Are there any games you don't play as it was intended to be played? If so, what game and how?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Elevator7009@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

I know I remember seeing some people talk about how nice some of the environments in Hitman were, and that they’d just walk around as a tourist from time to time, treating it like a walking simulator/virtual tourism thing instead of the stealth assassination game it is. Curious about other things like that, where you play a game totally differently than it was meant to be played.

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PonyOfWar@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Assassin’s Creed. The actual gameplay is almost never as interesting as just walking around a meticulous recreation of ancient civilizations as a digital tourist.

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- HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  you and i play the same. I’m never getting to venice before it sinks, but i got my digital museum
  
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Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Who amongst us hasn’t played GTA at least once while trying to drive around and follow all the traffic laws for absolutely no reason at all

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- Agrivar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Every time I log into that game I like to pick a car from my garage, smoke a fatty (in RL), and then drive all slow and chill from my apartment to the golf course. Pretend like I’m afraid of getting pulled over! Then I play a quick 9 holes. Generally, after that, I’m done with GTA for another month or so.
  
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- MNByChoice@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Oh, yeah! Get a car, find a quite park, turn on the radio and chill.
  
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- kratoz29@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Is there any mission as of nowadays that forces you to drive according to traffic laws in any of all the entries?
  
  If not I propose a very annoying one like the Driver tutorial as the GTA VI tutorial.
  
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  - CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    People talk about getting filtered by fromsoft bosses but the goddamn driver tutorial was the hardest shit ever; especially since it used a lot of movie terms so if you weren’t really into american movies about cars half the stuff on the list was kind of gibberish.
    
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  - gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Sorta? Multiple that make you watch your speed, for sure
    
    Driver’s law mechanics in a mission/mode of GTA would be amazing, wanted level system from 2 included (with a way to clear your on-foot wanted, of course)
    
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  - YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Fucking driver! WTF is solemn‽
    
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- Elevator7009@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s a wonderful contrarian-but-is-it-really-considering-it’s-making-the-lawful-choice delight in trying to follow the rules in a game about breaking rules.
  
  No-commentary video of someone just driving in GTA trying to follow the rules of the road. I’m usually really not a video person, but just watching this feels nice somehow.
  
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- forrgott@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Hmm. Nope.
  
  That’s what Streets of SimCity was for!
  
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  - QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Well unless you did sunday driving… And put weapons on your car so you could go around demolishing the buildings you had built up in Sim City.
    
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FelixCress@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Like playing Gwent instead of fighting monsters as the witcher?

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- who@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  An argument could be made that Gwent offers better gameplay than the larger game in which it resides.
  
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  - takeda@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Then you purchased a wrong game and should just play solitaire.
    
    Witcher 3 is absolutely great, but if you just go through only the main quest, won’t explore the world and won’t do side quests then I can see you ending up disappointed.
    
    What I like is that side quests can impact the main quest and even the ending.
    
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  - BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    There is no argument if the statement is objectively true
    
    The Witcher 3’s gameplay was so bad that I couldn’t finish it (and the map so uninteresting, but that’s another story). Gwent was pretty cool though
    
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  - Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Are we certain Witcher is the larger game in which Gwent resides and not the other way around?
    
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  - FelixCress@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    An argument could be made that you are a genius. Both arguments would be equally wrong.
    
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- SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I felt that way about blitzball in final fantasy 10 (I think). Never finished the actual game.
  
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blackstampede@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Minecraft. You think that there’s no way to play Minecraft “wrong”, right up until you accidentally fall into the 4-block wide valley that I’ve cut through the entire map or walk into the liminal space that I’ve mined out just above bedrock. Fuck cutesy cottages and Minecraft in minecraft- let’s just build superstructures that disappear beyond the draw distance of the map. Fuck creative mode- let’s do it while we’re facing down mobs day and night. Fuck explosives- do that shit with a pick like a goddamn man. You haven’t really seen confused rage until your child discovers hundreds of unexplained and unexplainable brutalist towers extending into the distance like the gravestones of alien gods when they thought you were building a farm over the next hill.

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- AkatsukiLevi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  . . . I gotta tour one of your worlds someday
  
  Shit like this I have only seen in a Manga once, forgot the name, but basically bunch of robots that humanity made were let loose without humans(they died) and they kept building giant megastructures for no reason without stopping It’s just absolutely surreal and I just love it
  
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  - JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Sounds like Blame! which is one of my favorite graphic novels
    
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- Gibibit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s a great level of detail mod that can keep distant structures and terrain loaded in. I think it’s called Distant Horizons. That and a render performance improvement are the only mods that I play with, makes such a big difference.
  
