Sometimes people will tell me, "Watch/play [x] but do yourself a favor and don't look up anything beforehand, it's best experienced fresh." But in some cases, not knowing anything about a thing has actually NEGATIVELY impacted my enjoyment? Like I actually DID need to set expectations going in. - ThreadSky

incandescaent.bsky.social • 31 days ago

Sometimes people will tell me, "Watch/play [x] but do yourself a favor and don't look up anything beforehand, it's best experienced fresh." But in some cases, not knowing anything about a thing has actually NEGATIVELY impacted my enjoyment? Like I actually DID need to set expectations going in.

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incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

I played TWO games recently where people told me "Don't look anything up, just experience it," only for the games to hard swerve into heavy topics in the back halves that I had no way to be prepared for. I actually would've enjoyed them both more if I understood the game's intentions from the start.

incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

They were both stories I could handle—this isn't even about content warnings, which is another conversation. It's about my mindset. I had misconceptions and expectations of the game that didn't line up with the actual experience, and I had to reconcile and readjust after the fact.

incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

Whereas if I'd understood the tone, the developers' intentions, the type of story I was about to experience, the weight of the story, the conversation the game was trying to have with me, etc., I'd have been able to synthesize it better and engage in that conversation as I was playing it.

incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

Anyway, wrapping back around, sometimes I think "go into this completely blind" is actually bad advice, and that knowing the conversation at hand actually enriches the experience.

incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

But that of course depends on your friends. So my thoughts/advice here aren't "tell everyone everything before you recommend something," it's more like... know that your friends may experience things differently than you, and some people won't actually benefit from going in without any knowledge.

incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

And it depends on the game, too. I might not want to know anything about Animal Crossing, but a friend helped me really approach a different game thoughtfully and prepared for it when she said, "This is a beautiful game about loss and death."

joeauerbach.bsky.social•31 days ago

I feel like there are certain types of people who need to go into something without knowing what it's about.

And there's other people for whom that doesn't ruin the experience (I am this second kind of person).

joeauerbach.bsky.social•31 days ago

Very rarely there are surprises that are worth keeping a surprise, but that's pretty rare actually.

Last time that happened to me in a game was Immortal and it would be easy to avoid ruining that in a review.

incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

Yeah, my friend and I are agreat example of this divide. She STRONGLY prefers to not know anything, and it can frustrate her when someone gives her an expectation of something before she goes in, because she wants to gauge it on her terms. Meanwhile, I'm the same as you. Information HELPS me.

artofjoenni.bsky.social•31 days ago

I get it honestly! I need context, my enjoyment comes from understanding.

incandescaent.bsky.social•31 days ago

Yes!! Same for me!

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