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Do you prefer to binge your games all in one go, or do you play them in bits and pieces?

For me I'll binge a game if its a franchise I'm familiar with and hyped for. Like I binged Kingdom Hearts 3, Darksiders 3, and Ace Combat 7, etc etc when they came out.

However if its a game or franchise I'm not familiar with, I usually play it in bits and pieces. Because of that, it can take me months to finish a game sometimes.

Some games I'll put like, an hours worth of play time spread out over days or weeks, not touch it for a year, come back, and then binge it the rest of the way through (I did that for Horizon Zero Dawn and Darksiders 2)

For me it's like the chess approach: "a game you touch/play is a game you finish". Completionism is optional but more often I take that route as well. I try not to distract myself with other games at the same time, which is why I prefer just one game at the time.

The last two games I played, for example, were Darksiders Genesis and ShadowMan Remastered. I took my my time to explore all there is to explore and unlocking all there is to unlock. Understandably, I think I succeeded in doing like 95% for each but it was all worth it. Of course, because I play an average of two hours almost every day, my experiences are quite slow and maybe that's why I enjoy games far more than just speedrunning them.

Next one in my list is Zelda: Twilight Princess, which I haven't played in well over a decade. The process begins anew.

Whichever I feel like. The game itself is a huge factor; i.e. how much it grabs me.

Take Atelier Sophie, for example; I bought it back in 2017, but for the life of me I just felt like I didn't know how to play it, so I dropped, restarted, and played it in bits a couple of times over the course of several years. It wasn't until last year that I finally understood that you're not supposed to play it like a typical JRPG where you cast spells and summon magicks to evaporate enemies, but rather by crafting nukes and physically throwing them to evaporate enemies. Once I understood that, it finally grabbed me, and I binged it like nobody's business.

There are also cases where I'll binge the game and, without finishing it, burn out a little and play it in bits thereafter.

I really, really don't like dropping games and picking them up again. Piecemeal playing is almost as bad for me. When I pick something up, I like to focus all my attention on it. Especially if it's a story game.

For this reason, I'm typically not playing too much at once either.

Exceptions are things like roguelikes (where you can "complete" a playthrough in up to a couple hours) and multiplayer games.

For me it's often like this:

-If it's a game that is very light on narrative or has none, I'll start it whenever I feel like it and play it in a more on-and-off fashion.

-If it is a game that has more of a narrative to it, then I generally will wait until the weekend to start the game, play much or all of it over the weekend, and if it's something I can't complete in a single weekend I'll keep playing it on weekdays before and after work.

Now when I was younger I did sometimes start up narrative heavy games on weekdays if it was something I was dying to play, but nowadays I prefer starting these types of games on days when I'm wide awake after breakfast and know I can play them for more than an three or four hours.

When I decide to marathon an entire series it can sometimes take a month or more to work my way through them all depending on the length of the games, but I can also sprinkle in some smaller, narrative-lite games in between. As of these past few months I've been mainly focused on replaying every GTA game from 3 and onward, and I'm currently on GTA4's DLC (finished Lost and Damned and am about to start The Ballad of Gay Tony). However in between these I've also sprinkled in stuff like playing the House of the Dead 1 remake on Switch (it's an arcade game designed to take around an hour or less to finish a single playthrough), and giving Quake 1 a quick replay because I was sudden in a 90s FPS mood one Saturday. I already know once I finish GTA I'm going straight into Klonoa (I already bought it to show Bandai-Namco yes we want more Klonoa), and then after that will be Live A Live and replaying Xenoblade 1 and 2 before hopping into 3 (yeah I'm going to be avoiding Xenoblade 3 spoilers on here for probably months). Hoping to finish all the Xenoblade stuff before the end of October so I'm ready for Bayonetta 3 (I'm probably gonna wait until close to Christmas to get Splatoon 3).

Typically I just start playing whatever game interests me and stick to 4-5 at time to conquer them thoroughly before moving on to another.

Thanks to my newfound interest to Discord and my day job I don't play or buy games as much these days. Focusing entirely on just a few games allows me to immerse myself without too much distraction in my already loaded daily schedule.

I'm currently playing modded to the brim Skyrim and plan to 100% the game nice and slow

I have a pretty structured way of playing, not to mention, am a bit of a completionist.

I like completing games whenever I have the spare time to, watch a plethora of videos and other kinds of content surrounding the game to uncover all that I can (I know this is humanly impossible – but my curiosity leads me down that path), and then replaying every once in a while to refresh my memory.

I suppose the 2nd one, but that applies to all games, even ones I like a lot because life and works gets in the way. Typically, I focus on one game at a time, play it intermittently throughout the weeks until completion. If I loved it, I'll give it a 2nd go otherwise I'll move on to next game if I have a backlog or go back to playing a online/multiplayer title.

I'm a bit of a completionist like Susie and I mostly favor single-player only games and those on the somewhat shorter side. If the game is super huge like say RDR2 which takes over 100 hours or more to get the whole experience, it will take me several months. After awhile the game will start to feel like a chore and hurts my enjoyment, but I will eventually finish it. While I used it as an example, I really do love RDR2, but I don't think I could stomach playing the entire thing again, at least not for many years.

Primarily, if it's a long game with a story like Black Mesa, Bioshock, or Rise of the Tomb Raider, I like to take my time with them so that I can experience the game to its fullest because whenever I complete a game's story, I rarely ever pick it up again. I recently completed MGSV and while it's a very fun game, I don't see myself picking it up again until I feel like trying it again. But I also recently restarted A Hat in Time and it's a blast replaying it again after a year of not touching it.

Whereas story is in the driver's seat, achievements are in the passenger's seat; collecting them is a big factor in how I play games. Do I want to focus on the achievement in this section or playthrough? Do I want to come back and do it another time? I'm not really a completionist, but I love to show off rare achievements if I can get them.

My play style is a lot more sporadic and all over the place when I look back at my playtime history on steam. The times I spent playing games in the morning and in between with short bursts are rhythm games and games that had a quick drop n’ play.

Besides that, I spend 1-3 hours on any game regardless of how short, long, or dense with optional levels/bosses. In addition, I split a selection of games to try out and complete by genres. One for each: RPG, FPS, platform, fighting, shooter/bullet hell, metroidvania, puzzle, strategy, racing, miscellaneous for games that don’t have a category for (like VNs, party based, microgames, sports, arcade, horror and life sim) and 1-2 rom/romhack games that I wanted tryout for some time. Then I pick each game from my collection into a number list and roll my 20d dice and based on which number it lands, I’ll play that game that day.

I understand that my preferred playstyle is really arbitrary coming from anyone else. But I made that structure since I like to try out many things, but I’m also overwhelmed by how many games I got (both digital and physical) and particularly being limited with my choices makes things a lot easier for me.