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andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I play heavily modded Elder Scrolls, where my character never touches the main story.

My favorite Morrowind run was a princess who ended up creating an agricultural baron, buying up every plantation and owning probably hundreds of slaves. She also got into the skooma business on the side (needed money for all of her dresses). Morrowind had a ton of wacky mods that were just fun to play in general - people made Star Wars and LOTR questlines. There’s also the work of Tommy Khajiit (RIP), which is something unique and which has never gotten the respect it deserved. (Or Lady Rae - she liked to recollect the game bright neon colors, and basically got bullied out of the modding community.)

Skyrim is a hunting/vagrant simulator for me. I usually play a Dunmer refugee and avoid the in-game quests entirely. Survival and economy mods to make the focus of the gameplay getting enough gold to afford a room for the night, tweaks to loot to make things more “mundane.”

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- Elevator7009@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I always like to see people who go all in on the roleplaying in RPGs.
  
  I do wish people would leave mods that aren’t for them alone. There are a bunch of mods extremely not to my taste that I just scroll past instead of intentionally clicking to tell the mod author just how much it is not to my taste and that they should not have made it because I am uninterested in the content.
  
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  - andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Modding is a really under appreciated art form.
    
    Downloading unhinged Morrowind mods in the mid naughts exposed me to new franchises, music, ideas… Like this banger, which plays at some point in the Underground 2 along with this one. (btw, Dawnguard is Emil or whoever wrote it ripping off story beats from a 20 year old Morrowind mod based on the Underworld series lol)
    
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- mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  The Sims for me is either 1800s Utah polygamous Mormons, post apocalyptic Handmaid’s Tale scenarios, or prisons.
  
  lolwtf
  
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  - andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The prison mod is great for running the “re education” camps in the Handmaid’s Tale scenarios. I usually rezone all of the lots in Downtown to residential, and then explode a series of bombs across them (+ enhance with some assets ripped from the Fallout games). Occasionally I add in a zombie apocalypse to shake it up.
    
    My Utah Mormons I play out the generation after they moved from Nauvoo. Clothing is period accurate, as much as possible. The goal is to populate an empty map, and find something to do with all of the extra men (wars, Indian raids…)
    
    When I was ten and playing the original Sims, it was Roman families with historically accurate slavery (minus the sex stuff.)
    
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- SendMePhotos@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m not into mods but if I remember right, isn’t Lady Rae the one who left the modding community and started making music?
  
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  - andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Did she make music? Holy shit - if you have a link I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to her for years. She’s genuinely a major inspiration for my painting and art.
    
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- ArtificialHoldings@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I thought that was the Sims intended playstyle?
  
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  - andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Will Wright after seeing everything he owned in ashes after a series of major wildfires in the Palisades: “what if I made a virtual dollhouse for people to explore sexual and violent fantasies that would make Freud say, ‘no, that’s too much.’”
    
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rockerface@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m playing Overwatch but actually having fun while doing so /s

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- zo0@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Banned
  
  The player exploited the game mechanics to achieve an unintended side effect.
  
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Statick@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I used to only do something called “surfing” in the Counter-Strike: Source days.

There are dedicated servers that only run surf maps.

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- Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  TF2 Had surf maps too, and I spent an embarrassing amount of time on those. Got super good at it too.
  
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- Million@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Source best game.
  
  I still have KSF Clan server list in my bookmarks for easy access. When theres nothing to play, just play surf.
  
  Also, shoutout to momentum mod, a standalone game with surf, bhop, defrag, rocket jump, sticky jump and more in one single game. Coming out soon ™️
  
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- whotookkarl@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There was a game called tribes that combined the surfing/skiing movement with combat before the counterstrike mod levels came out, it was pretty fun the sequel tribes 2 was pretty popular for a minute when it came out too. But the skill ceiling on some of those cs surf maps was wild.
  
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- match@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  you might enjoy the game Haste, it has a demo on steam
  
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- Hazelnutcookiez@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  100% of my CS playtime is surfing it’s so fun.
  
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Nefara@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
For a while, I played the MMO Guild Wars 2 as a music simulator. It has playable in game musical instruments that you can equip, and play with the number keys. A-G are represented as numbers 1-8 with 9 and 0 swapping an octave lower or higher. Killing monsters? Doing dungeons? Raids and world bosses? Nah I’m just chilling in a beautiful forested cliffside near a waterfall figuring out an arrangement for the Lord of the Rings theme.

