by a number to say how hard they are and the song theyre on lol), and take time to look at a lot of them cuz its a vast genre (but yeah, a lot of them are also kinesthetes, like Pump it up) also for directors, maybe games like tower defenses, specially like Mindustry, you could have lots of fun
@PlanetaryPhoenix How to flame an irrelevant war: _"B-but the devs' swimsuit controversy and _*_*check notes*_*_ weak surrender in t-the gender war?!"_
I’m surprised you didn’t mention any racing, sports or fighting games in your competitor list! Dirt, need for speed, Mario kart, soul caliber and virtua fighter or arcade fighters, wii sports, madden and nba series. If not your cup of tea, they still are good examples of good competition games.
Need for speed? Competitive? Tbh the video listed battlefeild as a competitive game as well despite being closer to the joker spectrum in my opinion. Any riot game would fit that category better, along with the fifas and fighting games. You can spot a competitive game if it limits its own content or its community does so for it for the sake of the "meta"
Personally i think a lot of games with engaging movement can appeal to a kinesthete, creator, and competitor. Games like tony hawk pro skater, mario odyssey, pennys breakaway, doom eternal, basically anything that allows you to creatively and fluidly chain together moves. They allow you to express yourself based on the moves you choose to use (creator), push yourself to pull off more challenging feats (competitor), and if the movement is good it will feel intuitive, fluid, and rewarding (kinesthete)
I have no idea what play type I am. And I've always struggled with finding games I like, I always just seem to stumble upon my favorite games- so I definitely wanna do some more research into this. Thanks for guiding me in the right direction.
As an autistic person I am (obviously) a collector, but also a director. When I love a game, I spend most of my time meticulously planning every detail of my 'idea' for the game rather than actually playing it. This also links to storytelling as I usually create a world in my head in relation to the game. I enjoy building but it is not my strong suit, and I often stick to just the designing, or copy from other sources - I don't consider myself a creator at all. Games need to have objectives (either built into the game or self-imposed) in order for me to be able to play them so I struggle with completely open worlds. I like management and collector games.
Same here, but I only collect things if I absolutely LOVE the game, I would never try to get perfect rank on every song on every difficulty in beat Saber but I did 100% breath of the wild and am thinking about doing it for tears of the kingdom
A lot of platformers (esp metroidvanias) fit well into the kinesthetic category because of the emphasis on fluid and expanding movement. Part of the fun is to run through huge sections without needing to stop at all
I'm a storyteller at core, and I wanna bring up that at least for me the stories I can make in my head for a game that gives me that freedom are just as good or better than the ones in game. One of my favorite games is skyrim and 90% of my playtime has zero to do with the games' story. I had a 5 year playthrough where I never advanced the MAIN QUEST. But god how I love roleplaying through my playthrough and exploring my own character's relationships to the world around her.
Really love when you get scientific with videogames, as I found your channel through the video on how to get back into a gaming backlog and the 5 minute rule suggestion has been really effective!
I wish water racing games would come back. I'm a kinesthete and those were by far my favorite genre of game. Watching the cool stunts you could perform while flying through the air just never got old. I still boot up my PS2 to play Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild sometimes. They just don't make games like that anymore.
Explorer/collector here. Must 100% the map and collect all the things. I spent 900 hours in ACNH getting every recipe item. And I only decorated my house and island once. I recommend Remnant 2 for other explorer/collectors which I know is supposedly a souls-like shooter, so can be played with your competitive friends who need to beat the boss but it’s great for secrets, puzzles and loot.
I played Hello Kitty Island Adventure(which is kind if similar to ANCH) and once with Super Mario 3D World. Do you think it fits with my taste? I don’t have a Switch but I would love to see your opinion/view. I also like Mario Kart DS(really fixated with this game) and play it through emulator.
I think these should be part of video game reviews and ratings. There's a German cinema magazine that not only rates the movies they discuss, but also have a "you might like this movie if you also liked these two other movies". I hardly ever look at rankings because way too often they're based on personal preference and therefore it's completely unclear if mine matches the critic's taste. Making clear what tastes are met would help a bunch when picking. It's the same that I'm currently doing, which is hearing what others whose taste I at least know have to say and what they liked or disliked about a game and then I go from there. I've found some that name a clear difference between their personal taste and things that may have been objectively good or bad about a game.
To be honest, I like the concept here of play personality to match with games, but I think the attempt to match physical playstyles with video games is not quite accurate, save maybe matching kinesthete with rhythm and VR games. Granted, a lot of this likely has to do with things being a mixture (my favorite games are action and challenge oriented, often with the collection and exploration of a Metroidvania, and therefore there's multiple categories that fulfill my favorite desires in game design), but simultaneously, as a child, I was quite clearly a storyteller. I would draw characters and comics and, when playing with action figures, would always have storylines that I'd come back to. Even when playing physically, I preferred to use sports equipment as imaginary props to pretend I was Link, Final Fantasy characters, or one of the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings going on a quest. In games, I do find story valuable, but it is secondary or tertiary to the game mechanics themselves. Simultaneously, I prefer co-operative games over direct competition, be it in my childhood play style or preferences in board, card, and video games. Yet the category I would fit under, or one of them anyway, is Competitive, which... only counts between me and the game itself. I think this is a good starting point, but I think the very nature of video games appeals to something different in us than it does in us as adults. Simultaneously, there's also the possibility of change. Throughout my childhood, JRPGs were my favorite games in part due to the story. I still played games like Mega Man X, Super Metroid, Star Fox, Donkey Kong Country, etc., but they weren't my favorite. Then Halo: Combat Evolved happened in high school, and particularly the Legendary difficulty, and suddenly story took a back seat as I dove head first into more challenging games, leading us to today where I play few RPG's, and sometimes set them to Hard difficulty just to be challenged, even if it's my first time playing. Perhaps a topic to revisit one day.
Thank you for the insightful comment. I agree-general play styles are unlikely to map 1:1 to video games for a few different reasons. A big one is as you said: games tend to have many different elements combined into one experience. The possibility of change is definitely a factor as well. Halo had a similar effect on me when I first discovered it in my early teens. I had never played an FPS before but suddenly I was obsessed and felt the desire to seek out more PvP competitive experiences!
I also like co op games more than competive I'm also really bad at competitive games, but I will occasionally join friends that were playing a competitive game and then for example get 2 kills and die 8 times and be really proud of those 2 kills.
Whenever people try to be mean to everyone that isn't above average at a game/as good as them I just state the fact that "if everyone is as good as you, you wouldn't be above average. In fact you would actually be below average."
This is actually so interesting! Before you even got to the breakdowns of the types, I was already thinking about how I played as a kid, and how that linked to some of my favourite games. I definitely fall into the Storyteller category, was always playing with dolls/acting out stories, and I love games like Nier, The Witcher, Life Is Strange. Games that have strong story, but also in the case of the latter two have choices in action/dialogue and consequences. So fascinating!
storytellers have the benefit of probably already knowing we’re storytellers, bc a) you can add storytelling to pretty much any game, so we will and always have, b) wanting games with good story is pretty common already and c) all i wanted to do as a kid was play pretend or write lol
As a storyteller-explorer mix my absolute favorite game is The Witcher 3 just because of the many question marks I get to discover while taking a break from the main quest - especially if they hold their own little quests.
I don’t know that I have one dominant play personality. Explorer, creator, storyteller, collector, and to a lesser extent director all fit. I think when considering games and trying to pick what you’ll enjoy, you’ve got to consider some modifiers too: combat and or chill/cozy, multiplayer/community aspect, and how your skill with button mashing compares to the controls required. I’m very much single player gaming, and while I enjoy rich story, I rarely enjoy relationship mechanics, I don’t hate combat, but I rarely enjoy games where it’s the main focus.
that probably has to do with there being so many things that go into enjoyment of a game that have nothing to do with playstyle. for example im definitely primarily a storyteller, but my favorite games are the sims, stardew valley, and breath of the wild. however in the question about a flow state, i would say that i often reach a flow state when doing repetitive sorting tasks, often with music playing; i attribute this to my specific brain neuroses, but it means gameplay loops like stardew valley really work for me. someone else mentioned puzzle mechanics, and liking that specific kind of satisfying mental challenge even if they’re by no means a competitor.
this!! i have an explorer/storyteller personality, and i LOVE BG3, but i have to say i struggled hard with the combat system at first. i had to look up builds in order to have my characters strong enough that i could progress the story (i didnt understand why some traits/passives were better than others). and because i’m also the kind of player that likes to experience things on my own, so having to search for builds, guides, walkthroughs etc isnt something i normally like to do (especially on the first run), it ends up putting me in a difficult position. if i had decided to be stubborn and force my way through BG3 without referring to a guide entirely, i may have ended up not completing or liking the game at all.
oh i'm the opposite there. i love relationship mechanics but story is usually boring. i want to be immersed in my game and stories about either protagonists who are nothing like me, or shallow characters i was never properly introduced to and therefore don't care about, kills that immersion.
For Collectors, one of my friends is one, the Lego series is a nice way to scratch that collecting itch or you can play Vampire Survivors (warning: highly addictive!!) For Kinesthetes: I really enjoyed Clustertruck, the sense of constant moving is satisfying as well as the DOOM series because you are constantly on the go mowing down demons. Plus Crypt of The Necrodancer is an amazing rhythm based roguelite game. For Creators, it is the type I least associate with, but I had a lot of fun with Terraria (it has more explorer elements), which I would recommend over Minecraft for most people. For Directors, I can recommend Frostpunk, a game that constantly throws monkey wrenches in your plan. A friend who really has this type of play is addicted to Factorio. For Competitors, there is one game series that brings out the competitor for everyone and that is the Mario Kart series or the Sonic equivalent: Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed. The Storyteller I have a bunch of games to recommend but I'll keep it short two very self-contained games: Inscryption totally consumed me I also enjoyed the short and sweet The Forgotten City. For Jokers I can definitely recommend Human Fall Flat because of all the shenanigans to be had. I haven't played the Saints Row series but from I have seen it looks really wacky just like Dead Rising. For the Explorer, I would recommend Deep Rock Galatic. A lot of my friends really enjoy this game. I myself don't have this archetype so sadly it is not something that I really enjoy but hearing the stories of my friends who invested a lot more hours into it I can definitely understand the appeal of this game. Plus the developers are quite sympathetic
I second the recommendation of the lego series for collectors. I have 65 hours of play time on Lego Star Wars ||| because of how much fun it was to collect everything in that game.
As a Collector, I agree Vampire Survivors is the video game equivalent of crack cocaine for me. I don't think a game has hit me that hard in the pleasure centers in a LONG time, if ever.
i took a class at my college on the science of play and i loved learning about the different play styles!! it was such a fun class and really made me rethink what i find fun in life. also as a storyteller type i LOVE disco elysium that game is so so so good
Sorely missing are the puzzle lovers. I love puzzle games and strategy games. But I HATE planning (don't like the Director games you mentioned) and I hate competitive games (don't like the Competitor games you mentioned). I really enjoy spontaneously solving problems without having to feel the pressure of a competition, and I'm sure there are others like me. So in my mind there needs to be a ninth category. My exemplary favorite games are Slay the Spire (I think it's a stretch to categorize this as a Competitor game), XCOM, any picross games, and any room escape games.
