Mostly one at a time, but it depends.

Typically I play Marvel Rivals with my friend group, as it is one of the few multiplayer games these days that supports at least 5 people on a team (we already tried League, Paladins, etc and got tired of that real quick).

On my own, I sometimes feel like playing a retro game, so I have been playing Legend of Dragoon, but recently my save file got corrupted somehow so I haven’t restarted. Instead I switched to playing a less retro game, Need for Speed Carbon. Its been maybe 10 years since I played it last, so it has been interesting dealing with the horrendous rubberbanding and random crashing on PC. I also like to play Goddess of Victory NIKKE as a mobile game whenever I have down time but am away from home.

But I don’t think it is atypical to really focus on playing one game at a time. I’d say that would actually be quite unusual and likely only done by people who have a job playing multiple games per day (a not so good reviewer, streamer, etc).

I’m an independent games reviewer, so 1. But even before I did that, I still could only play 1 at a time.

I’m also using the same system as you. Currently I’m playing Skyrim as a story/ambiance game and Doom 2 (community maps/mapsets, which are releasing every day) as forever playable game. I have time to play more, but I somehow settled on this as I find it very comfortable and enjoyable. Before current Skyrim playthrough I played Steins;Gate and before that original Silent Hill 1 and so on. As infinite games I also sometimes play Quake (community maps/mapsets) and modded Minecraft.

I used to run 7 instances of Ultima Online at once so I could play all my characters at the same time.

A few. I’m playing through the bonus campaigns of Etherfields, while looking longingly at ISS Vanguard which I haven’t picked up in a week, while playing one-shot games of stuff like Twinfold and Harmonies and Balatro and Slay the Spire (both table and phone). Finished Silent Hill 2R recently and that was awesome. Sometimes when I’m up to it I’ll break out some sort of random Final Girl game.

I know this isn’t true for everyone, but narrative solo board gaming is really, really good for me, and lets me do a lot of gaming that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, what with my brain being all busted with stroke damage.

If you get paralyzed picking which story game to play next, maybe getting really picky about which ones make the list and then literally roll the dice or use an RNG generator to pick one. If they are all good, and your gameplay spread across a long time with work and kids, then any “mood” you are in, in the moment, will be averaged out over time. If you get into a game and find it really just isn’t for you, give yourself permission to move on.

In short, make the decision less consequential to avoid paralysis. That was my method anyway, being in similar situation with life time constraints.

During the few months of the year I consider to be my “gaming season”, I mostly stick to 1 game at a time as my primary focus, but I’ll often have a game or few on the back burner that I’ll work into the schedule now and then.

This year I’m focusing on the Doom remake (Doom 2016) as my main game. To be honest, the game is stressful for me, so even though it’s been an absolute blast for me to play, it’s nice to have some alternative games to switch over to after I’m done with Doom.

I agree, it’s very hard to keep up with the stories when juggling multiple games at the same time. Almost as hard for me, if not harder, is keeping up with the controls. Every game is different. Games in the same genre can and will have vastly different control set-ups. Even games in the same franchise / series can have different controls from game to game. Yuck.

So, the control aspect and the story aspect are part of my inspiration for my secondary games. Right now I’m playing Halls of Torment. I guess there’s a story? But it doesn’t seem super relevant or necessary to keep up with. This game is in the same genre as another secondary game I play (and the main one from last year) called Vampire Survivors. Controls for both of these games is super basic. As I mentioned, if there’s even a story line to them, it’s irrelevant to my enjoyment of them.

I also have the Castlevania Dominus Collection which is includes all the metroidvania-style Castlevania games from the Nintendo DS. I played all of them back in the day on original hardware, so there’s a great deal of “recall” in terms of controls and story. And this is probably one of my favorite genres of game.

Just one. I like to focus.

I play one and watch one at the same time. Never more than that simultaneously just so i can really focus

I’m currently playing Portal, Portal Reloaded, and Portal Stories: Mel at the same time.

Basically I’ll play one, hit “that freaking level” and then rotate through. lol

Just one. Playing two at once would be tricky, I’d need like a second computer or something. And switching back and fourth between keyboards really quickly would probably lead to lots of deaths.

Typically only 1 story game (first playthrough) like Blasphemous or Outer Wilds. And then only roguelites or sandboxes on top of that like Factorio or Slay the Spire.

Wish I could say at least two.

I paused my playthrough of Final Fantasy when Black Ops 6 came out back in October. Next thing I know, it’s January and I’m totally lost when picking up my Final Fantasy save file again. The dancer didn’t share any clues whatsoever.

You lied to me, game. 🖕

Slay the spire, FTL, and Into the Breach probably have the most hours from me because the controls are entirely cursor driven and can be paused indefinitely.

Balatro is quickly taking the space that the built-in Windows solitaire game used to.

Those are the ones that I open when my brain can’t brain.

At least one idle game. I just finished antimatter dimensions after a year or so. Starting on NGU idle next.

And one “100% attention” game like outer wilds or hollow knight.

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