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moonburster@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Horizon zero dawn and forbidden west. I just roam around and by accident find the missions I’m supposed to do. I also exploit all the enemies, there is a hard lock on where they can walk, so I just stand 10 meter out of the zone and start hitting big enemies for 5 minutes without taking damage.

I will blame Skyrim for this behaviour

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- thewitchslayer@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think I did that a few times in ZD when I first played. You likening it to Skyrim for that makes sense. The classic “if I stand on this rock, the giant can’t launch me into space”
  
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Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I played the story in GTA a few times.

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Omgboom@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I like to play crusader kings II from the point of view of God. Using console commands, sketchy cheat mod, and knowing the right game mechanics you can make characters do all types of crazy stuff. Using the “observe” console command let’s you play as a spectator, you can use the “play” command followed by a character ID and you will jump into playing as that character. I like to find a character, give them insane stats, and give them all of the best traits, make them immortal and then spectate for a few hundred years and see what my chosen one made the world into. I also like to try to determine before hand what I want them to do, like becoming emperor of brittania or whatever, and see how close I can get from just 1 or 2 interactions with them.

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- Elevator7009@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is such a cool idea. Nudging a few things around and trying to see what ripple effects they have…
  
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Sendpicsofsandwiches@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The Ship. It’s normally supposed to be a social deduction game, but some friends and I all get together in a private server and basically just play deathmatch. It’s hilarious because most of fhe weapons are really hard to kill with and you still have to be sneaky because if you get caught, you go to jail (which is also full of shanks). It always leads to some great chaos, especially with more people.

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- RebekahWSD@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Whenever I played The Ship back in the day or always seemed it was mostly murder and no deduction other than “did my target change outfits”?
  
  Good game though. Very fun.
  
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fargeol@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I did that with RTS like Starcraft or Age of Empires II. I would just build a city, develop every upgrade, build good defenses and basically play it like Sim City

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vxx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Battlefield One

I don’t play it anymore, but when I did with a friend, I broke the healer mechanic.

I always stayed with my friend and our team, and instead of a weapon I was carrying a syringe.

In a Match I ressurected up to 70 people, making us pretty much an undying army.

I would always top the leader Board in any game Mode.

A couple months in I saw copycats, but nobody came close to my insanity.

The next Iterations of the game sucked for me because they nerfed the mechanic extremely.

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- NostraDavid@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think I’ve seen a video showcasing this tactic. Dude with a Syringe just running around, picking up his teammates as soon as they downed. It was great :D
  
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Trumble@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I was part of some exploration guilds in World of Warcraft with the aim to explore every inch of the Azeroth, get beyond every instance border and just climb hard terrain even if there was an easier way up.

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- shplane@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The early days of wow were a magical time. I loved jumping around and getting stuck in the most random, remote areas of the map
  
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MrEC@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I play Trailmakers which is like Legos where people mostly build planes and tanks to shoot each other, but I build cranes, forklifts, trucks and boats and fill them with the barrels and crates from around the maps and move them to other places. Very peaceful and rewarding to me.

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umbraroze@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Most of my time in Elden Ring has been 1) ogling at the landscapes going “Holy shit this is metal”, and 2) bravely running away.

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- Toribor@corndog.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Bravely running away is the quintessential FromSoft experience. The ultimate flex on enemies is to not even bother attacking them and just rolling to dodge occasionally while you grab items and run past them to the next checkpoint.
  
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idunnololz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I don’t think this is super uncommon but in harder difficulties of Terraria, I just play the game as a fishing game. I pretty much exclusively fish for the first few hours of the game and gear up solely through fishing. Then I repeat for the 2nd half of the game as well. I’m also setting up huts in every biome location to do fishing quests.

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Elevator7009@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
There are a few mobile or web idle/incremental games I have used as a substitute for a Pomodoro Timer. Oh, I am really into the game and it only progresses if this is the focused tab? I really want to make progress, but I am in a period of the game where active play isn’t that rewarded, and just watching the screen while I wait to earn the upgrade is pretty boring? How about we just leave my phone with that as the active tab, and I check back when the upgrade should be earned? Keeps me off my phone and doing the actual things I should be doing instead. Somehow, “abusing” games like this works better for me than the Forest app which has the explicit intention of making sure you do not touch your screen for a set length of time and instead do something else off your phone.

I also “abuse” Pokémon Masters EX in a similar fashion. You’re expected to level up with some combination of putting them through battles that cost stamina to play through, and some pretty easy-to-obtain level-up items. And although there is an Auto option I have a feeling you are intended to manually do the battles in-game. Instead, I start story mode battles which cost no stamina to play through, that still reward me with XP no matter how many times I repeat it, and have the game fight the battle for me with the Auto setting. I check back when the battle is done and restart it. I have essentially turned this into an idle/incremental game, albeit one with a pretty short time between waiting and checking back in on the game. Free level-ups! Even though it does take much longer than the intended way, which is why I suspect nobody tried to prevent this method from working.

