Memories of the Lockdown: Satisfactory

It was only this spring. It was only about six months ago. But it feels like forever ago. I never really got fully locked down, still heading to work (via Uber as TTC was scary) on occasion as the CEO and Executive Staff were still coming into the office on a daily basis, hiding behind their glass wall but still occasionally having computer issues. Why me? Two fold. The VC setup is my baby so I continue to make sure it is working, and since EVERYONE else was working from home we needed to make sure we could handle it. Also staff needed extra stuff from work, to take home, so me and a few others facilitated that. Also, I just needed to get out of the house. I am terrible at WFH; I am not motivated and it's far too easy to get distracted. I need the structure of Getting Up and Going. But for a few months, there were days on end where I, like much of the world, got up, sat at my desk with a cup of coffee and did my best to work. Showers? Occasionally. Going outside? Irregularly. Physical activity? Much less than I usually do, which was not much to begin with. It was a weird weird time, those rides home from work via Uber, driving down empty streets, few pedestrians and almost no drivers. And everything closed. It was eerie to say the least.

Coping mechanisms? Alcohol of course. I did stock up the bottle shelf with some whisky and rum, but just up the street was The Granite Brewery so I bought regular amounts. I wasn't drinking all the time, like some people claimed, but a cocktail or beer after supper was common. And there was TV, multitudes of ReWatches and some movies, already somewhat covered here. Actually, I had to delete the TV listing, as there was just too much to cover, and it was all beginning to blur into one. I know I finished off one series of Watching at the beginning of The Pause, but there was so so so much after.

If I was more focused, more able to allow myself to be drawn into things, I supposed I would have been playing a lot more video games. TV rewatches were easy but new games always seemed like a chore. But a few did catch me, especially one that was relaxation therapy -- Satisfactory.

Building games, sandbox games, with weakly defined end-goals and wide open spaces, are tonic for me. Even when I replay Fallout 4 I always find myself plugging in a ton of mods that expand how and what I can build, what I can do with my settlements. Early Access Satisfactory has a simple premise -- you are a corporate employee dropped on a strange alien planet with a small toolset and a simple goal -- start exploiting the resources on the planet to further the Corp. You mine & gather resources, build some basic factory structures, which allows you to expand & speed up production, which allows you send the processed resources back to the mother company. And then you are rewarded with more tools, more factory parts, more goals and ... so on. All the while there is a big beautiful planet to explore, dangers to avoid (or kill) and more resources to discover & exploit.

At the heart, this is a nasty idea of a game -- you are a miner destroying the beautiful environment for the sake of a faceless corporation. But meh, ignore that, you have conveyor belts to build !!

It was so relaxing just gathering enough resources to expand into the next thing, to setup efficient manufacturing lines, to store stuff for later, to find rare resources (coal! oil!) so you could increase your power production, to design & layout new factories in new locations and to connect it all. Sure, the hardcore players of the game were all about the math, the how-to's of maximizing production, and efficiency stats and whatnot. But me? I liked the spaghetti. Pipes and conveyors winding here and there, eventually reaching my Home Base and being added to the mix. As things got bigger, I tore down some and rebuilt others, but generally I just had fun adding onto what I already had. And I was always wondering what was next around the corner, what new tool I would get, what new resource I would discover and what new toy I would get to play with. 

There is something entirely satisfying (thus the name & pun) about Fake Productivity, especially in a time when it seemed nothing was getting done, that everything else in the world was On Pause. Every day, I would go from working until 4-5 (depending on what was going on, what time I got up and sat down in front of the computer) and I would switch the monitor inputs from my Work Laptop to my Home PC, and just begin playing. A few hours later, it was time to Attack the Kitchen, either cleaning up from the day before, or beginning supper. Then some hours of TV, and then just before bed, some more pipes to lay. Heh.

Eventually time At Work ramped up, the Early Access stuff completed (the game is actually yet to be really, truly released) and I was onto a new schedule. But to be honest, without that mindless, focused (non)productivity, I am sure my anxiety in those early months would have been MUCH higher than it was. Or my alcohol intake higher.