I think it depends why you like puzzle games. If you like puzzle games because you like being mentally challenged, then I think it's a Competitive style, but for mental challenges (the video examples mostly listed action/dexterity-based challenges, but there's no reason it can't apply to mental difficulty). If you like puzzle games because you like the "aha" moment of experiencing something brand-new/novel that you didn't think was possible before, then it's probably an Explorer style. The games you described - finding the right build to overcome a Slay the Spire boss or the right team strategy/loadout for an XCOM level - sound more like a Competitor style to me. Whereas someone who adored solving a seemingly-impossible Portal 2 puzzle or a Baba Is You level would probably fit more into the Explorer mindset. But that's just my two cents!
@@survivorflorida2858 As someone who struggles to complete Baba Is You without the help of my cousin Lachlan, I can see what you mean by "seemingly-impossible".
moonstone island is a great game for a collector, too! it’s a creature collector that also has deck building, map exploration, decoration and farming sim elements (altho u can ignore those if u want)
Def a collector, first and foremost, but I love the aspect of storytelling where I’m just following a preset story, choosing which quest to go on, etc. I don’t like having to create my own experience
This was such a nice, thoughtful video. I’d love to recommend Outer Wilds to any explorers and collectors out there, as well as storytellers because you really get to uncover a beautiful story at your own pace.
I think I identify most with the Director personality with the Storyteller being second, and these two shine through to most games I've played. As a kid when I played mmorpgs and jrpgs like Final Fantasy, I loved creating processes and paths for quick leveling up and quest completion. System and process optimizing was always one of the most fun "game mechanic", even when it weren't explicitly designed. One of the best feelings while gaming was when there were time limits and I had been able to optimize my systems so much that I was heaps ahead of schedule. Although I was absolutely consumed for a while by management games like Sims, Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, as well as more purely strategical games like CIV and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, I think I prefer more of a grand storyline and characters to become attached to (read: obsessed about). My game recs for similar people are the Atelier games (Meruru is my all-time favorite), the Fire Emblem games (Three Houses) and Persona 5! Would love to get more game recs from fellow Director/Storyteller personalities. :)
Although I previously resonated strongly with the competitor, I've found it extremely challenging to maintain a healthy mindset after years of playing online shooter games. So I had to take a step back and find a different playstyle.
I 100% agree with your choice of Tunic for explorers. As a kid, I remember finding out secrets to games and feeling rewarded for figuring it out. That’s harder and harder to come by these days though, since so much information is available on the internet. Tunic is the one game that made me feel like I was discovering again. So although it’s not a huge open world, it really feels like you’re exploring
I'm a Creator type and my recommendations are the LittleBigPlanet series as a whole, including the spin offs and side games. LBP is just a wonderful sandbox game where you can make about anything you put your mind to. It's the game I played the most during my childhood and still play now from time to time. I'm still waiting for LBP4... On the other hand, LBP is also a good game for collectors as well because of the sheer amount of goodies to collect from each game's story mode and DLCs. Another great Creator game is Dreams, made by the same developers of LBP funny enough. Dreams is like LBP but in 3D and with even less restrictions. If you can Dream it, you can make it. And lastly, I'd recommend Super Mario Maker 2. Being able to make your own official Mario levels is very satisfying and being able to make a full 8 world, 40 level adventure is awesome! You can quite literally make your own Mario adventure for others to play.
I don't like dying 10 times on the path to the boss and that stupid banjo music (dropped both Hollow Knight or Outer Wilds 2 times, on releases and some years after). Maybe I should play Outer Wilds without the soundtrack.
@@xalt255x Yeah Hollow Knight is quite punishing, both the platforming and the combat. And severe lack of checkpoints (way worse than a soulsgame) and slow movement. Makes it a real pain when you repeatedly die.
@@ssjbargainsale Yeah, same for me. I loved Ori and Forgotten City, so I should love Hollow Knight and Outer Wilds, right? Well, somehow I don’t, and I have no idea why.
I loved hollow knight at the beginning until i started having to do a lot of backtracking and dying several times on the path to the boss. I'm a HUGE fan of metroidvanias but I don't enjoy redoing challenges I've done before, over and over again. It's a huge annoyance and that's why i dropped both hollow knight and I avoid all soulslike games like the plague
This was such an interesting video that I took notes on it. I find that I also allow myself to be flexible with play styles, and there's psychology to do with that as well. My cosy games have to be Director-Based to ground me after a long day. My explorer games are when I'd love to explore and already feel grounded in myself.
My primary style is Creator and my secondaries are storyteller and director. Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Vintage Story (it’s basically Minecraft for adults), but my most played game of all time is definitely The Sims. It’s the perfect game for all three of my play styles. Though I have been trying to make an effort to try new games. This video will really help me figure out which ones are worth a try.
I feel like creator is probably the most accurate for me overall, but that I don't like it through video games as much as explorer? I paint and build lego and so on and those kinds things are the most fulfilling leisure activities, but creative video games I tend to go hard and burn out and drop in a very short amount of time. (Maybe I like them too much? Idk) The video games that keep me hooked for a while have a lot of exploration. I also enjoy directing and storytelling. To add to the recommendation of Tunic, I have been enjoying Animal well. Someone else mentioned Outer Wilds, which is an utterly fantastic game too. Probably best fit for an explorer, but I feel a lot of styles would get something from it.
The Competitor is definitely my main style of play, and The Joker is my secondary for sure. Guess that explains why I basically only play games all about beating other players and/or getting better, and I always wanna mess around and have fun with my friends on them.
I just completed Ete and loved it. Not only is it a game for the Creatives, but I'd argue that it's a game for the Explorer and potentially the Collector. A major part of the game is going through different areas of Montreal, coloring it in with water colors, and collecting these 3D stamps to use for your "kit of parts". There so many little fun mundane moments that you can happen upon as you go around the areas, which really make you feel immerse into the game. When playing Ete, I would go super hardcore into exploring and collecting for a few days, then spend the next few days working on the creative part of the game creating artwork in the apartment. I'd def recommend Ete to Creative and Explorer type players.
i was actually thinking about this recently as i had a similar experience with the game Animal well, most people seem to think it is an indie masterpiece, but I really couldn't get into it, not sure why but i did find this interesting.
I do think the gameplay and world design make it a masterpiece, but I couldn't finish it. I got very far but the atmosphere really started to depress me. There's just not much of a sense of triumph anywhere imo. Probably could have finished it if I wasn't going through some rough life shit
I’ve always been an explorer- but, I love exploring when it’s not the point of the game. I love when a game is somewhat linear and i am purposely wandering into every nook and cranny, but not because the game told me to. For instance I’ve never ever connected with Outer Wilds. I thought I would love it because I enjoy exploring and I have a weird interest in quantum physics- but that game felt so shallow to me because it wasn’t that you stumble across something awesome by yourself, that’s the whole point of the game so it took the fun of exploring away. 😅 Tunic on the other hand - absolutely loved that, because narratively it felt like the little fox wasn’t meant to see certain things!
I have a few recommendations (not all limited to gaming): - Directors might like being a Dungeon Master or running other TTRPGs. - Explorers might also like Minecraft, since you can just run around a near-infinite world. - Jokers might like West of Loathing, or the pure shenaniganry of DnD - For competitors, I recommend Smash Bros, Mario Kart, or Splatoon, which all have great multiplayer. - I’m not sure for a kinesthete, since the Wii isn’t still being produced, but that was definitely the console for kinesthetes. - A creator will like Minecraft, but might also enjoy DMing for DnD, or trying one of many crafting hobbies out there. - a storyteller will probably like some older Zelda games, since a lot of the 3d ones before BoTW focused on story. A prime example is Twilight Princess, a solid game with a fantastic story. - and finally, a collector. Minecraft is also a great game for a collector, but they might also enjoy Stardew Valley, BoTW, or literally any Pokémon game.
Dude, did you just use the music from the game A Short Hike in your video???I seriously LOVED that game, and the music makes me feel so emotion-heavy. I hope somebody else has played this game too 😊
I appreciate that you listed RDR2 as a story game instead of an exploration game. I'm a hardcore explorer and I couldn't get through RDR2 because I felt like it had a lot of obstacles that sucked the joy out of adventuring and exploration.
I am confident I'm explorer and storyteller with a little bit of creator so here I leave some recommendations: -Outer Wilds -Call of the Sea -Dreamfall Chapters -Tangle Tower -What Remains of Edith Finch -Paradise Killer -Stray -Portal 1 and 2 -Reka (comes out sept) -Garden Witch Life (comes out sept) Happy gaming!!!!
I would divide the Kinesthete into two categories when discussing play personalities in video games. 1- As you pointed out, rhythm games or games like "Wii sports" where you need to fiscally move. 2- Games with flashy combat. Or based on a specific combat. Some games are enjoyable just because the combat is excellent. Great video! *Subscribed*
Being someone who mostly plays visual novels or other various "choices matter" games, I kinda immediately knew I was the storyteller just from reading the names of the archetypes, so no surprise there... But it's really cool having some more concrete ways to describe why it is I don't like/enjoy certain games. I have basically zero fun with builders, for example, and it makes perfect sense because I never enjoyed lego or painting either- the director and creator play styles don't appeal to me! I don't care for challenge or getting better at something, aka competition against myself, but I don't inherently hate competition with other people because of how the joker play type can appeal to me where the competitive does not. It's really cool seeing how these styles can interact with each other!
Definitely Creative here, with Collector and Director as secondary. I’ve poured countless hours into games like Stardew Valley, Terraria, and Minecraft. (And others in similar genres.) Those games scratch all those itches for me. This was very interesting!
I've been trying to figure out why Dredge really wasn't doing it for me and this put it in words exactly what I was feeling without realizing it! This definitely helped show me the similarities between all my favorite games and what will probably be good games to play in the future
I’m definitely the storyteller: most of the time I look for an engaging story and/or likeable characters. I have a pretty specific taste in games and that is cozy farming sims or just cozy games in general. Very big fan of Stardew Valley and also Wylde Flowers scratched that itch of a cozy game but with a storyline like no game has before for me. Fields of Mistria is really great too though still in early access and Coral Island… it’s good but with characters they went for quantity over quality and it really shows.
Nice video, thank you :D I already recommended it to 3 people ♥ I'm mostly a "cozy gamer" and don't enjoy gaming and board games with other people because I really hate competitive aspects. So I always feel a bit weird when it comes to picking games. Your video really helped me understand what types of games I enjoy and most likely don't enjoy for future game-picking :D Thanks a lot, have a nice day!
This is so interesting!! I have a strong collector personality but unfortunately that applies to just collecting the games themselves and not playing them ever
For storytellers who appreciate a good narrative over anything else, after you've experienced peak in the form of Disco Elysium, I urge you to give visual novels a try! At the risk of overhyping, The House in Fata Morgana is one of the most beautiful pieces of media I've ever experienced (and boasted a perfect score on MetaCritic for a reason!)
