Games while watching TV - The Bear and Badger

acemuzzy

I've got a large PoS, not least Steam.

I also have Netflix, and a desire to cream through the x files, sunny, etc

What are my best hopes for killing the two birds with one stone? What games are good tv fodder (ie you can dip in and out)? Any good game+tv pairs? Or is the idea madness?

mistercrayon

Futurama has been played a fair bit with yoshi.

The wii u is a boon for this.

Don't watch anything with subs.

AJ

Rymdkapsel is fantastic for playing while watching TV.

tigersgogrrr

Football Manager was always the one.

vicinity_of_pie

Kerbal Space program, not at first of course but once you know what you're doing you don't have to concentrate on it much at all. You can even get the auto-pilot mod (mechjeb) to reduce your need to interact with it further. Dunno if you'd be into it but looking through all my steam games there's not another that can be played so passively (which probably part explains why I've put 600 hours into it).

acemuzzy

600 hours. Jesus. Have been tempted by it before. Will look at that Rym job. This isn't helping me diminish my PoS...

TheDJR

tigerswiftly wrote:

Football Manager was always the one.

adkm1979

Beware the rymdkapsel suggestion. It has regular enemy attacks which require your attention, and you'll either miss one because you're looking at the screen, or miss your programme because you're dealing with an attack.

To be honest, mate, it's not a viable option. If you're second-screening, at least one of the screens has to be something really banal that doesn't require much brain. Unless it's the likes of Flick Kick Football, or something you can genuinely ignore on a regular basis (turn based stuff, for example) you're on a hiding to nothing, diminishing both. Again, though , with turn-based stuff, it's tempting to look away when it's not your turn, and missing the computer's turn adds difficulty, resulting in a requirement for more concentration on your go, missing more of what you're watching.

RamSteelwood

I couldn't do it. Not if I cared about the programme on TV. I get very obsessive about watching and hearing every moment. Even just checking the Web or replying to a text often results in me pausing or rewinding the TV. And don't get me started on when the wife starts babbling when I'm watching something...if it wasn't for sky+ i reckon we'd have divorced by now!

WorKid

Civ 5 plus Netflix

The Daddy

TheDJR wrote:

tigerswiftly wrote:

Football Manager was always the one.

The new ipad version means this is still the one!

Moot_Geeza

Will give this some thought, done it loads myself. Wentworth + Ghost Recon on 3DS is my current pairing, but nothing beats the forum Motorstorm RC challenge + Homeland season 2. Has to be something I'm not too fussed about missing, or a season of something I like that enough people have told me to avoid.

Moot_Geeza

Now I'm down to one telly in the house I assume I'll be doing this a lot more. My wife watches some absolute shit (TOWIE, Chelsea, Geordie, Jersey), and my running commentaries on any of these televisual abominations don't go down well at all, yet when I repeatedly sneak off to do my own thing I run the risk of being told I'm doing something wrong. She doesn't expect me to watch her programmes, and would probably laugh at me if I showed any interest in them, but there is an element of 'we wanna be togevva', so it's always good to find something we can both enjoy, although I don't like gaming during stuff I'm keen on watching with her (Gogglebox, Fargo, TruDet season 1, Bear Grylls' The Island). I'm waffling now. Basically, middle-tier TV is great for killing two birds with one stone. Dexter can fuck off, as can Sons of Anarchy and Lost, but I watched 7 seasons of them whilst faffing around with handhelds.

TheDJR

Explains your Trials performance.

acemuzzy

Yeah I guess the key is they both need to be ones that don't need full attention - so ideally both with peaks and lulls, and neither demanding too much brain power.

Sound is also relevant, so you know when to switch between the two (unless the game is fully turnbased, or has bits you can safely rest at). One issue i have there is i tend to use headphones. Not sure hoe I'd make that work with pc Netflix + wiiu game pad :-/

GooberTheHat

Xcom

acemuzzy

Ooh good shout, I even have that unplayed...

And SX2.

... and Hearthstone... would that qualify?

Bollockoff

Thread closed.

acemuzzy

Wait though, another factor on pc is a windowed mode so it fits onscreen with teh streaming...

tigersgogrrr

Oooh, Hearthstone is a good shout.

isanbard

Xenonauts is the only true Xcom. It also works in a turn based TV watching way.

vicinity_of_pie

acemuzzy wrote:

Yeah I guess the key is they both need to be ones that don't need full attention - so ideally both with peaks and lulls, and neither demanding too much brain power. Sound is also relevant, so you know when to switch between the two (unless the game is fully turnbased, or has bits you can safely rest at). One issue i have there is i tend to use headphones. Not sure hoe I'd make that work with pc Netflix + wiiu game pad

acemuzzy wrote:

Wait though, another factor on pc is a windowed mode so it fits onscreen with teh streaming...

Gonna list some reasons why KSP is perfect for this:
-You can take as much time as you need to build rockets/aircraft.
-You can pause at any moment.
-You can speed up/slow down time when you need to.
-There are very few times when you need to concentrate (launch, adjusting maneuvers, landings/docking), but even they become easy to do without thinking after a while.
-You can run it full-screen fine with Netflix on a second monitor/TV (though of course you can run it in windowed too), I use a mod that lets me mute the game at the press of a button. There's also one that lets you set alarms (which will automatically pause it for you) for when you need to pay attention.
-The game is awesome!

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