Maxie vs. Sleep: the eternal night shift showdown

[popghost]

Okay, so real talk: I didn’t used to think of myself as a gamer. Like, I’m not sitting here with a fancy RGB setup or screaming into a headset. I don’t know what half the buttons on a PS5 controller do. But somewhere between late-night insomnia spirals and post-shift brain-melt, games snuck into my life like a stray cat and now live rent-free in my dopamine center.

Working nights kind of warps time into a weird soup. When you get home at 7am and you’re too wired to sleep but too fried to, like, achieve anything meaningful, that’s prime gaming territory. My body’s horizontal, my brain’s half-functioning, and I’m curled up under a blanket making virtual soup in Stardew Valley. It’s either that or stare at the wall. Sometimes I do both.

So yeah, I’m definitely more of a solo-gamer, or like, a low-stakes social gamer. I like my games story-heavy, emotionally messy, and playable while clutching an iced coffee in one hand. Things where you make soft choices and cry over fictional animals. Things where no one is yelling at me except maybe a ghost in a visual novel.

Some faves from my weird little rotation:

Stardew Valley – Post-shift decompression classic. Sometimes I fish. Sometimes I romance people with tragic backstories. Always I forget to water my plants.
The Sims 2 – I build pastel trailer parks and give every Sim deeply overthought lore. One of them owns a cursed jukebox. I don’t know why.
Dream Daddy – Peak "play this once for the memes, accidentally stay for the feelings."
Slay the Spire / Dicey Dungeons – Turn-based, slightly chaotic deck-builders I can play in zombie-mode with a podcast on.
Unpacking – Emotionally cathartic. Great for winding down. Turns out I do cry over pixelated plushies.
Old point-and-click adventures – Broken Sword, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island—aka: “Maxie time-travels to the 90s and clicks on everything twice.”

When I’m feeling human enough to be around other humans, I love games like Jackbox or Untitled Goose Game - things that invite group chaos and make everyone giggle like overtired kids at a sleepover. Sometimes I’ll watch friends play something terrifying while I narrate with dramatic gasps and yell “DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR” like I’m in a pantomime. (I’m very helpful.)

I don’t think games are about escaping for me, exactly. It’s more like… world-making. I spend so much of my real life trying to stay functional and upright on a messed-up sleep schedule, trying to be polite to customers at 4am, trying to remember what day it is. Games give me a space where time bends my way, where I can be chaotic or cosy or creatively unhinged. Where I can just be, without the fluorescent lighting.

Anyway. It’s nearly noon. The sun’s up. I should probably sleep.
But just one more day in Stardew first, yeah?

Comments

[muscle_wizard]

Real gaming is playing games that you enjoy imo. I'm also a big fan of story driven games like rpgs and visual novels c:

And puzzle games that are for when the brain is too exhausted. I found Unpacking on the switch to be really lovely!

(I loved Dream Daddy back in the day. I played all the dad's routes but Craig stole my heart lol.)