Explorer, creative, and director. I used to always want to go to the science museum, I’m a biologist, I research stuff for the fun of learning. I’m also an artist and I love the beauty of the world around us. I also ALSO love planning things (very good trait for a scientist to have, methinks).
This video was really interesting and thought provoking. I'm definitely a mixture of the explorer, storyteller and collector. It makes a lot of sense that my favorite gaming genre for a long time has typically been MMORPGs. I'd love to get into more single player games and I think this gives me a good idea of where I should start to look.
There is a one thing which complicates things. People usually have preferences for the setting in games and this can significantly lower the amount of games they enjoy. For example: I have a friend who exclusively plays story driven single player WW FPS and "survival" horror games. So while technically they would mostly fall into a category of storyteller, the fact they only liked those two settings basically meant they had very small amount of games to choose from. To make things even more limiting indie games also seemed uninteresting to them due to lack of voice acting (in most cases) and the feel of virtually ubiquitous Unity engine. They do find some exceptions to the rule but that tends to be extremely rare to be basically not worth searching for. While this comment might feel off-topic, I commented it because somehow I didn't find that many people who talk about how important setting is for them.
Hi, I'm the director. My games I came back and run again every 3 years or so are: 1. Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (there was a time i did a year to year campaign runthrou xD) 2. Warcraft 3 3. Dungeons. Did the 3rd, and now completing the first one, only 4 missions left. 4. Sims, of any number except 1. From time to time i make new run, new story, new goals, and then trying to coplete them most optimally. Trying to act out according to chosen characteristics, and so on. Recently I was introduced to sims 3 medieval, where you have missions, with rewards according to the score, and i love it. 5. For mmo - Black Desert Online, with it's economics system to be beaten. I was beating it on creating wagons and ships (thou wagons quickly lost on it's value, so I reenginered this part of resourcers into something else) If you like puzzle solving games most of the alawar hidden objects will do ;) As a second nature i think I am a competetive, althou against a computer/system, not other players. In Yakuza I liked the most the minigame Mahjong, in Witcher I even runned Gwint for my players throu discord calls as they had problems with it, while it was a piece of cake for me. Anyway, what i would recomend for that style: 1. Hades, my first actually stucked rouge-like, didn't thought i would like it so much - the amount of decisions, strategies, and skill it requiered of me each different time was great. The type of play i had to adapt for a new run was hardly the same (except for bosses, but they are once every few maps). And the best was playing it with a friend toghether on one computer, where we divided the preffered weapons, and that random violet +20% on the weapon was determining who were doing that run. (althou we stopped when my runs started to take over 40minutes, since i was actually starting to finish runs while she wasn't yet clearing the first stage. We started doing that she was starting, trying to get as far as she could till 1 health, and the rest i tried) Now she got bored of Hades a little, so we found a game for two - Darksiders Genesis, althou we didn't test it out yet (but i tested Quacamole some years ago, a game for two, can remcomend! As well as River city girls, and Overcooked 2) 2. Be surprised or not, but Witcher 3 was a great pleasure for me. I never finished it, cause my save got... destoryed by the producer, unless i buy dlc i can't open it anymore, even thou i never had a dlc... anyway! Create a game, take the highest difficulty, pick the outfit you like the look of (like starting jacket or the white blouse...), invest in ignii and go on adventure. I did every single part of the map except the main quest. Igni dmg scales based on monster health, not your lvl, so it is actually beatable, you just can't let the monster hit you, not even once. EACH AND EVERY TYPE OF MONSTER HAS DIFFERENT STYLE. Some of them attack in group, some in one. Each has different visual cues when they are going to attack. Some dash, some swing, some do a twril. And being able to save whenever you like means you can try and learn again again and again without having to get to the monster every time - you just save right in front of the fight. It was hella fun. 3. The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk The Amulet Of Chaos. It's a dnd-type, turn based combat. It's funny in it's hermetical style. Like hanging panties to dry on a statue of the dark powerful mage statue as a visual detail. It [game] knows it's specific. It literaly has an option in settings to turn off the dwarf and the elf voices (seperatly), as even they knew those specific jokes [using high pitch actress to voice an elf, and using a hard, joking accent for a dwarf) could be too much for some. Story is not too long like with those types of game, everything is voiced, you can skip it - there is a quest log. The mechanic options are various, and i sometimes had to restart the fight in order to win it. The game is linear, which helped avoiding that "running for hours over one map cause you don't know where to go next, only to learn this place is too high lvl, go back and loose some more time, cause we wanted to have a big map in order to sell the game to players. ... yeah, dragon age inq was a big fail for me...). I'm trying to go throu Divinity after DAI fail, and it is better in that stronger areas are beatable with good enough strategy, but lack of quest log in first game is starting to tire me out - too much dialoge, so i skip it, and then i have to search on phone for information where to go in order to do the quest... that's why i ended taking a break for something looking childish (Naheaulbeuk) and damn! I'm staying for longer. I am already much further in that "break game" than in divinity. 4. For the mmo players, again the Black Desert Online has many meachnics to beat. Fishes catch quicker if you are on a moving ship (and there are npc ships that travel all the time), each character has different fight playstyles, different keys combinations, and work for different spots beter. ... Well... not all. Shai and Lahn were pretty simple for me. But hashashin for example worked better for wider-divded smaller groups, and he was just going throu map smoothly, while dark knight was great for jump, one heavily packed group, smash all at once, jump straight to the second group. Her attack abilities were doing that quick jump, so she worked the fastest in spots where the groups were next to each other. And third, even thou i'm not happy about it, I am a collectionist. It's a point of strugle for me, because what I get from getting all of those challenges? Nothing but lost time. Playing the same scene again just to get the exempting eachoter challenges are not fun (Dunegons 1 I am looking at you...). But i just can't help it! The urge to have all and feeling of pleasure at the end is controling me. 1. Tropix 2 have a cute, short story, and it's a game within a game, where you unlock new mini games, go throu the ones you like, get money from them and spend them on the instances in order to collect stuff and progres with story. Tropix 1 is similar, with few different minigames, but without a stroy - collecting "full" in those instances just doesn't feel that completionist, when you are just "completing an instance" and the only reward is just getting one new minigame. 2. Not sure if i recomend it, it is an old game... but for any pokemon lovers out there - Zanzarah. A russian? version of pokemons, where you collect fairies, but the battles are not turn-based; you actually fly around the stage as your fairy (or bear) and shoot with magic trying to get that enemy/wild fairy in the face. Of course there is a collection. Of course there are evlotutions. Of course you can catch multiple of each fairy, and evolve them individually in orther to have full collection. Of course there is a 'book' showing the collected variables in one page. Like i come back every few years to the top of this comment, this is my brother's "have to visit from time to time" 3. For the mmo players: Guild wars 2. Collecting should be in the name of that game. Each part of the map has view points, quests, jumping puzzles, completion gauge shown when you point on the region with your mouse. ... It's not a challenge mechanicly to beat the quests/monsters, but filling that gauge... AND THE CREATIVITY on some quests from time to time. Like in the nord region you had riddle quest! And beating kids with snowballs! And of course finishing those side quests also count into the completion gauge. Yes, you have that 2 out of 6 counter in that same spot as the gauge. For every part of the completion.
Another recommendation for storytellers: RimWorld or Dwarf Fortress. Not that they'll be a good fit for all storytellers, but they have strong potential to be amazing for some.
I’m primarily an explorer, with creative and collector coming in behind it, which is why I LOVE Skyrim, Breath of the Wild, Fallout, Horizon Zero Dawn and games of that ilk. I do write so I like story a lot too but it’s hard to balance a good story and gameplay, though I think some games do this very well.
Another eye-opening video. Thanks for making it! Your videos have really been helping me to start picking games I like, rather than keep trying things just because I admired my siblings being able to play those kinds of games growing up. I think my primary play style is Creator. Storyteller and Director are perhaps secondary play styles. (But about Director, I like organizing and planning for myself. I do not like leading others, so it's really that I'm an organizing and planning Creator type, as opposed to a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants Creator type.) I like Collector in as far as it serves the first three. Explorer sounds delightful as a break from producing something myself. Kinesthete only sounds nice in a non-competitive, not finely rhythm-based way. I especially like them where the focus is on creating movement (not how fast can you move) or a hands-on puzzle experience (e.g. Pushmo feels tactile to me because you are trial and error dealing with a 3D space. Whereas I wanted to love Baba Is You, but I couldn't after a while, because it is so abstract). A game I tried the demo for and it hit the Creator + Storyteller/Director sweet spot was Dragon Quest Builders 2. Now, I'm excited to play it when I'm done with one of my current games. I am really liking Princess Peach: Showtime! because it is bite-size experiences of different stories (Storyteller). The action mechanics are different in each of the play roles, but all of them reward my efforts and none of them are so punishing that I can't beat a level, even if I can't 100% it. So it's a refreshing experience of trying out other play-styles and genres than I usually would without wearing me out. It also has roles that engage my kind of Kinesthete. Especially the ice-skating levels were fun for this reason. I'm also playing Octopath Traveler, and for awhile, I just felt daunted because I didn't have a clear direction and there was so much possible to do. Your video on "How To Get Back Into a Game According To Science" really helped me. Now I see that the tips you provided in that video helped me not only to not loose my place and be left wondering what I should do each play session, but they also helped me to start engaging with the game as a "craft your own story" kind of game where it changes depending on the order that I choose to do things in.
I wonder if this explains the infamous "2 week Minecraft" cycle, it's obviously one of the most beloved games of all time but I can see how it can fit most of these categories and you can make an argument it doesn't really go in-depth in terms of fulfilling those wants
Also creators! I spend a hella lot of time building bases and planting luminiscent gardens. And I've seen folks doing their best to punch all reapers to death for the sheer joy of it, so clearly it works for some competitors too.
I don't know how helpful this actually is. I think the fact that you could recommend games that you enjoy that fall into each of these play styles kinda illustrated that. I could argue that I fall into every category but the collector, and that I'm not much of a competitor. There are so many intangible things that can make a game stick with you or bounce off. I love breath of the wild. I completely bounced off No Man's Sky, for example. When it comes into a flow, I think I maybe fall most into like task-list style gameplay where I get satisfaction from like building a task list to complete in game, then completing it efficiently.
Funnily enough, my videogame preferences seem to be of completely different play personalities than my non-videogame tendencies and hobbies. I tend to be very much a creator and organizer IRL, but the kinds of games that would normally appeal to those rarely appeal to me.
Idk what my play personality is, but I love the endless grinding kinda games where you spend hours levelling just to progress a bit in the story. I love those
Since over half the games i like I've technically never played myself (watched playthroughs), there can be a bit of disconnect between the ones I like playing and the ones I like watching - but regardless, I think my play styles generally revolve around exploration and storytelling, with tiny bits of collector/director/creator sprinkled in (liking collecting stuff in videogames but not having enough drive to actually be completionist; liking only the very specific turn based strategy gameplay you find in fire emblem games; and likung a lot of those creator type games but got way too burnt out on creation and decoration) I'm not 100% sure what play is more dominent between the two, but I'd guess exploration? (A whole host of other factors also tend to influence my interest in games almost more than the gameplay/genre too, like preferring colorful or stylized graphcis/not being very slilled and therefore striggling more with high-skill type games)
And man is it difficult to find enough other games with that fire emblem-like feeling, I've only managed to find similar things like a recent indie game called "Trash of the Titans" or something like that, or perhaps fftactics or something....
