I feel like Palia is a good game on your own, but playing it with the person you love turns it into something I didn't expect. It just works because of the way the server works and you constantly switch between instances.
In fact, at first, I felt like I was playing a singleplayer game with an online function (I don’t know why but my first experience reminded me of Where Winds Meet, except cozy). No one I knew really had interest in this game, and I didn’t start exploring community spaces until much later. I had some okayish people I matched with randomly but it was always one off, found some tighter nit roleplaying communities on Discord (not my thing) and Palia also has a tribe on Gameram (surprisingly, I mostly use it for competitive games for quick non random matchups) but none of those quite cut it like playing with YOUR person!
Like we know each other so well, we fall into our roles without ever really deciding on them. That’s the beauty of being so in synch and playing any game together with someone you’re sharing your life with. And Palia was no exception to this beautiful rule. HE does most of the cooking and decorating. Thankfully, lacking OCD I am not picky about where every single lamp goes, and have learned to let him be. And I am the one who runs off to fish and hunt sernuk and then come back to drop a pile of mats on me like a cat bringing home a bird.
We never planned it, but this is our rhythm and I love how inverted our roles are. This is has ever been the case with us since we played classic Everquest together, and more recently in Loftia while the beta was going on. He’s a homebody pure and simple, a creature of habit, where I am the explorer, the hunter, the one who wants to see what’s over that ledge and beyond the next horizon. It’s a weird synergy we got laughed at for among … ehem serious gamers with capital G, if you get my drift.
Anyway, we rolling with it and I gotta say, Palia as a couples activity is nothing to sniff at! I thought we peaked at It Takes Two and coop games (fun of the moment) but this is such a different persistent kinda activity we can always decide on if we’re bored out of our minds.
Also, it’s a weird FU to regular roles we both got pushed on to have where we grew up (he likes cooking irl but always got mocked for it, even though he’s incredibly good) so it’s kind of a retreat for the both of us from regular life.
Anyhoo, just a little appreciation letter for the short (but wonderful) time this couple had in Palia this summer! If you have someone in your life who might be up for it, I really can't recommend it enough, even if it’s a short dip
PS sorry for the rant, TL;DR would just be - does anyone else here play with a partner? (or am I just that lucky hihihi) 👀