Not that the game being specifically over-kind is the only way to start reconstructing your self-image. Games also give more easily achievable goals; the manly warrior route: self-worth over your fallen foes. "[My] immediate response to a break-up from a most-of-university relationship was compulsive playing of Tekken 3," recalled Simply Suicidal in Sheffield. "The all-too-obvious psychology behind it was this: Having just proved myself to be very bad at something (i.e. making a girl happy), trying to become very good at something more easily master-able was a logical response. There was nothing spectacular in my Tekken accomplishments - I didn't tour Japanese arcades, claim world records or play for six weeks without sleep. All I did was repeatedly play as one character (Bryan Fury, to be specific) until I'd perfected just enough moves and strategies, and developed such an extreme, unpleasant reaction to the relatively rare occasions that I was beaten, that my housemates wouldn't play against me anymore. They were both in happy, healthy relationships; I wasn't, but I was better than them at Tekken. I won! (I really didn't.)"
Coming down from a love affair can be like breaking an addiction. If you're with someone whose very presence fills your body with sexy endorphins, their removal from your life leaves you crushed. The hardest bit of coming down is finding a way to fill the hours you previously devoted to the object of your affections. Planescape was full of things to do - it wasn't challenging, but there was always something to think about. Which artifact to buy? Where to explore next? What's that angel creature really up to? Roleplaying games are an obsessive's dream.
"I plunged myself into RPGs." agrees Simply Suicidal. "I played Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate and the add-on Tales of the Sword Coast essentially back-to-back. I scoured each for every secret I could find, played through the night and spurned socializing. Each offered an easy way for an unhappy man to avoid the world for a few dozen hours."
This links closely to another key attribute of Planescape and RPGs - they're a genre where story is central. You don't just lose yourselves in actions and choices, but also a narrative. The anal mechanics distract the reason-centered left brain, when the humanity distracts the febrile, creative right. It's especially potent considering RPGs' propensities to lead to heroes who wrestle with their dark Byronic nature. "Planescape rang truest," Suicidal notes, "mostly for its hero. A physically and mentally scarred loner who doesn't feel he belongs, who's the instrument of his own distress, who's persecuted by forces he doesn't understand? ... It was the gaming equivalent of listening to Leonard Cohen records and watching Taxi Driver on repeat."
It's a common enough response. "One of my university chums receded into his shell after a breakup and immersed himself in Final Fantasy, Zelda and Secret of Mana games," noted Deeply Depressed in Dover, "I was pretty sure I heard him sobbing several times. He described [the games] as 'duvet terrain.'"
While narrative can be important, it's worth noting that tiny, relatively easy decisions act as soma in other genres, too. The purified hit of the puzzle game was regularly cited as useful post-breakup. "My boyfriend's gone," said Catastrophically Cut-up in Cardiff. "One of the most glaring, obvious voids he's left behind is the one in my bed every night, and that's the place where I miss him the most and find it hardest to kid myself that I can carry on with everything as usual. Cue: [Nintendo DS] under the duvet. I need to play something that's entirely devoid of human contact and interaction but which is nonetheless comforting somehow. I want solace - not to become a robot. DS tile-swap puzzler Zoo Keeper fills the gap, if not perfectly, at least appropriately." Zoo Keeper, and puzzle games, simplifies life's complexities into neat grids. You can't untangle the emotional red thread, but you can deal with this.
"It's entirely absorbing, in almost an autistic way, plus there's cute animal faces in it," explains Catastrophically Cut-up, "They get angry-looking when I'm running low on time, but a quick few chains will return their status to happy. I like to watch emotions that are black and white - happy or sad - and which are easily fixed. I find this reassuring. Also, I'm capable of playing it for hours until my eyes are starting to close and I'm entirely exhausted, at which point I can just shut the DS lid and leave it on charge until the next night. I'm broken, but the game lets me pretend otherwise long enough to get to sleep. No thought invited or required."