Bro this is exactly how I felt about Baldur's Gate 3. Everywhere I looked I saw nothing but praise and then played it myself. I played for 70 hours and fell asleep playing it thrice. After which I just dropped it.
my type of play as a kid was staring off into space and creating these huge worlds in my head and then creating intricate maps and paragraphs of lore that accompanied every little area 😭 I'm now sinking all my time into a extremely intricate sims save file where every sim and lot has a whole history and backstory - really haven't changed lmao
For explorers it's not only about exploring open worlds. As you say, is also about exploring new ideas, learning stuff. Puzzle games like Portal, Baba is you, world of goo, Paquerette down the bunburrows, etc. are the very best for me.
You don't explore new places here, you explore new ways to do something.
Worle of Goo 2 recently released btw
@@Josuhwait it released already?!
@@LunaStar31 August 2nd apparently, yeah
Ah sweet, people are already taking about play types like they are their star signs, and they somehow can read the mind of everybody who shares it
I recommend Outer Wilds
I feel some of these play personalities can be expanded upon, for example, jokers are not restricted to comedy or party games. They may find joy out of playing unconventional, wacky alternate playstyles, and getting a kick out of it when it works.
very true, thank you for the comment!
true, that Yoshi main you find in Tekken 8 lobbies.
-Arin "Check this out" Hanson-
overwatch lucio players fr
I think what you describe would be a mix of the joker and the creator (self expression/being unique). As he said in the beginning: nobody is perfectly one type but a mixture of them.
So the "expansion" of these personalities is to basically combine them.
"Nah I'm no director"
- biggest Stardew Valley, Cities Skylines and Pikmin fan who literally plays with notebooks to maximize in-game time efficiency
very relatable, one time i set up a system of equations to figure out the optimal ratio of seeds to buy in stardew lmao
just get a job lol
@@marquoire You think that's crazy? Try using spreadsheets to calculate if it's optimal to pass out any day, or what crop would be better to reach level 6 farming by spring 12 with the highest profit
i often find that games are too easy to organize, like i really want a game that its hard to make the most out of limited ressources with, and stardew money making is waaaay too easy for me, so i love playing artificial challenges like the no pierre no joja challenge. I really want to spend more time having to be smart with my ressources and producing smth on the other side!
you should try wilmont's warehouse!! i was SCREAMING this suggestion when he mentioned the director :)
this is part of why i love watching extended video essays for games i will never play, and KNOW i would not enjoy-pathologic is a big one. i ADORE hearing people talk about how the struggle and tense atmosphere so thoroughly added to the storytelling; yet i know i would get frustrated and freaked and quit long before i could get there
Hehe same. Id play pathologic but good luck getting me to play any souls game the "right way"
Yessssss! That’s exactly how I feel about pathologic! I think it is a beautiful game that I would absolutely recommend to someone else (and I have), but I will never play it because I would be miserable the whole time. I would hate the tension being that high and I don’t want the game to be that challenging all the time because it loses its fun for me.
I felt similar about Fallout until I changed the soundtrack for fun one day. I put the Skyrim soundtrack instead. Instantly all the tension was gone. I could explore to my hearts content without a sense of dread hanging over me the whole time. I look for little things like that now when playing a game. It's been fun figuring out if it's the gameplay itself (sometimes it is!) or if it's something else making me tense.
visual novels arent often talked about next to big triple a games, but they are the poster child of narrative driven games. if you like story rich games, you should deffo check them out. ace attorney and danganronpa are mystery classics, and VA-11 HALL-A is absolutely fantastic and gorgeous. other types of games that scratch that itch are hades, rain code, needy streamer overload, and a strange little unknown title called hotel sowls
You could get a lot of recommendations from asking "what kind of games I should play if I like Ace Attorney", especially since it's the visual novel game with the most influence. It's amazing how they managed to fit in a lot of style and story in those little GBA cartridges.
For a recommendation, Ghost Tricks: Phantom Detective is pretty underrated. I also don't often see people talk about the Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney collab, that one was phenomenal.
va11halla is peak
@@nuviretto i live and die on the hill that Professor Layton needs more love in the states at the very least, i love that franchise so GOD DAMN MUCH (:
I’m a speech pathologist and recently at our clinic a Play Therapist was appointed and we all did our “play type” / “play personality” so this was really cool to see applied to video games
Hello fellow speech pathologist!
@@ednaoverboard1052 hello! We just had speech pathology week a few weeks ago. Hoping to finish up a pod episode about it soon. Do you celebrate something like Speech pathologist week?
I also think animal crossing has a great collecting element! The museum is amazing when it’s complete. I think it would be ideal for someone who has a mix of the creative and collector personality
Yeah those 2 types are my main and second. It’s no wonder I put over 300 hours into New Leaf. Lol
@@UltraBebo I’m happy you had so much fun! Did you like acnh too? I’ve played that and wild world but I want to try new leaf one day
Yeah, and trying to complete furniture sets or seasonal diys in acnh, or even villager hunting to some extent
@@Bitterblue66 True!! I’d never thought of villager hunting that way before
@@EmL-kg5gn I actually never got to play the new one. I don’t own a switch
Finally, astrology for gamers
💯🎯
I know it was mostly meant as a joke/satire, but no. I'm a PhD student in psychology, and play theory is still based on empirical observations. Astrology has NO science behind it. 😂
@@Pat43489I had the same problem with this comment. I'm no PhD haver or anything but this comment while funny just gives off a bad message. It's a certain type of mindset to me that seems bathed in ignorance. Not that I'm a shining example but from my own feels and reels the type of person to make this comment unironically is the type of person to have as many objectively wrong takes as they can have.
you either didn't follow, or just don't get it
No. Astrology has no empirical base. Play science is based on qualitative data collected in a standardized way and analyzed. Happy to explain more as someone who is in the research world for my day job if you are interested.
I would add the "progressor" as another archtype. (Might be the same category as collector, in a way) But they find satisfaction through slowly progressing, like restaurant upgrades or unlocking new outfit styles or paying off your mortgage to tom nook. They lose interest once there is no more to meaningfully progress
Thisssss
That's sorta a subset of the director playstyle, but I can see some overlap with the explorer, creator, and collector.
@@guyman1570I wouldn’t say creator as that is making your own experience like finding glitch
I tried animal crossing new horizons, and after paying off the initial debt I got bored very quickly, since that was my entire goal and I didn't want to take on more debt
@@blueninja012 animal crossings isn’t a progression game though
As soon as you started describing the storyteller, i thought to myself, "oh that sounds like me", and lo and behold, you then listed off two of my favourite games, Baldur's Gate 3 and Disco Elysium!
I fit in Storyteller too-BG3, Dragon Age, & Mass Effect draw me in. I’m not a competitor at all, but I love Hades. What draws me to that one is the story and the character interactions. The combat is something I tolerate for the story.
same! my focus being so on story has led to interesting conversations with other gamers. Personally, I don't need as much synergy between story and gameplay as some of my friends-- I am willing to overlook slightly "off" gameplay if the story is strong enough, but it never goes the other way. If the story is weak, it could have wonderful mechanics and I would still be bored.
@@emmjaygames omg this! I got Skyrim the day it came out. After playing it for two months, I was so bored! Bethesda’s staff is not good at writing at all. So then I ended up playing DAO for the first time and loved it so much.
This is so interesting to me because BG3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I refunded Disco Elysium less than 2 hours in. With BG3, not knowing where to go is rarely a thing. You’re always progressing, gaining EXP and learning more. With Disco Elysium, in my experience you just get yelled at for exploring, everyone hates you and the world hates you being there. I think it brings to light the fact that, just like chick flicks or horror films both feature movies with stories, the kind of story a storyteller play person enjoys varies from person to person. If I don’t like who I am playing as and I am not rooting for them? No chance I will be interested in playing that game/experiencing that story.
I knew I was a collector when I heard the description and felt embarrassed. I identify with others like creator, storyteller and explorer, but there's something about the collector that makes me feel like I'm retreating into my lizard brain. I have a lot of achievements on steam and I keep track of every game I've ever played and which ones I've completed on an excel sheet.
i literally only play games that are BOTH have “story rich” and “choices matter” tags on steam. now everything makes sense. i’m a storyteller through and through.
my favorite games are all of the the walking dead telltale series, LIFE IS STRANGE SERIES (!!! so excited for the newest one coming up soon!), and detroit: become human.
I swear I've played them all.... always willing to hear recommendations.
There's a bunch of horror games like that. Until Dawn and other games by that studio.
@@arckinenso7615 oh yeah! the quarry’s pretty great too!
Have you tried The Stanley Parable?
Check out the Zero Escape series or Steins;Gate!
Being a collector can also be crippling. I was never able to finish The Last of Us because I "might" miss one of the boxes containing upgrade materials, and you could not go back to obtain them again.
Same, sometimes the FOMO prevents me from playing certain games entirely.
In the early 2000s, I took to playing some of the big, long, sprawling RPGs with a FAQ because I would rather have some surprises spoiled than spend 100s of hours just to miss something important.
It is possible to work through this kind of perfectionism. In my own life I've found that inner work has provided significant dividends in terms of my enjoyment of life generally, not only in how I play games. Now, whether I choose to be a completionist on any given game is based on my enjoyment of whatever aspect of gameplay is on offer, rather than in spite of it.
Crippled my RE4 the same way XD
If you're actually suffering from it, it might hint towards deeper problems like OCD
If you’re a Storyteller and/or Collector, and maybe an Explorer, highly highly recommend a small indie darling called In Stars and Time. It’s a timeloop RPG with amazing writing and so so much depth in terms of stuff to discover and collect and see. Its narrative hits home, and its secrets run deep and obscure yet not so much so to where it’s a pain to get most of them. And you can find a lot of it without expecting it too. It’s great!
ISaT fan in the wild !?!?
I’m an Explorer and Storyteller and this is one of my fav games so far. I am taking my time enjoying it.
I’m definitely an Explorer type, but I actually despise open world games. I love discovering worlds and mechanics and lore, but I don’t want to waste 100+ hours in a gigantic map where maybe only 10% of it was actually interesting.
I find myself more drawn to more bite-sized exploration games. Games like Outer Wilds and Rainworld are some of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Those games made me feel excited with every detailed I uncovered, any mechanic I mastered, every corner I turned I felt like I found something meaningful. Something I feel open world games rarely do for me since so much of it feels like pointless filler. (With one exception being RDR2)
In case anyone else is interested in this sub genre of the “explorer” personality, that don’t wanna spend hours on open world games: Some other games that truly hit for me were Journey, Abzu, Exo One, Soma, Little Nightmares (1&2), Shadow of the Colossus, Subnautica and The Last Guardian.
I always wondered why I loved Outer Wilds and hated Fallout, but I think you're on to something. Just wishlisted Soma and Subnautica.
I love you for this comment. Your explanation couldn’t have highlighted my feelings any more clearly!
