Covid-19 has turned things upside down. The first-order problems of the pandemic have left millions infected and nearly 200,000 dead. The others have led to school being cancelled, the closure of non-essential businesses, and social distancing measures becoming second nature.
Below are some of the sources of pleasure and distraction members of the Kotaku staff are turning to during the pandemic. And no, none of them include guzzling bleach.
Ian Walker
I recently bought the first three Picross S games in anticipation of Picross S4. Whenever I feel stressed out, I grab my Switch and finish a nonogram or two. Thereās something really therapeutic about putting my head down and focusing on some static numbers for a bit.
Nathan Grayson
Iāve been coping in precisely two waysāno more, no less. Foremost, I recently started playing Final Fantasy XIV and have been enjoying the heck out of my semi-regular adventures with friends. Iām not just talking about monster bopping, twisting, pulling, and passing, either. FFXIV players are some of the most creative Iāve ever encountered, and they use the gameās housing functionality to regularly throw parties and put on concerts. It may not be an IRL night out with friends, but with some whiskey on hand and another player ferrying us about in their Dragon Ball Z Capsule Corp-ass hovercraft, itās an adequate substitute.
Last week was my birthday, and we stumbled across a masterfully coordinated live show put on by a traveling troupe of Moogles. It was legitimately one of the best birthdays Iāve had in years:
retroactively re-declaring today my birthday on the basis that my amazing friends took me to a live ffxiv concert in which a bunch players dressed as moogles played freebird, and I cannot remember the last time I experienced such pure, overwhelming joy pic.twitter.com/AMiO6nvwZn
— Nathan Grayson (@Vahn16) April 18, 2020
The other, more important way Iāve been coping is by eating oranges THE WAY I LIKE, free of the general publicās PRYING EYES AND JUDGING GLARES:
peels are the best part of the orange, and everybody else in the world is wrong, actually https://t.co/TbNAyRQ4K0
— Nathan Grayson (@Vahn16) April 22, 2020
Stephen Totilo
Whatās helping me cope? Inventing new games with my kids. When youāre self-quarantined in one spot (in our case, a home that we were able to temporarily move into in small town Virginia) and you canāt go to playgrounds or art class or dance class or the museum or the toy store or….well you canāt go anywhere because of the āspecial rules,ā then youāve got to figure out how to make the most out of playing with what youāve got.
For half the day, every day, itās my turn to take care of our three-year-old twins, and so, for half the day, every day, Iām cooking up new ways to keep them happy, curious and active. Three days ago we used a bunch of big sticks outside to make a small house and then had mac and cheese lunch in it. Two days ago, we tied a bunch of ridable cars together to make small trains. Yesterday we turned some boxes into a garbage truck and then ādroveā through the house picking up trash. Bonus: Every day I get a good workout from throwing them in the air. And, get this, they still donāt know that video games exist.
The kids have no clue about whatās really going on right now, other that there are a lot of people who are sick. I think they think this is just a weird, long period of time with no nanny, lots of mom and dad and new games every day. If putting myself in a plank position between two beds, declaring Iām a āDaddy bridgeā and having them giggle their heads off as they crawl across me makes them happy, then thatās what Iām doing (as long as Iām smart enough to mute the phone if I maybe not so hypothetically have to do that while on a work conference call). Keeping them happy keeps me going during the toughest days.
Ethan Gach
Without close contact with friends or family Iāve struggled to stay grounded these last few weeks. Being incredibly online for both my job and based on my natural instincts hasnāt helped at all and if anything has made it worse.
In times like this when almost everything sucks I find myself taking refuges in the past and future. On the one hand that means a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is an old show thatās also about a far-flung and much more hopeful future. My partner and I watch it every night. We find the charactersā familiar and predictable ticks comforting, and the incomprehensible techno-babble soothing.
When it comes to games I find myself drifting back toward the PS1 and PS2. My PS2 Slim can play games from both eras, letting me slip deep into some of the best and densest JRPGs ever created, and best of all it doesnāt hook up to the internet. Thereās no discourse to grapple with reminding me that my Animal Crossing island is trash or that I donāt have the best loot. Just me, the controller, and the distant memories stored on an 8MB memory card.
Currently at the top of my retro-pile is Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne which I finally picked up at the end of last year. Itās a poster child for the type of JRPG Iād heard stories about back in the early aughts but never had the chance to get my hands on: stylish, heady, and emo as hell. Playing it is like time traveling back to a version of my life Iād sometimes day-dreamt about where I had a PS2 in my room and no shortage of nights to sink into the most niche games. Nocturne even comes with a trailer for the equally intriguing Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga. Itās full of demons, destruction, and heartfelt embraces, stuff meant to be unnerving on its own but which set me at ease when accessed from the main menu of a 17-year-old disc.
