I grew up an avid gamer. But now, among my 50-hour work week, helping my kids with their math homework, grocery shopping, and house chores, I’m no longer able to find enough free time to really dive into a game. I mostly play casual games that I can drop in and out of but forget about the 40hr+ games requiring commitment. Despite not having the free time to game like I used to, I do enjoy watching my kids play while I’m doing other things around the house and then listen to them telling me about their accomplishments afterwards. I would like to hear from community members with similar circumstance about how you manage your time.
Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch. Instant pause/resume is invaluable.
My son is 11 months, and if I didn’t have my steam deck I would probably not be gaming at all right now :) That instant off/resume is absolutely amazing.
This 100%. The only games I’ve managed to finish in the past ten years are on Switch or a portable system.
I picked up a Switch thinking it would always be attracted to my TV. Maybe it was for a bit, but when my child came along the only way I used it was handheld and for spurts at a time.
That’s how I knew the Steam Deck was an instant buy for me - the pause/resume is key.
It’s mindblowing how smooth (and fast!) suspend/resume is on the Steam Deck.
I wrote a piece of software that does this for any Windows game as well after my first kid was born. Obviously doesn’t work for multiplayer, but it allowed me to play games when he was still waking up 5 times each night.
Cheat engine has a speed multiplier that can be set to 0, which worked in several (offline) games for me.
My thing is a global key bind on the pause button. So I hit one button (or Fn+P on my laptop) and I don’t have to think about anything else. And it works for every game, regardless of cheat engine support.
Nice! I haven’t run across any offline games that won’t let me use CheatEngine’s speed multiplier, including flash games, but I would be interested to know if you’ve run across any!
My thing is a global key bind on the pause button. So I hit one button (or Fn+P on my laptop) and I don’t have to think about anything else.
Just one kid or stair step kinda kids? You are lucky, and nice job on the scripting!
One back then, two now, but the second one was much, much easier in every way.
My 3 year old still wakes up 3-5 times a night 😭