If the open world game you're playing only has 10% of it being interesting or playable, that's a bad games and isn't indicative of open world styles.
Just pick better open world games where there is actually stuff to find everywhere like Skyrim or BoTW(BoTW less so but still)
Yes, I’m in the same boat! Two of my favorite games are shadow of the colossus and the last guardian and I love to explore those ruined worlds but I also love that there aren’t a million mechanics to keep track of, since I get overwhelmed very easily.
What about people who like logic games - puzzles, escape rooms, detective/mystery adventures? I feel like that could be an entire category by itself
I think logic games and puzzles go into competitor, as it is about skill being highly tested (remember chess is also a sport!). But also creator or director for the case of ex. Bad Piggies. Detective would go most likely into Storyteller.
If you seek to beat the system in a puzzle game, you are definitively a competitor.
@@Mautar55 I would say besides being a competitor it could also be part of being an explorer (what also another person commenting suggested), and I think I agree, exploring can mean different solutions and learning new ideas (im also a programmer by day)
i feel like they def fit into explorer! i love escape rooms and detective games due to the way they get you to explore every part of the environment and story of the game. some examples would be the room series or ace attorney, as when playing them you really have to take in every angle of your environment and manipulate it to find the solutions
I see many of the puzzle games I’ve played could be aligned with the Explorer play type.
For explorers i would add metroidvanias. Even though they arent "open world" they offer a great sense of exploration and mapping out a new world. But i agree they are also great for collectors
I am an Explorer and I love Hollow Knight and really enjoy the Ori Games, as well as Metroid Dread. So I think it fits. Although I initially thought they are best suited for Competitors (though that depends on the difficulty), or Kinesthetic.
I am primarily an explorer but I find the backtracking in metroidvanias generally tiring because of how repetitive it is. But I can play roguelikes for hours on end (besides the usual open worlds)
Interesting connection. I feel you missed a few really obvious (at least to me) recommendations. For the explorer, Outer Wilds is by far the best game at giving you a sense of discovery that I've played. And for the joker, Untitled Goose Game has you literally playing as a mischievous goose pranking humans.
instead of saying : « you missed a few really obvious recommandations » which has the tone of reproach, you could have said something like : « about the explorer type, i want to add Outer Wilds, which is great for x y z reasons ». Feels more positive and adds to the conversation instead of trying to poke at « errors » the creator has made. Just my two cents, have a great day/night !!
I heard the best bouts of laughter from my two young children when they would play Untitled Goose Game together!
@alexterieur8813 nah, he did miss some obvious recommendations, though. He probably just hasn't played them.
Untitled goose game was a treat
Untitled goose game was the first example that I thought of the joker
im a collector, and i have 750h+ on stardew valley
im on my 12th farm and going for perfection... again
Damnnnnnn
Ha! I started playing Stardew in 2019 and have about 4,500 hours. I’ve played vanilla and modded, not sure how many farms because I’ve deleted some. And even with that many hours I haven’t 100% the Steam achievements, mostly because I haven’t played to perfection since 1.6 released, and the two Journey of the Prairie King achievements.
"and going for perfection... again"
I feel seen. I have never not gone for perfection on SDV, and in ONI I have always gone for an all achievement run even though it limits the opening to practically only one particular grind that has knock on consequences for ages after.
I feel seen by this lmao
I thought none of these sounded like me until the very last. I guess there's a reason my friends call me a loot goblin
I’d say my dominant personality is storyteller with my secondaries being director and creator. The Sims is one of my absolute favourite game series and I agree that it fits well in creator as you said, with the creating of sims and houses, but it also fits perfectly in storyteller and director imo
I love to create storylines in my head for my sims and play out their lives seeing where things go for them, and the managing of their needs and daily routines satisfies the director part of my personality. It’s really the perfect combo of all 3 and I guess that’s why I love it so much, and you can definitely see how some people will heavily engage in one aspect more than another.
People who will pretty much only engage in the creator side (building houses, making sims), people who go hard on their storytelling and perhaps aren’t very interested in building a house or something themselves, people who approach it from a more joker play style, people who can’t really handle the director side at all and cheat needs and money up lol, so many different approaches to take.
Lines up with my childhood play too, I was always in my dollhouse or doing imagination play (…talking to myself in the backyard lol). The Sims was originally called Dollhouse while in development after all.
If you want to try something similar with a few more ‘gamey’ aspects, check out RimWorld. Its very different tonally and thematically, but the story creation, I feel, is a lot more engaging than the Sims.
Interesting trivia: the original Sims game in the 90s was originally titled "Dollhouse" while it was in development, but the creators changed it to "The Sims" to appeal to a male audience as well as a female audience. The sims is literally a virtual dollhouse!
Totally agree with that. It was never one of my favorite games, but when I played the sims, I did not really care about creating them (I gave my best that they looked nice, but didn‘t put too much effort in it) and I didn‘t care about building houses (I just moved into pre-furnished houses or built an ugly one myself).
I just cared about playing a story with the sims I have.
Yes, I did say that at the end of my comment haha 😅
@@piplupinabasket9035 Yeah I know, I just wanted to underline your argument 😁
I’m not even much of a gamer, but honestly, this already makes so much more sense!!
My friends and family love video games, but every time they try to recommend me something, it just doesn’t appeal to me. I relate to the storyteller the most with the joker and the creator following that. The games other people keep recommending to me are competitive, exploring, or collecting focused, which are the ones I tend to like the least (not always, but usually)
Thank you so much for making this video! I think this’ll help me to understand my play style a bit better and help me understand my friend’s and family’s tastes too
Haha it sounds like The Sims is up your alley. You get to imagine storylines for your sims, create builds and sims and ofc there is a lot of fun to be found in the ridiculous ways of torturing them!
This video makes me believe that it is possible to be all play types and that apparently i am all play types (at least when it comes to games).
However, three do speak to me more than the others, Collector, Director, and Creator
Yus. He said there's a dominant, and secondary, but that we'll all have bits of each. 👍
astrology moment
Me too!!!
Yeah, I'm an Explorer, Storyter, and Creator.
All of these aspects are very important to me!
for competitive folks, i recomend rhythm games, theyre almost entirely all about getting better and beating harder stages (we literally only distinguish charts by a number to say how hard they are and the song theyre on lol), and take time to look at a lot of them cuz its a vast genre (but yeah, a lot of them are also kinesthetes, like Pump it up)
also for directors, maybe games like tower defenses, specially like Mindustry, you could have lots of fun
My zodiac sign points to the jonkler, my personality type wants me to defeat batman and my blood type is boiling. I truly live in a society.
This shouldn’t have made me grin, but it did. They’ve found a way to spread joker gas through TH-cam comments.
@@SleepySeal121 I'm gonna do it, batman!
I must have missed the part of the video explaining the, “Jonkler”
@@mikaexley5063 8:47 Here you go.
@@mikaexley5063 8:48 Here you go, batman.
Some advice for collectors : NEVER play gacha games
Unless it’s Limbus Company
I mean... Going broke over a good game is still going broke. @@PlanetaryPhoenix
@@Kenionatus You really don't need to pay for anything to get everything in that game. It's what i've done for the last year
I learned that the hard way when I tried collecting every outfit in Love Nikki 😅 those events start to add up
@PlanetaryPhoenix How to flame an irrelevant war: _"B-but the devs' swimsuit controversy and _*_*check notes*_*_ weak surrender in t-the gender war?!"_
I’m surprised you didn’t mention any racing, sports or fighting games in your competitor list! Dirt, need for speed, Mario kart, soul caliber and virtua fighter or arcade fighters, wii sports, madden and nba series. If not your cup of tea, they still are good examples of good competition games.
I read this comment and was like “so he just ignores my favorite games ok”
Racing games are huge, and the ones that aren’t Mario kart are underrated
@@galaxygo-kart9606 Sorry if I missed your favorite game meet. What’s your favorite raceer
@@CaseyWilkesmusic oh sorry I meant like in the video, not your comment (and my favorite racer is cruise’n blast)
Need for speed? Competitive?
Tbh the video listed battlefeild as a competitive game as well despite being closer to the joker spectrum in my opinion.
Any riot game would fit that category better, along with the fifas and fighting games.
You can spot a competitive game if it limits its own content or its community does so for it for the sake of the "meta"
@@TheVoiceOfChaos yes, racing games by definition are competitive and need for speed has many good examples of those types of games.
Personally i think a lot of games with engaging movement can appeal to a kinesthete, creator, and competitor. Games like tony hawk pro skater, mario odyssey, pennys breakaway, doom eternal, basically anything that allows you to creatively and fluidly chain together moves. They allow you to express yourself based on the moves you choose to use (creator), push yourself to pull off more challenging feats (competitor), and if the movement is good it will feel intuitive, fluid, and rewarding (kinesthete)
I think I fit in this category
I tried Super Mario 3D World once and I liked it and also Just Dance.
I have no idea what play type I am. And I've always struggled with finding games I like, I always just seem to stumble upon my favorite games- so I definitely wanna do some more research into this. Thanks for guiding me in the right direction.
The persona song while talking about your personas was a nice touch
As an autistic person I am (obviously) a collector, but also a director. When I love a game, I spend most of my time meticulously planning every detail of my 'idea' for the game rather than actually playing it. This also links to storytelling as I usually create a world in my head in relation to the game. I enjoy building but it is not my strong suit, and I often stick to just the designing, or copy from other sources - I don't consider myself a creator at all. Games need to have objectives (either built into the game or self-imposed) in order for me to be able to play them so I struggle with completely open worlds. I like management and collector games.
Same here, but I only collect things if I absolutely LOVE the game, I would never try to get perfect rank on every song on every difficulty in beat Saber but I did 100% breath of the wild and am thinking about doing it for tears of the kingdom
Would love a deep dive into each of these feel like there’s so much more to expand on, cool way of breaking down different genres of games
Also side note but can’t believe the sims wasn’t a rec for storytellers 😂
A lot of platformers (esp metroidvanias) fit well into the kinesthetic category because of the emphasis on fluid and expanding movement. Part of the fun is to run through huge sections without needing to stop at all
i'm totally the storyteller. stories are my life
You: lists Undertale as a game recommendation
Also you: has a Susie profile picture
Me: "r/profilepicchecksout"
I'm a storyteller at core, and I wanna bring up that at least for me the stories I can make in my head for a game that gives me that freedom are just as good or better than the ones in game. One of my favorite games is skyrim and 90% of my playtime has zero to do with the games' story. I had a 5 year playthrough where I never advanced the MAIN QUEST. But god how I love roleplaying through my playthrough and exploring my own character's relationships to the world around her.
Really love when you get scientific with videogames, as I found your channel through the video on how to get back into a gaming backlog and the 5 minute rule suggestion has been really effective!
I wish water racing games would come back. I'm a kinesthete and those were by far my favorite genre of game. Watching the cool stunts you could perform while flying through the air just never got old. I still boot up my PS2 to play Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild sometimes. They just don't make games like that anymore.
Explorer/collector here. Must 100% the map and collect all the things. I spent 900 hours in ACNH getting every recipe item. And I only decorated my house and island once.
