A couple of months ago, during a rather miserable, rainy bank holiday weekend, I decided to try out a complex city-building simulation game that a colleague from work had been raving about. I usually stick to fairly casual mobile games, but I fancied getting my teeth into something a bit more demanding for a change.
The premise of the game was to manage a small settlement in an intensely hostile, freezing environment. You had to oversee everything from coal distribution and heating grids to food rations, medical facilities, and the overall morale of your citizens.
To be honest, it had a ridiculously steep learning curve. The difficulty stemmed from the fact that all the systems were interconnected, so one small oversight would trigger a domino effect. In my first couple of attempts, I miscalculated how much coal we needed to keep the central generator running overnight. Before I knew it, temperatures plummeted, half the population fell ill, and civil unrest broke out because the hospitals were overwhelmed. It demanded constant micromanagement, multi-tasking, and forward planning under strict time constraints, which left virtually no margin for error.
After spending about three hours on it, I felt completely drained, but at the same time, strangely exhilarated. I must admit, failing so quickly was a bit of a blow to my pride, and I felt completely out of my depth at first. However, once I started to grasp the mechanics and finally survived a major snowstorm without my settlement collapsing, it was immensely satisfying. It felt far more like solving a high-stakes puzzle than mindless downtime, and I ended up thoroughly enjoying the mental workout.