Focusing on one game: Suzerain

I have always had a hard time focusing on one game at a time, with the exception of MMOs. Lately, this seems to have gotten worse. I started playing Megaquarium after I had initially bought it and then tossed it aside. I don’t even remember why as it’s a cute game! Anyway, I then moved on to Cities Skylines. This was followed by Crusader Kings III, then Planet Zoo, then Planet Coaster… I keep going back and forth between games.

Of course, one could ask if that’s even a bad thing. As long as I focus on one save game (zoo, city, aquarium, etc.) and don’t restart over and over again – which I usually do. For example, I just realized how many more lighting options there are in Planet Zoo apparently. I never knew because my technicians never researched that much before I went on to another map.

The one game that did suck me in completely was Suzerain, though. It did the unthinkable: It immersed me so much that I did not want to go to bed in the evenings because I wanted to keep playing, to finish the story! The best part for me is: The story does not ask me to save the world. I was just the president of a small country. When the story is about saving the world, it makes me roll my eyes. It does not make me care. But here, it was my little country. My home. My people.

It had me on the edge of my seat three times: Every time, an important vote was happening and I was anxiously waiting for the results!

I played Suzerain almost exclusively for a few days until I finished my playthrough. I was considering playing again to see what happened with different choices. But I also don’t want to spoil the experience. Because now, I have this story in my head of my protagonist and how his 4 year political term went and how he spent the rest of his life after his political career was over. If I restart with different options, then I will have a different story and these two may interfere with each other in my memory at some point.

I really wish more games were like this. Suzerain involved a lot of reading (conversations, newspaper articles, etc.) and memorizing names and words because it is a made-up country in a made-up world. But it was all worth it for the experience! However, it’s a story-based game and the games I mentioned above are mostly management or simulation games. It’s just more fun to hop from aquarium to zoo to restaurant. But if they all involved a story, it would be hard to keep track.