Riley MacLeod
When New York City truly locked down in response to coronavirus, I started baking compulsively. Literally: Iād pull a loaf of bread out of the oven, wander my apartment in a daze for 10 minutes, then start on some cookies. I had to ban myself from my kitchen for a few days to break the panicked cycle. Even before this, I loved to cook and to think about food; now, stuck at home, cooking feels like one of the few sources of pleasure and newness I have left. Baking and cooking have become less soothing given the stress of going to the store, plus lying awake at night thinking about the effects coronavirus is having on our national foodways, farm workers, and restaurants, but still.
Earlier this week, walking home in a spring rain with a bundle of food from a temporary CSA share, I looked down at a carton of eggs in my hands and burst into tears. I cried over the fragility of these speckled brown things laid by local chickens going about their bird business despite the despair of the human world. I cried about how I had deluded myself that my purchase would help local farmers or offset the damage of factory farming or any million ways we try to turn purchasing into agency. I cried that I could afford food and have a place to cook it in when so many people donāt. I cried about all the delicious things I could turn the eggs into and how happy I would be to eat those things. I wandered home sobbing and dreaming about how I would transform my haul, turning the joy, suffering, and work of people and animals and the earth into apple muffins, parsnip cake, greens on socca, kimchi jjigae.
One thing I love about cooking is how everythingāthe ingredients, the recipe, the cooking toolsācomes from somewhere, how it can feel like practically the whole world combines into something I get to eat. Eating a solitary meal makes me feel, paradoxically, less alone. Thatās a hard feeling to come by these days, and Iām grateful for it.
Alexandra Hall
Hearing āvery onlineā conjures notions of irony-poisoned 20/30-somethings trafficking in esoteric memes birthed of Weird Twitter. (Basically my friend Norah, bless her.) But Iām another flavor of very online: For 20 years my natural state has been sitting at a PC. Whether working or just zoning out, I spend a large portion of each day sitting here navigating hyperlinks to absorb silly amounts of information via a heavily customized Firefox.
Part of itās habit. Part of itās ADD making it hard to switch tasks. And part of it is just that itās damn comfortable to slip into that (cyber)zone and while away the time until the next RL obligation or bodily need pulls me back out.
Before covid-19 I continually endeavored to find ways to reduce my āscreen time,ā which usually took the form of āofflineā activities such as reading books. In theory, at leastāagain, ADD. I had more luck with physical stuff, most of all badminton. I started playing around 5 years ago and hitting the courts with some sporty new friends quickly became a highlight of my week.
But thatās gone for now, as are most of the similar adaptations I engineered into my life to pull me away from the cyberbeast. So Iāve adjusted to this newly housebound lifestyle by simply reverting to baseline, clocking ridiculous numbers of hours at the keyboard. While Iām trying not to judge myself too harshly for it, itās challenging since Iām also very good at self-flagellation. (I picked a weird character build.)
For better or worse, this is my comfortable place. When the crisis subsides I can resume those efforts to strike a better balance. I look forward to that. But these days Iām grateful just to be OK. For now, thatās more than enough.
https://kotaku.com/how-to-work-from-home-1842144908
Ari Notis
Um… what if youāre not keeping it together?
I know, a few weeks back, some doctors recommended not drinking, which of course drew a fair share of deserved snark on Twitter and elsewhere. But also: doctors of America, come on! Iām confined to 1,000 square feet with three other humans, two very bad cats, and one earth-shattering crisis. What am I supposed to do, not drink? So, yeah, I imagine many of our colleagues will give you more thoughtful responses. My answer, simply, is bourbon.
Iāve really been getting a kick out of the new flavors: mango, tangerine, watermelon (so refreshing, and will be perfect for summer hangs in 2023), lemon (finally, expanding past lime). Thereās also a brand-new pineapple flavor, which is easily the tastiest but also has the lowest ABV. Best of all, each can is under 100 calories? Are you kidding me? Forget the doctors. Next to Final Fantasy VII Remake, bourbon is the best thing right now.
Zack Zwiezen
Iāve had a nice little patio at my apartment and never used it all that much. We sat out there now and then for dinner or if the weather was amazing. But now, trapped at home day after day after day, Iāve realized just how lucky I am to have a quiet spot outside, where I can sit and just… be out in the world.
I like to just go out there these days and get away from everything inside. The news, Twitter, video games, TV, all of it. Even if only for 10 minutes, it feels like this nice reminder that it aināt a wasteland out there. The world is still spinning. Birds are still singing, rain still falls and the breeze is still nice. And thatās a nice thing to be reminded of every so often during these dark days.
