My friend group and I have a common term we throw around: "games for sickos". It's difficult to pin down an exact definition, but you know them when you see them: complex games that are fucked up in ways that make them prickly, or inaccessible, or frictional, but also fascinating to appreciate as a designer—and if you're the right kind of fucked up, maybe enjoyable to you too. It's a positive label, but it keeps in mind that a game is not for everyone. Armored Core is a game for sickos. Guilty Gear Xrd is a game for sickos. Pathologic is a game for sickos. Dwarf Fortress is a game for sickos. Final Fantasy XI is a game for sickos. And Space Station 14 is... well, you can guess.
Back in the early 2010s I played a lot of Garry's Mod DarkRP, which introduced me to the strangely compelling concept of working a virtual job in a role-playing environment where shit hit the fan every five minutes. I remember becoming a chef, decorating my cafe with my exquisite selection of props, and annoying everyone on the server by asking for money over the counter instead of granting direct access to the magic microwave oven that generated meals. Outside my front door, pitched gun battles took place and children screamed wild accusations at each other, but I was content to just be a background character.
Space Station 14 is that, but for absolutely terminal sickos.
Every inch of the space station, every inch of this game bristles with in-depth systems that demand attention. A normal server might have room for eighty players, and an overwhelming majority of those players will be responsible for some part of station life—administration, medical, engineering, science, cleaning, cargo, cooking, security, and probably quite a few crucial jobs I've completely forgotten. There are so many ways that things can go horribly wrong—and that's before even confronting the possibility that some unknown number of players have been secretly tasked with throwing a wrench into the works.
It's overwhelming. Of course it's overwhelming. Even if you just confine yourself to your little corner of society and try to fulfill your role, it's still overwhelming. Everyone's a tiny sprite rushing around, tinkering with the environment, searching for equipment, juggling items (or more likely, throwing them on the floor), trying to maintain their workspace and deal with the demands foisted upon them. Here I am trying to treat a case of severe space asphyxiation while the lights threaten to go out, half a dozen people argue over the intercom about the gaping hull breach in engineering, one of the patients runs off with their hospital bed, and... who let this clown into my office? Get out. GET OUT. AND STOP PLAYING A MIDI COVER OF THE MACARENA.
It's stressful, and scary, and constantly surprising, and often very very funny, but what surprises me the most is the people I've played with. This is the sort of game that feels tailor-made to eat new players alive, and while it is challenging to fulfill even the lowest-ranked roles, people seem to accept that chaos is the name of the game, and dying because the medical intern couldn't figure out how to hook up an oxygen mask to you is a pretty good story to go out on, anyway.
I'm a background character, and that's more than enough for me.
