25 Things #7: Badge-whor... um, collector.

[amanda_lodden]

I've been sort of sitting on this particular post, because I have a picture that I took of my Girl Scout sash that I'd like to put in here. Unfortunately, what with the myriad of photos and documents sitting in a hundred different places courtesy of the "scan it and get rid of it!" project, I can not actually locate that particular photo. (We all know that because I've opted to post this without the picture, it'll turn up tomorrow in the least-expected place, right?)

I loooooooove badges, achievements, etc. It doesn't matter what they're for, They Must Be Mine!

When I was nine, that meant Girl Scout badges. I remember poring over the manual, figuring out which ones I could obtain easily, and how to go about getting the other ones with the minimum amount of work. It wasn't about doing something well, it was about maximizing the number of little round patches to be sewn onto my sash, which bytheway just happened to count towards the sewing badge.

In my teenage years, I didn't have anything to collect, really. The flood of "your kid achieved something!" certificates died out somewhere in middle school, and was never satisfactorily replaced. Until video games, that is.

I'm terrified to play the XBox 360, because as it is my life gets sucked into video games that feature collecting things. I can't fathom the amount of time I would waste just trying to get that elusive "you rescued the princess (you know, the one that required 50+ hours to get to)" achievement. I prefer to play my little flash-based browser games on kongregate.com, not because it's inherently better but because they give out badges (which give you points, and points give you levels! Granted, levels give you absolutely nothing, but dammit, I've made it all the way up to level 15 already), and I've often clicked on a game that looked kinda fun and then gone on to something else when I saw that it had no badges to earn.

Comments

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I'm going to guess that you've played Animal Crossing. If not, don't - it's exactly the kind of collecting-oriented game that would suck your life away. :D

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

I have not. Thank you for the warning.

[pusifoot.livejournal.com]

*does not mention that she has a GameCube and the original Animal Crossing* Also, it's worse than what roseneko intimates. MUCH WORSE. It's collecting + home decoration. And writing letters to your friends in town in the hopes that they'll send you presents.

I totally didn't send six months of my unemployed life present whoring. Honest. I swear.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Or pretty much any of the "Lego [Franchise]" games, but nowhere near the carnage of Animal Crossing.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, an Xbox would probably eat your life. I haven't seen a game yet that didn't have achievements, so there is no safe harbor on the 360. Not only are there achievements, but the achievements equal points. I don't remember what the points are for, but they must be for something.