LEGO My Survival

Like everyone, I have fond memories of LEGOs. (Childhood memories playing with them, not adult ones where I step on one and die in writhing agony.)

I quickly moved past them, though, because unless you're slamming shit around and making magical shit (look! this lump is a spaceship!) - you really do need to have some basic talent to make things that others can recognize.
Forget coming up with my own ideas (see: previous article on how I can only make cubes).
Becca builds all our Ikea furniture for good reason.

I suck at building. There, I said it.

But, and my memory is never the most trustworthy so take this with a grain of salt, if I recall correctly, the most fun was had when you were fucking around and using the random little pieces to create things. Right? I don't know who was excited to hear "And I got you that Lego starship kit you wanted!" and then they handed you the ship, and it's already been built. Womp womp.

That thought actually popped up in a Discord chat the other day…

So, for argument's sake, I mean five pillars games, because the ones that are just RPGs and action-adventures in scavenged clothing don't really need help, unless the help you mean is "WHAT R BEST WEAPON IN GAME" type help.

If you watch someone play a true survival game, where shit isn't force-fed to you on a cracker, then watching them figure out everything (TO ME) is like having someone hand you a completed LEGO build.

I know this is an imperfect example, because you can probably throw that LEGO thing at the wall and it'll break into pieces, and you can just rebuild it (maybe it's glued, but IDK if that would stop it from separating, I know shit about these things), but you can't unlearn things that you're taught from the video.

You won't get the, "Amg I was mauled by the jaguar and I'm bleeding out and I need something, bandage?, IDK, I'm trying to figure it out and I'm looking and I..am dead."

This is far different from "Oh, it's a tricky puzzle. Up up down down left right left right B A start" There's no weight to it. Content creators aren’t your Game Genie; they’re not there to hand you cheat codes. Survival’s supposed to kick your ass a little because that’s how you learn.

Play or watch however you want - I support it. But for me, survival games lose their teeth once you’ve already seen behind the curtain. I’d rather stumble, bleed out, and learn the hard way. (Luckily, I’ve got a superb curse vocabulary to support this playstyle.)