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- Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Huh, never knew my approach to work had an actual name. That’s neat! Thanks for teaching me something new.
  
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Damaskox@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Factorio is fun for me until oil comes up.

I have managed to play further with the black market mod. I can make whatever item I want, sell enough of it and buy the things I want or need instead of making them myself.

Other mods add more powerful machines that make items much faster. I like to do manually stuff with one machine only, then swap to something else with the same machine and repeat the process.

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- Weirdfish@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t think anyone plays factorio the way it was meant to be played.
  
  With the new belt reading mechanics, I’m trying a single sushi belt play through and have made it as far as blue science so far.
  
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- Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Oil is where Factorio becomes factoriohno
  
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  - Toribor@corndog.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The updated fluid mechanics are a lot more forgiving and basically have infinite throughput. It’s still a whole new layer of complexity but doesn’t have nearly as many confusing limitations as it used to.
    
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- AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  With the update, even if you don’t have the DLC, fluids have been rebalanced. You just have to place a pump every 200-250 tiles and everything flows.
  
  For oil specifically, you don’t need anything but petroleum liquid until what used to be late game. So just build a few (like a dozen) refineries and make sure that there’s actually oil coming in.
  
  Once you actually need lubricant, and light oil, set up chemical plants to turn heavy oil into lube and light oil, and light oil into petroleum gas. It won’t be fast, but it won’t clog and it will produce what you need, slowly.
  
  I consider myself a Factorio apprentice, as I have yet to actually set up a proper train system. I’m slowly learning circuit logic, but can get to Gelba without getting stuck.
  
  Don’t stress optimization, brute force works as well.
  
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MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Red Dead Online is almost always my go to Fishing Game with friends. It just does the fishing aspect really well. Bonus points when the camp is setup near a river or pond

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quinkin@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Any of The Forest games become basically a zipline simulator once that is unlocked.

As in, clear fell the forest so we can build ziplines everywhere.

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Denjin@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The original crackdown, the only movable object that was completely indestructible were the big yellow skips (don’t know what Americans call them).

Would play in coop with one character fixed in a spot to stop them despawning and see how many I could gather from around the map and bring back. You could only carry them in your arms preventing you from driving and climbing the taller buildings, forcing you into unconventional routes through the city, often while being shot. Think I got about 20 as my record before having to sign off.

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- NostraDavid@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  big yellow skips
  
  A trash container? I’m neither Bri’ish, or 'Murican, so I have no idea 😂
  
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  - Denjin@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Dumpster apparently
    
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MoreFPSmorebetter@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I like playing games that incentivise stealth as Michael Bay films. Give me rocket launchers and c4. Yeah I don’t have the high score for the level but I will kill literally every single non-vital NPC.

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Bathilda_Bagshot@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Rocket Leage, apparently.

What a save!

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Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Some friends and I play multi-world randomizers together. Randomizers modify a game so that important items/unlocks are in different locations or are obtained in a different way. I usually play Ocarina of Time and a randomizer changes all the “treasure chest” items found throughout the world, so instead of finding the bow in the Forest Temple (where it should be in the game), it could be found behind a rock in a cave in the middle of the field. I constantly have to ask myself “What items don’t I have yet?” and “What areas do I have access to that I haven’t searched yet?” It turns the game into a kind of puzzle game. There is a website we use called Archipelago.gg that lets you connect randomizers together. I can play an OOT randomizer and my friend can be playing a Pokemon Emerald randomizer, and when I open a chest I can find items from his game and he gets a gym badge, an HM, or something else dropped into his inventory. And it works the other way when he beats another trainer, he could get one of my items and I get some rupees, or a hookshot dropped into my inventory.

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thezeesystem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Most games I play that I don’t plan on playing a lot of. I use trainers hacks and cheats on things I find grindy or just feels pointless. Or unnecessary hard games.

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catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Speedrunning

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biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I collect all the stars since GTA III.

I also play everything on Easy because I have a life.

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nyctre@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I often use cheats to remove grindy and boring bits beyond a certain point. Usually the difficulty curve is pretty bad and a game is only hard in the beginning. So I play as intended until I reach a point at which it’s just a matter of time and not skill. So I just give myself a ton of crafting mats or currency or whatever so I can focus on the fun and interesting parts of the game.

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