I gave it a try because I've been considering finding the right avenue for doing online peer support in a live setting. VR Chat seems pretty resource intensive and so it sets the bar higher than I'd like. Also idk if they have private servers or not.
So I stumbled across Webfishing recently and gave it a shot. It's completely outside of my genre. The game is like a contained Animal Crossing with a co-op feature. (This is my only reference point for the genre, having played Animal Crossing for like an hour at some point in my life.)
I had to learn how to play the game from scratch. But it's a charming little game based around fishing with some really fun aspects that aren't exactly minigames but side aspects to the core gameplay. It's hilariously woke too:
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It was really interesting observing how quickly I get impatient and frustrated with myself when I'm learning something new and I don't immediately do well at it. If the game was less charming I probably wouldn't have stuck it out.
Some of the servers seem empty but I'm guessing it's because people are in other spots that I didn't check or know how to access but the people there seem generally to be pretty lovely too. I was just about done trying to learn in the game in my first session playing it and I had just bought a guitar for my character when someone kindly pounced on me while I was briefly wielding the guitar and they patiently dragged my ass through a one-on-one tutorial on how to play the guitar in-game. I went with it because those opportunities don't always come up. By the end of it, trying to learn the game, battling with server or internet problems, taking instruction on the in-game guitar, and then also trying to actually learn the basics of music and guitar tablature (because I don't have the foundations for it) where the G string (no wrong one, it's the other G string) becomes a D which is played by pressing the letter Q in the game gave my dyslexic ass a headache. I'm really not designed for top-down learning.
But that's all to say that if the game was annoying or it lacked charm or if other people were shitty in the servers then I would have abandoned it rather than sticking with it through my frustrations with myself over my own limitations.
And the intent I have for the game seems to be pretty ideal. The game itself only costs a few dollars. The server numbers are limited but that makes for easier moderation and it's less pressure than having a room of 20+ people all demanding my attention at once (I've been there in my professional life before). And it's nice because it doesn't feel like you're stuck in a lobby - you can potter around the game or you can fish and do other activities too. This is always so much better for drop in peer support imo. Being able to have some sort of activity that people can engage in, anything at all, means that people can engage or disengage as they see fit while not just awkwardly standing there in silence. It takes a lot of the pressure off, on both sides of the equation.
I did a small trial run of running a drop in space in a private server by making a post here on Hexbear yesterday and it went well. The feedback was 100% positive from it. I'm looking forward to holding another session soon and I'll try offering it around more broadly and giving people more of a heads-up for when I'm holding sessions in future.
Webfishing
I gave it a try because I've been considering finding the right avenue for doing online peer support in a live setting. VR Chat seems pretty resource intensive and so it sets the bar higher than I'd like. Also idk if they have private servers or not.
So I stumbled across Webfishing recently and gave it a shot. It's completely outside of my genre. The game is like a contained Animal Crossing with a co-op feature. (This is my only reference point for the genre, having played Animal Crossing for like an hour at some point in my life.)
I had to learn how to play the game from scratch. But it's a charming little game based around fishing with some really fun aspects that aren't exactly minigames but side aspects to the core gameplay. It's hilariously woke too:
It was really interesting observing how quickly I get impatient and frustrated with myself when I'm learning something new and I don't immediately do well at it. If the game was less charming I probably wouldn't have stuck it out.
Some of the servers seem empty but I'm guessing it's because people are in other spots that I didn't check or know how to access but the people there seem generally to be pretty lovely too. I was just about done trying to learn in the game in my first session playing it and I had just bought a guitar for my character when someone kindly pounced on me while I was briefly wielding the guitar and they patiently dragged my ass through a one-on-one tutorial on how to play the guitar in-game. I went with it because those opportunities don't always come up. By the end of it, trying to learn the game, battling with server or internet problems, taking instruction on the in-game guitar, and then also trying to actually learn the basics of music and guitar tablature (because I don't have the foundations for it) where the G string (no wrong one, it's the other G string) becomes a D which is played by pressing the letter Q in the game gave my dyslexic ass a headache. I'm really not designed for top-down learning.
But that's all to say that if the game was annoying or it lacked charm or if other people were shitty in the servers then I would have abandoned it rather than sticking with it through my frustrations with myself over my own limitations.
And the intent I have for the game seems to be pretty ideal. The game itself only costs a few dollars. The server numbers are limited but that makes for easier moderation and it's less pressure than having a room of 20+ people all demanding my attention at once (I've been there in my professional life before). And it's nice because it doesn't feel like you're stuck in a lobby - you can potter around the game or you can fish and do other activities too. This is always so much better for drop in peer support imo. Being able to have some sort of activity that people can engage in, anything at all, means that people can engage or disengage as they see fit while not just awkwardly standing there in silence. It takes a lot of the pressure off, on both sides of the equation.
I did a small trial run of running a drop in space in a private server by making a post here on Hexbear yesterday and it went well. The feedback was 100% positive from it. I'm looking forward to holding another session soon and I'll try offering it around more broadly and giving people more of a heads-up for when I'm holding sessions in future.