I recommend Remnant 2 for other explorer/collectors which I know is supposedly a souls-like shooter, so can be played with your competitive friends who need to beat the boss but it’s great for secrets, puzzles and loot.
I played Hello Kitty Island Adventure(which is kind if similar to ANCH) and once with Super Mario 3D World. Do you think it fits with my taste? I don’t have a Switch but I would love to see your opinion/view. I also like Mario Kart DS(really fixated with this game) and play it through emulator.
I think these should be part of video game reviews and ratings. There's a German cinema magazine that not only rates the movies they discuss, but also have a "you might like this movie if you also liked these two other movies". I hardly ever look at rankings because way too often they're based on personal preference and therefore it's completely unclear if mine matches the critic's taste. Making clear what tastes are met would help a bunch when picking. It's the same that I'm currently doing, which is hearing what others whose taste I at least know have to say and what they liked or disliked about a game and then I go from there. I've found some that name a clear difference between their personal taste and things that may have been objectively good or bad about a game.
To be honest, I like the concept here of play personality to match with games, but I think the attempt to match physical playstyles with video games is not quite accurate, save maybe matching kinesthete with rhythm and VR games. Granted, a lot of this likely has to do with things being a mixture (my favorite games are action and challenge oriented, often with the collection and exploration of a Metroidvania, and therefore there's multiple categories that fulfill my favorite desires in game design), but simultaneously, as a child, I was quite clearly a storyteller. I would draw characters and comics and, when playing with action figures, would always have storylines that I'd come back to. Even when playing physically, I preferred to use sports equipment as imaginary props to pretend I was Link, Final Fantasy characters, or one of the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings going on a quest. In games, I do find story valuable, but it is secondary or tertiary to the game mechanics themselves.
Simultaneously, I prefer co-operative games over direct competition, be it in my childhood play style or preferences in board, card, and video games. Yet the category I would fit under, or one of them anyway, is Competitive, which... only counts between me and the game itself.
I think this is a good starting point, but I think the very nature of video games appeals to something different in us than it does in us as adults. Simultaneously, there's also the possibility of change. Throughout my childhood, JRPGs were my favorite games in part due to the story. I still played games like Mega Man X, Super Metroid, Star Fox, Donkey Kong Country, etc., but they weren't my favorite. Then Halo: Combat Evolved happened in high school, and particularly the Legendary difficulty, and suddenly story took a back seat as I dove head first into more challenging games, leading us to today where I play few RPG's, and sometimes set them to Hard difficulty just to be challenged, even if it's my first time playing.
Perhaps a topic to revisit one day.
Thank you for the insightful comment. I agree-general play styles are unlikely to map 1:1 to video games for a few different reasons. A big one is as you said: games tend to have many different elements combined into one experience. The possibility of change is definitely a factor as well. Halo had a similar effect on me when I first discovered it in my early teens. I had never played an FPS before but suddenly I was obsessed and felt the desire to seek out more PvP competitive experiences!
I also like co op games more than competive
I'm also really bad at competitive games, but I will occasionally join friends that were playing a competitive game and then for example get 2 kills and die 8 times and be really proud of those 2 kills.
Whenever people try to be mean to everyone that isn't above average at a game/as good as them I just state the fact that "if everyone is as good as you, you wouldn't be above average. In fact you would actually be below average."
It is just Astrology for gamers.
@@MagnificentDevil wow, what a novel and interesting way to look at things
This is actually so interesting! Before you even got to the breakdowns of the types, I was already thinking about how I played as a kid, and how that linked to some of my favourite games.
I definitely fall into the Storyteller category, was always playing with dolls/acting out stories, and I love games like Nier, The Witcher, Life Is Strange. Games that have strong story, but also in the case of the latter two have choices in action/dialogue and consequences.
So fascinating!
storytellers have the benefit of probably already knowing we’re storytellers, bc a) you can add storytelling to pretty much any game, so we will and always have, b) wanting games with good story is pretty common already and c) all i wanted to do as a kid was play pretend or write lol
As a storyteller-explorer mix my absolute favorite game is The Witcher 3 just because of the many question marks I get to discover while taking a break from the main quest - especially if they hold their own little quests.
I don’t know that I have one dominant play personality. Explorer, creator, storyteller, collector, and to a lesser extent director all fit. I think when considering games and trying to pick what you’ll enjoy, you’ve got to consider some modifiers too: combat and or chill/cozy, multiplayer/community aspect, and how your skill with button mashing compares to the controls required. I’m very much single player gaming, and while I enjoy rich story, I rarely enjoy relationship mechanics, I don’t hate combat, but I rarely enjoy games where it’s the main focus.
that probably has to do with there being so many things that go into enjoyment of a game that have nothing to do with playstyle. for example im definitely primarily a storyteller, but my favorite games are the sims, stardew valley, and breath of the wild.
however in the question about a flow state, i would say that i often reach a flow state when doing repetitive sorting tasks, often with music playing; i attribute this to my specific brain neuroses, but it means gameplay loops like stardew valley really work for me. someone else mentioned puzzle mechanics, and liking that specific kind of satisfying mental challenge even if they’re by no means a competitor.
this!! i have an explorer/storyteller personality, and i LOVE BG3, but i have to say i struggled hard with the combat system at first. i had to look up builds in order to have my characters strong enough that i could progress the story (i didnt understand why some traits/passives were better than others). and because i’m also the kind of player that likes to experience things on my own, so having to search for builds, guides, walkthroughs etc isnt something i normally like to do (especially on the first run), it ends up putting me in a difficult position. if i had decided to be stubborn and force my way through BG3 without referring to a guide entirely, i may have ended up not completing or liking the game at all.
oh i'm the opposite there. i love relationship mechanics but story is usually boring. i want to be immersed in my game and stories about either protagonists who are nothing like me, or shallow characters i was never properly introduced to and therefore don't care about, kills that immersion.
For Collectors, one of my friends is one, the Lego series is a nice way to scratch that collecting itch or you can play Vampire Survivors (warning: highly addictive!!)
For Kinesthetes: I really enjoyed Clustertruck, the sense of constant moving is satisfying as well as the DOOM series because you are constantly on the go mowing down demons. Plus Crypt of The Necrodancer is an amazing rhythm based roguelite game.
For Creators, it is the type I least associate with, but I had a lot of fun with Terraria (it has more explorer elements), which I would recommend over Minecraft for most people.
For Directors, I can recommend Frostpunk, a game that constantly throws monkey wrenches in your plan. A friend who really has this type of play is addicted to Factorio.
For Competitors, there is one game series that brings out the competitor for everyone and that is the Mario Kart series or the Sonic equivalent: Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed.
The Storyteller I have a bunch of games to recommend but I'll keep it short two very self-contained games: Inscryption totally consumed me I also enjoyed the short and sweet The Forgotten City.
For Jokers I can definitely recommend Human Fall Flat because of all the shenanigans to be had. I haven't played the Saints Row series but from I have seen it looks really wacky just like Dead Rising.
For the Explorer, I would recommend Deep Rock Galatic. A lot of my friends really enjoy this game. I myself don't have this archetype so sadly it is not something that I really enjoy but hearing the stories of my friends who invested a lot more hours into it I can definitely understand the appeal of this game. Plus the developers are quite sympathetic
I second the recommendation of the lego series for collectors. I have 65 hours of play time on Lego Star Wars ||| because of how much fun it was to collect everything in that game.
Not expecting The Forgotten City on this list. It's indeed a beautiful game.
For me (creator type), Terarria felt bad to create in. I recommend Vintage Story instead
As a Collector, I agree Vampire Survivors is the video game equivalent of crack cocaine for me. I don't think a game has hit me that hard in the pleasure centers in a LONG time, if ever.
Would you add to the storytelling bit?
i took a class at my college on the science of play and i loved learning about the different play styles!! it was such a fun class and really made me rethink what i find fun in life. also as a storyteller type i LOVE disco elysium that game is so so so good
Sorely missing are the puzzle lovers. I love puzzle games and strategy games. But I HATE planning (don't like the Director games you mentioned) and I hate competitive games (don't like the Competitor games you mentioned). I really enjoy spontaneously solving problems without having to feel the pressure of a competition, and I'm sure there are others like me. So in my mind there needs to be a ninth category. My exemplary favorite games are Slay the Spire (I think it's a stretch to categorize this as a Competitor game), XCOM, any picross games, and any room escape games.
Kinesthete maybe?
i feel like puzzels fall into discoverer category
I think it depends why you like puzzle games. If you like puzzle games because you like being mentally challenged, then I think it's a Competitive style, but for mental challenges (the video examples mostly listed action/dexterity-based challenges, but there's no reason it can't apply to mental difficulty). If you like puzzle games because you like the "aha" moment of experiencing something brand-new/novel that you didn't think was possible before, then it's probably an Explorer style.
The games you described - finding the right build to overcome a Slay the Spire boss or the right team strategy/loadout for an XCOM level - sound more like a Competitor style to me. Whereas someone who adored solving a seemingly-impossible Portal 2 puzzle or a Baba Is You level would probably fit more into the Explorer mindset. But that's just my two cents!
@@survivorflorida2858 As someone who struggles to complete Baba Is You without the help of my cousin Lachlan, I can see what you mean by "seemingly-impossible".
I gotta say, your channel has one of the best niche concepts I've seen. Brilliant. Glad to see you've seen quick success. Hope to see more!
moonstone island is a great game for a collector, too! it’s a creature collector that also has deck building, map exploration, decoration and farming sim elements (altho u can ignore those if u want)
Def a collector, first and foremost, but I love the aspect of storytelling where I’m just following a preset story, choosing which quest to go on, etc. I don’t like having to create my own experience
This was such a nice, thoughtful video. I’d love to recommend Outer Wilds to any explorers and collectors out there, as well as storytellers because you really get to uncover a beautiful story at your own pace.
I think I identify most with the Director personality with the Storyteller being second, and these two shine through to most games I've played. As a kid when I played mmorpgs and jrpgs like Final Fantasy, I loved creating processes and paths for quick leveling up and quest completion. System and process optimizing was always one of the most fun "game mechanic", even when it weren't explicitly designed. One of the best feelings while gaming was when there were time limits and I had been able to optimize my systems so much that I was heaps ahead of schedule. Although I was absolutely consumed for a while by management games like Sims, Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, as well as more purely strategical games like CIV and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, I think I prefer more of a grand storyline and characters to become attached to (read: obsessed about).
My game recs for similar people are the Atelier games (Meruru is my all-time favorite), the Fire Emblem games (Three Houses) and Persona 5! Would love to get more game recs from fellow Director/Storyteller personalities. :)
Me, a collector watching this while I'm on my second playthrough of dredge, trying to 100% the game...
Although I previously resonated strongly with the competitor, I've found it extremely challenging to maintain a healthy mindset after years of playing online shooter games. So I had to take a step back and find a different playstyle.
