i am playing Stardew Valley. again.

this is my third farm and i've never gotten further than 4 days into spring year 2 but i have always enjoyed myself. we have an old man rat and when we're both going to be out of the house we put Gab Smolder's streams on for him to watch and he seems much happier than when he's left in silence and he's recently been watching her first playthrough of Stardew Valley and i was watching it with him and had a realisation.

i've never really played it as though it's a game. 

i've always just used it as a soothe, as a brain smoothing activity, something to switch off too and just crack those rocks open. if i saw a quest that said Sebastian wanted a sunfish i'd have been like, i'm not doing that i want to go in the mines.

i don't think there's anything wrong with that obviously, it's just a game. play it however it feels fun but watching Gab be so "proper" about it as a game made me realise i'd never treated it like that so i started a new game and yesterday evening i spent a whole in-game day trying to catch a sunfish for Sebastian.

it feels really different. rather than just focusing on the parts of this huge game that i find satisfying and doing them until i don't anymore i'm paying attention to what it's telling me to do. i feel more like there's a goal to what i'm doing each day rather than just making money for no reason and i'm enjoying it. i'm appreciating the game more too because i'm paying more attention to it. 

it's still to be seen if i get past spring year 2 this time but it doesn't really even matter.