Chris Person
Iām coping with the quarantine by getting mental about computer projects like Iām 16. My cramped desk is now covered with about three different interfaces, a mic stand and lights. I wall mounted my monitor, my speakers, a black magic camera, and am about to wall mount my PS4 Pro. I set up my computer to have 5 gigabit LAN for no discernible reason and turned it into hackintosh dual boot that crashes a lot. Why the fuck do I know what a kext is now? Who let me create a custom USB SSDT without an intervention? I donāt fuckinā know. āIām considering switching from Clover to Open Core,ā I mutter to an uncaring god.
welcome….to the gamer lair pic.twitter.com/tBljzyMSuK
— chris person (@Papapishu) April 16, 2020
We got DDR mats a while back and my roommate has set up every depraved StepMania pack known to man. I finally set up room-scale VR and a friend is creating a deeply awful model humanly to put into Beat Saber as an avatar. Iām actively considering learning Unreal Engine just to fuck around with compositing. You donāt even WANNA know the kind of horseshit Iām planning with Docker. By the end of this, I will be gaming while floating like Baron Harkonen, surrounded by monitors like in Serial Experiments Lain, an Intel RealSense Depth Camera piping AR information into Unity and then back into OBS via NDI just so I can stream while wearing Joker makeup. You are witness to a great becoming.
Also! Really good oolong tea. I highly recommend Mao Xie or āHairy Crabā as itās also known.
Maddy Myers
The past year was pretty stressful for me even before the covid-19 pandemic. Now that weāre in the midst of a pandemic, dealing with that personal stress has not gotten any easier. Then again, Iāve been in deep states of depression before, so I am at least familiar with the sensation of nothing feeling fun. This is just another one of those times. It feels bad. But I know it will pass. Or at least I have to tell myself that in order to get through it.
Due to all of that, I wouldnāt necessarily say Iām āenjoyingā Final Fantasy VII Remake. But the experience of playing it allows me to briefly feel just a little bit of neutral nothingness. I get to think to myself, āThis is not actively bad. This is not harming me.ā And thatās a relief in its own way.
One big reason why Final Fantasy VII Remake can provide me that sense of neutral comfort is Cloudās face. Sure, Tifaās gorgeous, Aerithās adorable, and have you seen Barret without the sunglasses? What a knockout! Everybodyās hot in this game. But Cloudās beautiful face takes the cake. His sad eyes hammer home his story of recovering from trauma and learning how to love again. Maybe thatās why I like looking at his face so much right now. Cloud is in pain; Iām in pain. I donāt look as good as he does while Iām doing it, but thatās okay.
Luke Plunkett
Having worked from home for so long, Iāve already got loads of little rituals that I build my day around and help me schedule stuff. Making coffee is the best of those, but over the last few weeks I have got very into making nice ramen too. Slicing the spring onions and sprinkling them on top, making sure I get the boiled egg just right, turning fridge leftovers into gourmet little additions, it not only gives me a lilā zen-like break from work (and kids being home, kill me), but is starting to taste real damn good as well.
Heather Alexandra
I havenāt read anyone elseās entry because I donāt give a damn. Someoneās probably mentioned their cat and I bet someoneās had the gall to be like āIām playing a AAA game,ā even though thatās what we already do for work. My answer is not creative though: The thing Iām doing to really get by is cooking.
A lot of folks think you need tons of practice to cook great food but the answer is that you mostly need to risk a trip to the bodega, grab some fresh stuff, and follow your heart. Eggs are pretty versatile and if you wanna leave this quarantine up a waist size, pasta has limitless possibilities. The internet makes learning good recipes stupidly easy too. My recommendations? Andrew Rea at Binging With Babish cooks food inspired by your favorite moviesāweāre Twitter mutuals but I wonāt make a fuss about it. NBD, NBDāand restaurateur J. Kenji LĆ³pez-Alt is stuck at home and uploading stuff on the reg. He is an astoundingly smart chef and his recipes are easy to emulate. No knead bread, egg drop soup, hardcore smash burgers, arepas guajiras. You name it, heās got a quick and easy way to make it.
Give it a try. Fuck it, you can star by adding chives and goat cheese to your scrambled eggs You might be scared the first time you break down a chicken or whatever but after a week or so, youāll be the MVP of the apartment.
Brian Ashcraft
I do miss going to arcades. Even though I can play ports of a lot of my favorite arcade games at home, I miss the sights, sounds, and smells of walking into an arcade here in Japan. Techno World, a game center in Iwate, Japan, has posted over four hours of ambient noise from its arcade. You can hear the different sounds and music the machines make, and Iāve found it comforting. While working, Iāll play the clip as background music. When this is all over, I cannot wait to visit an arcade.