I 100% agree with your choice of Tunic for explorers. As a kid, I remember finding out secrets to games and feeling rewarded for figuring it out. That’s harder and harder to come by these days though, since so much information is available on the internet. Tunic is the one game that made me feel like I was discovering again. So although it’s not a huge open world, it really feels like you’re exploring
I'm a Creator type and my recommendations are the LittleBigPlanet series as a whole, including the spin offs and side games. LBP is just a wonderful sandbox game where you can make about anything you put your mind to. It's the game I played the most during my childhood and still play now from time to time. I'm still waiting for LBP4... On the other hand, LBP is also a good game for collectors as well because of the sheer amount of goodies to collect from each game's story mode and DLCs.
Another great Creator game is Dreams, made by the same developers of LBP funny enough. Dreams is like LBP but in 3D and with even less restrictions. If you can Dream it, you can make it.
And lastly, I'd recommend Super Mario Maker 2. Being able to make your own official Mario levels is very satisfying and being able to make a full 8 world, 40 level adventure is awesome! You can quite literally make your own Mario adventure for others to play.
To answer the question at the beginning: Yeah, I somehow never got into Hollow Knight or Outer Wilds, and I myself don’t fully understand why. :/
I don't like dying 10 times on the path to the boss and that stupid banjo music (dropped both Hollow Knight or Outer Wilds 2 times, on releases and some years after). Maybe I should play Outer Wilds without the soundtrack.
@@xalt255x Yeah Hollow Knight is quite punishing, both the platforming and the combat. And severe lack of checkpoints (way worse than a soulsgame) and slow movement. Makes it a real pain when you repeatedly die.
Same. On paper, they should be my favorite games of all time. Just couldnt get past the first hour. I plan on giving it another shot though
@@ssjbargainsale Yeah, same for me. I loved Ori and Forgotten City, so I should love Hollow Knight and Outer Wilds, right? Well, somehow I don’t, and I have no idea why.
I loved hollow knight at the beginning until i started having to do a lot of backtracking and dying several times on the path to the boss. I'm a HUGE fan of metroidvanias but I don't enjoy redoing challenges I've done before, over and over again. It's a huge annoyance and that's why i dropped both hollow knight and I avoid all soulslike games like the plague
This was such an interesting video that I took notes on it. I find that I also allow myself to be flexible with play styles, and there's psychology to do with that as well. My cosy games have to be Director-Based to ground me after a long day. My explorer games are when I'd love to explore and already feel grounded in myself.
My primary style is Creator and my secondaries are storyteller and director. Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Vintage Story (it’s basically Minecraft for adults), but my most played game of all time is definitely The Sims. It’s the perfect game for all three of my play styles. Though I have been trying to make an effort to try new games. This video will really help me figure out which ones are worth a try.
I feel like creator is probably the most accurate for me overall, but that I don't like it through video games as much as explorer? I paint and build lego and so on and those kinds things are the most fulfilling leisure activities, but creative video games I tend to go hard and burn out and drop in a very short amount of time. (Maybe I like them too much? Idk) The video games that keep me hooked for a while have a lot of exploration. I also enjoy directing and storytelling.
To add to the recommendation of Tunic, I have been enjoying Animal well. Someone else mentioned Outer Wilds, which is an utterly fantastic game too. Probably best fit for an explorer, but I feel a lot of styles would get something from it.
The Competitor is definitely my main style of play, and The Joker is my secondary for sure. Guess that explains why I basically only play games all about beating other players and/or getting better, and I always wanna mess around and have fun with my friends on them.
I just completed Ete and loved it. Not only is it a game for the Creatives, but I'd argue that it's a game for the Explorer and potentially the Collector. A major part of the game is going through different areas of Montreal, coloring it in with water colors, and collecting these 3D stamps to use for your "kit of parts". There so many little fun mundane moments that you can happen upon as you go around the areas, which really make you feel immerse into the game. When playing Ete, I would go super hardcore into exploring and collecting for a few days, then spend the next few days working on the creative part of the game creating artwork in the apartment. I'd def recommend Ete to Creative and Explorer type players.
I literally enjoy playing all of these types of games. I value all of them for different reasons.
i was actually thinking about this recently as i had a similar experience with the game Animal well, most people seem to think it is an indie masterpiece, but I really couldn't get into it, not sure why but i did find this interesting.
I do think the gameplay and world design make it a masterpiece, but I couldn't finish it. I got very far but the atmosphere really started to depress me. There's just not much of a sense of triumph anywhere imo. Probably could have finished it if I wasn't going through some rough life shit
@@The_SOB_II I can definitely see that. It's a very somber game. My mom felt that way about Tears of the Kingdom, which I could also see
I’ve always been an explorer- but, I love exploring when it’s not the point of the game. I love when a game is somewhat linear and i am purposely wandering into every nook and cranny, but not because the game told me to.
For instance I’ve never ever connected with Outer Wilds. I thought I would love it because I enjoy exploring and I have a weird interest in quantum physics- but that game felt so shallow to me because it wasn’t that you stumble across something awesome by yourself, that’s the whole point of the game so it took the fun of exploring away. 😅
Tunic on the other hand - absolutely loved that, because narratively it felt like the little fox wasn’t meant to see certain things!
Hmm that's an interesting point I'm glad you mentioned because I do also love wandering when i'm not spposed to or not expected to
I have a few recommendations (not all limited to gaming):
- Directors might like being a Dungeon Master or running other TTRPGs.
- Explorers might also like Minecraft, since you can just run around a near-infinite world.
- Jokers might like West of Loathing, or the pure shenaniganry of DnD
- For competitors, I recommend Smash Bros, Mario Kart, or Splatoon, which all have great multiplayer.
- I’m not sure for a kinesthete, since the Wii isn’t still being produced, but that was definitely the console for kinesthetes.
- A creator will like Minecraft, but might also enjoy DMing for DnD, or trying one of many crafting hobbies out there.
- a storyteller will probably like some older Zelda games, since a lot of the 3d ones before BoTW focused on story. A prime example is Twilight Princess, a solid game with a fantastic story.
- and finally, a collector. Minecraft is also a great game for a collector, but they might also enjoy Stardew Valley, BoTW, or literally any Pokémon game.
Dude, did you just use the music from the game A Short Hike in your video???I seriously LOVED that game, and the music makes me feel so emotion-heavy. I hope somebody else has played this game too 😊
If i think of a comfort game, A Short Hike is definitely the first thought! A little masterpiece through and through
I appreciate that you listed RDR2 as a story game instead of an exploration game. I'm a hardcore explorer and I couldn't get through RDR2 because I felt like it had a lot of obstacles that sucked the joy out of adventuring and exploration.
I am confident I'm explorer and storyteller with a little bit of creator so here I leave some recommendations:
-Outer Wilds
-Call of the Sea
-Dreamfall Chapters
-Tangle Tower
-What Remains of Edith Finch
-Paradise Killer
-Stray
-Portal 1 and 2
-Reka (comes out sept)
-Garden Witch Life (comes out sept)
Happy gaming!!!!
I would divide the Kinesthete into two categories when discussing play personalities in video games.
1- As you pointed out, rhythm games or games like "Wii sports" where you need to fiscally move.
2- Games with flashy combat. Or based on a specific combat. Some games are enjoyable just because the combat is excellent.
Great video! *Subscribed*
I think character action games like DMC would fit Kinesthete
Video starts at 7:54
Being someone who mostly plays visual novels or other various "choices matter" games, I kinda immediately knew I was the storyteller just from reading the names of the archetypes, so no surprise there... But it's really cool having some more concrete ways to describe why it is I don't like/enjoy certain games. I have basically zero fun with builders, for example, and it makes perfect sense because I never enjoyed lego or painting either- the director and creator play styles don't appeal to me! I don't care for challenge or getting better at something, aka competition against myself, but I don't inherently hate competition with other people because of how the joker play type can appeal to me where the competitive does not. It's really cool seeing how these styles can interact with each other!
Definitely Creative here, with Collector and Director as secondary. I’ve poured countless hours into games like Stardew Valley, Terraria, and Minecraft. (And others in similar genres.) Those games scratch all those itches for me. This was very interesting!
I’m basically the same thing and Minecraft can fit in nearly every category 😂 I love Minecraft
I've been trying to figure out why Dredge really wasn't doing it for me and this put it in words exactly what I was feeling without realizing it! This definitely helped show me the similarities between all my favorite games and what will probably be good games to play in the future
I’m definitely the storyteller: most of the time I look for an engaging story and/or likeable characters. I have a pretty specific taste in games and that is cozy farming sims or just cozy games in general. Very big fan of Stardew Valley and also Wylde Flowers scratched that itch of a cozy game but with a storyline like no game has before for me. Fields of Mistria is really great too though still in early access and Coral Island… it’s good but with characters they went for quantity over quality and it really shows.
Nice video, thank you :D I already recommended it to 3 people ♥
I'm mostly a "cozy gamer" and don't enjoy gaming and board games with other people because I really hate competitive aspects. So I always feel a bit weird when it comes to picking games. Your video really helped me understand what types of games I enjoy and most likely don't enjoy for future game-picking :D Thanks a lot, have a nice day!
i entered your channel and found that i have already watched 3 of your videos, so hey! you earned my sub!
This is so interesting!! I have a strong collector personality but unfortunately that applies to just collecting the games themselves and not playing them ever
0:18 People have different tastes. Going with what is popular is more common. People who go against the norm are usually a minority
9:06 Joker fits me, and Yakuza has been on my list. Nice
I very much loved A Short Hike where the background music is from! It’s aimed toward Explorers who love a serene atmosphere with a very cute story
😊
For storytellers who appreciate a good narrative over anything else, after you've experienced peak in the form of Disco Elysium, I urge you to give visual novels a try! At the risk of overhyping, The House in Fata Morgana is one of the most beautiful pieces of media I've ever experienced (and boasted a perfect score on MetaCritic for a reason!)
Explorer, creative, and director. I used to always want to go to the science museum, I’m a biologist, I research stuff for the fun of learning. I’m also an artist and I love the beauty of the world around us. I also ALSO love planning things (very good trait for a scientist to have, methinks).
great video, but may I just say love the short hike ost in the back. Just so good Mark Sparling is a genius
This speaks to me personally. I am almost always at odds with what the majority likes. This makes it really hard for me to find games that I'll enjoy.
Excellent video. Interesting topic. Calm voice, nice music. This channel has to be about to explode in views. ... One more subscription at least.
This video was really interesting and thought provoking. I'm definitely a mixture of the explorer, storyteller and collector. It makes a lot of sense that my favorite gaming genre for a long time has typically been MMORPGs. I'd love to get into more single player games and I think this gives me a good idea of where I should start to look.
There is a one thing which complicates things. People usually have preferences for the setting in games and this can significantly lower the amount of games they enjoy.
For example: I have a friend who exclusively plays story driven single player WW FPS and "survival" horror games. So while technically they would mostly fall into a category of storyteller, the fact they only liked those two settings basically meant they had very small amount of games to choose from. To make things even more limiting indie games also seemed uninteresting to them due to lack of voice acting (in most cases) and the feel of virtually ubiquitous Unity engine. They do find some exceptions to the rule but that tends to be extremely rare to be basically not worth searching for.
While this comment might feel off-topic, I commented it because somehow I didn't find that many people who talk about how important setting is for them.
@@smithwillnot Thank you for the comment-this concept of setting is definitely something i’d like to explore in a future video
Hi, I'm the director. My games I came back and run again every 3 years or so are:
1. Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (there was a time i did a year to year campaign runthrou xD)
2. Warcraft 3
3. Dungeons. Did the 3rd, and now completing the first one, only 4 missions left.
4. Sims, of any number except 1. From time to time i make new run, new story, new goals, and then trying to coplete them most optimally. Trying to act out according to chosen characteristics, and so on. Recently I was introduced to sims 3 medieval, where you have missions, with rewards according to the score, and i love it.
5. For mmo - Black Desert Online, with it's economics system to be beaten. I was beating it on creating wagons and ships (thou wagons quickly lost on it's value, so I reenginered this part of resourcers into something else)
If you like puzzle solving games most of the alawar hidden objects will do ;)
As a second nature i think I am a competetive, althou against a computer/system, not other players. In Yakuza I liked the most the minigame Mahjong, in Witcher I even runned Gwint for my players throu discord calls as they had problems with it, while it was a piece of cake for me.
Anyway, what i would recomend for that style:
1. Hades, my first actually stucked rouge-like, didn't thought i would like it so much - the amount of decisions, strategies, and skill it requiered of me each different time was great. The type of play i had to adapt for a new run was hardly the same (except for bosses, but they are once every few maps). And the best was playing it with a friend toghether on one computer, where we divided the preffered weapons, and that random violet +20% on the weapon was determining who were doing that run. (althou we stopped when my runs started to take over 40minutes, since i was actually starting to finish runs while she wasn't yet clearing the first stage. We started doing that she was starting, trying to get as far as she could till 1 health, and the rest i tried)
Now she got bored of Hades a little, so we found a game for two - Darksiders Genesis, althou we didn't test it out yet (but i tested Quacamole some years ago, a game for two, can remcomend! As well as River city girls, and Overcooked 2)
2. Be surprised or not, but Witcher 3 was a great pleasure for me. I never finished it, cause my save got... destoryed by the producer, unless i buy dlc i can't open it anymore, even thou i never had a dlc... anyway! Create a game, take the highest difficulty, pick the outfit you like the look of (like starting jacket or the white blouse...), invest in ignii and go on adventure. I did every single part of the map except the main quest. Igni dmg scales based on monster health, not your lvl, so it is actually beatable, you just can't let the monster hit you, not even once. EACH AND EVERY TYPE OF MONSTER HAS DIFFERENT STYLE. Some of them attack in group, some in one. Each has different visual cues when they are going to attack. Some dash, some swing, some do a twril. And being able to save whenever you like means you can try and learn again again and again without having to get to the monster every time - you just save right in front of the fight. It was hella fun.
3. The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk The Amulet Of Chaos. It's a dnd-type, turn based combat. It's funny in it's hermetical style. Like hanging panties to dry on a statue of the dark powerful mage statue as a visual detail. It [game] knows it's specific. It literaly has an option in settings to turn off the dwarf and the elf voices (seperatly), as even they knew those specific jokes [using high pitch actress to voice an elf, and using a hard, joking accent for a dwarf) could be too much for some. Story is not too long like with those types of game, everything is voiced, you can skip it - there is a quest log. The mechanic options are various, and i sometimes had to restart the fight in order to win it. The game is linear, which helped avoiding that "running for hours over one map cause you don't know where to go next, only to learn this place is too high lvl, go back and loose some more time, cause we wanted to have a big map in order to sell the game to players. ... yeah, dragon age inq was a big fail for me...). I'm trying to go throu Divinity after DAI fail, and it is better in that stronger areas are beatable with good enough strategy, but lack of quest log in first game is starting to tire me out - too much dialoge, so i skip it, and then i have to search on phone for information where to go in order to do the quest... that's why i ended taking a break for something looking childish (Naheaulbeuk) and damn! I'm staying for longer. I am already much further in that "break game" than in divinity.
4. For the mmo players, again the Black Desert Online has many meachnics to beat. Fishes catch quicker if you are on a moving ship (and there are npc ships that travel all the time), each character has different fight playstyles, different keys combinations, and work for different spots beter. ... Well... not all. Shai and Lahn were pretty simple for me. But hashashin for example worked better for wider-divded smaller groups, and he was just going throu map smoothly, while dark knight was great for jump, one heavily packed group, smash all at once, jump straight to the second group. Her attack abilities were doing that quick jump, so she worked the fastest in spots where the groups were next to each other.
And third, even thou i'm not happy about it, I am a collectionist. It's a point of strugle for me, because what I get from getting all of those challenges? Nothing but lost time. Playing the same scene again just to get the exempting eachoter challenges are not fun (Dunegons 1 I am looking at you...). But i just can't help it! The urge to have all and feeling of pleasure at the end is controling me.
1. Tropix 2 have a cute, short story, and it's a game within a game, where you unlock new mini games, go throu the ones you like, get money from them and spend them on the instances in order to collect stuff and progres with story. Tropix 1 is similar, with few different minigames, but without a stroy - collecting "full" in those instances just doesn't feel that completionist, when you are just "completing an instance" and the only reward is just getting one new minigame.
2. Not sure if i recomend it, it is an old game... but for any pokemon lovers out there - Zanzarah. A russian? version of pokemons, where you collect fairies, but the battles are not turn-based; you actually fly around the stage as your fairy (or bear) and shoot with magic trying to get that enemy/wild fairy in the face. Of course there is a collection. Of course there are evlotutions. Of course you can catch multiple of each fairy, and evolve them individually in orther to have full collection. Of course there is a 'book' showing the collected variables in one page. Like i come back every few years to the top of this comment, this is my brother's "have to visit from time to time"
3. For the mmo players: Guild wars 2. Collecting should be in the name of that game. Each part of the map has view points, quests, jumping puzzles, completion gauge shown when you point on the region with your mouse. ... It's not a challenge mechanicly to beat the quests/monsters, but filling that gauge... AND THE CREATIVITY on some quests from time to time. Like in the nord region you had riddle quest! And beating kids with snowballs! And of course finishing those side quests also count into the completion gauge. Yes, you have that 2 out of 6 counter in that same spot as the gauge. For every part of the completion.
Another recommendation for storytellers: RimWorld or Dwarf Fortress.
Not that they'll be a good fit for all storytellers, but they have strong potential to be amazing for some.
I’m primarily an explorer, with creative and collector coming in behind it, which is why I LOVE Skyrim, Breath of the Wild, Fallout, Horizon Zero Dawn and games of that ilk. I do write so I like story a lot too but it’s hard to balance a good story and gameplay, though I think some games do this very well.
Another eye-opening video. Thanks for making it! Your videos have really been helping me to start picking games I like, rather than keep trying things just because I admired my siblings being able to play those kinds of games growing up.
I think my primary play style is Creator. Storyteller and Director are perhaps secondary play styles. (But about Director, I like organizing and planning for myself. I do not like leading others, so it's really that I'm an organizing and planning Creator type, as opposed to a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants Creator type.) I like Collector in as far as it serves the first three. Explorer sounds delightful as a break from producing something myself. Kinesthete only sounds nice in a non-competitive, not finely rhythm-based way. I especially like them where the focus is on creating movement (not how fast can you move) or a hands-on puzzle experience (e.g. Pushmo feels tactile to me because you are trial and error dealing with a 3D space. Whereas I wanted to love Baba Is You, but I couldn't after a while, because it is so abstract).
A game I tried the demo for and it hit the Creator + Storyteller/Director sweet spot was Dragon Quest Builders 2. Now, I'm excited to play it when I'm done with one of my current games.
I am really liking Princess Peach: Showtime! because it is bite-size experiences of different stories (Storyteller). The action mechanics are different in each of the play roles, but all of them reward my efforts and none of them are so punishing that I can't beat a level, even if I can't 100% it. So it's a refreshing experience of trying out other play-styles and genres than I usually would without wearing me out. It also has roles that engage my kind of Kinesthete. Especially the ice-skating levels were fun for this reason.
I'm also playing Octopath Traveler, and for awhile, I just felt daunted because I didn't have a clear direction and there was so much possible to do. Your video on "How To Get Back Into a Game According To Science" really helped me. Now I see that the tips you provided in that video helped me not only to not loose my place and be left wondering what I should do each play session, but they also helped me to start engaging with the game as a "craft your own story" kind of game where it changes depending on the order that I choose to do things in.
I wonder if this explains the infamous "2 week Minecraft" cycle, it's obviously one of the most beloved games of all time but I can see how it can fit most of these categories and you can make an argument it doesn't really go in-depth in terms of fulfilling those wants
SUBNAUTICA is great for collectors, storytellers, and explorers!
Also creators! I spend a hella lot of time building bases and planting luminiscent gardens. And I've seen folks doing their best to punch all reapers to death for the sheer joy of it, so clearly it works for some competitors too.
I don't know how helpful this actually is. I think the fact that you could recommend games that you enjoy that fall into each of these play styles kinda illustrated that. I could argue that I fall into every category but the collector, and that I'm not much of a competitor.
There are so many intangible things that can make a game stick with you or bounce off. I love breath of the wild. I completely bounced off No Man's Sky, for example. When it comes into a flow, I think I maybe fall most into like task-list style gameplay where I get satisfaction from like building a task list to complete in game, then completing it efficiently.
You focused more so on multiplayer competitive games but speed running single player games could also appeal to competitors
as an explorer outer wilds and rain world have been my best gaming experiences
Funnily enough, my videogame preferences seem to be of completely different play personalities than my non-videogame tendencies and hobbies. I tend to be very much a creator and organizer IRL, but the kinds of games that would normally appeal to those rarely appeal to me.
Idk what my play personality is, but I love the endless grinding kinda games where you spend hours levelling just to progress a bit in the story. I love those
Since over half the games i like I've technically never played myself (watched playthroughs), there can be a bit of disconnect between the ones I like playing and the ones I like watching - but regardless, I think my play styles generally revolve around exploration and storytelling, with tiny bits of collector/director/creator sprinkled in (liking collecting stuff in videogames but not having enough drive to actually be completionist; liking only the very specific turn based strategy gameplay you find in fire emblem games; and likung a lot of those creator type games but got way too burnt out on creation and decoration)
I'm not 100% sure what play is more dominent between the two, but I'd guess exploration?
(A whole host of other factors also tend to influence my interest in games almost more than the gameplay/genre too, like preferring colorful or stylized graphcis/not being very slilled and therefore striggling more with high-skill type games)
And man is it difficult to find enough other games with that fire emblem-like feeling, I've only managed to find similar things like a recent indie game called "Trash of the Titans" or something like that, or perhaps fftactics or something....
OMG you have no clue how fast I subscribed when I heard Sazhs theme. I love this guy. Great research btw 😅
Bro this is exactly how I felt about Baldur's Gate 3. Everywhere I looked I saw nothing but praise and then played it myself. I played for 70 hours and fell asleep playing it thrice. After which I just dropped it.
Happened to me with Divinity Original Sin 2
my type of play as a kid was staring off into space and creating these huge worlds in my head and then creating intricate maps and paragraphs of lore that accompanied every little area 😭 I'm now sinking all my time into a extremely intricate sims save file where every sim and lot has a whole history and backstory - really haven't changed lmao