Sniper 3D: A tale of obsession and reclamation
It’s been a while since I wrote something that’s not cricket, movies, or TV Shows. Before we begin, I want to clarify that I’m not a gamer per se. I have played a few renowned games to some extent which I believe will make me qualify as an amateur or at least a beginner gamer. Hence, don’t pick on me if my little experience doesn’t count as an obsession in your point of view.
Before we begin, What’s Obsession?
An idea or thought of being preoccupied with a certain person, habit or a thing which on a prolonged time can cause distressing emotions such as anxiety or disgust.
Over the years, I have been obsessed with different girls, celebrities, particular habits(like watching TV Shows) and lately Sniper 3D. Some examples are I couldn’t leave out a TV Show in the middle even if it’s terribly bad. I lean on to follow an even number pattern in anything I do. I hate waiting for calls from people I like as it would lead to overthinking and cause anxiety over “being forgotten”.
To escape the above said distressing emotions and terrible experiences, I tend to stay away from people and I have quite a firm daily plan missing out which will disrupt the successive plans in the schedule. Hence I try to keep all the activities under my control and the people at distance to avoid emotional injuries.
I have been able to suppress those thoughts in the past with practice of diversion. Even then, I often find myself prey to it over a new thing, habit or a person. This is one such experience where I got obsessed with a game.
How did it start?
About a month or so before, I came out of TV Show obsession after one of my pals guilt-tripped me over the habit. I restricted the schedule to only 2 episodes if it’s a series or only one movie per day. It has been swift so far as I have been able to control the urge of “one more episode” to a decent level. Being so, the recently concluded Roland Garros made me want to play tennis. I don’t have any games in phone and decided to try out some tennis games. I installed different games and played them for a day or two. During the same, I came across the Sniper 3D game which I have played back during my college days. I uninstalled all the tennis games and installed the Sniper 3D game.
Why was I obsessed?
To those who don’t know, Sniper 3D is a shooting game where you are a sniper assigned to take out the evil in the city. The game contain umpteen missions and different modes of play to keep a player hooked. I have always loved its visuals. The visuals of the bullet traveling from the gun and breaking open the skull of the target in slow motion will be truly stunning. Also, the gameplay is easily understandable without much complications.
So here’s something about gameplay that got me obsessed?
There are 22 level with 45 missions(40 normal and 5 special) in each. Besides, there’s 2 more type called World Ops and PvP Arena. World Ops is a weekly competition to collect(shoot) more skulls at a global level with checkpoints that offer rewards on reaching a particular target. PvP Arena is sort of like PUBG where you will be placed at the top of a building with 7 other shooters like you and have to kill them as many times as you can in 2 minutes and gather points to raise through the leaderboard which inturn will help you climb through the leagues.
Normal missions have a maximum of 10 lives with each life respawn time being 10 minutes. World Ops and PvP arena have 5 lives with each life respawn time being 20 minutes. So here’s how I got obsessed. When I finish my 10 lives in normal missions, I switch to World Ops and complete the 5 lives there. Once its done, I switch to PvP to finish the 5 lives there. By this time, the normal mission would have respawned 2 lives when I come back, finishing the lives in World Ops and PvP. Also due to my obsessional characteristics, I wasn’t able to come out after a couple of games in World Ops or PvP leaving out the lives in an incomplete manner. I had to use up all the 5. This was the major point that got me obsessed with the game. So if I entered Sniper 3D, it would easily suck the next 30–45 minutes of my time.
Obsession:
The stunning visuals wanted me to play more. The missions were at the right amount of difficulty so that an user will find it competitive at the same time achievable thus offering a deluded hope. The habit that started as a casual thing to kill time became greedy and spoiled my daily plans by eating more time than it should. Over time, I started calculating the amount of time left for respawn completion and altered my plans accordingly. It also spoiled my sleep to a noticeable level. After months of training, I have been able to sleep by 1–1.30 pm. Due to the obsession, the sleep was delayed by an hour or so thus denting my next day plans as well. I sensed this horrific change a week back. Yet, as with any habit I wasn’t able to give up easily.
Reclamation:
Eventually, like with any past cases I was able to get rid of this habit as well. The guilt over spending more time on the game made me feel bad over myself. Despite that, I couldn’t remove the game from my phone. I started gathering points on what I would miss out if I uninstalled the game. As with any case in this universe, it embarked upon me that none of it really matters. Sniper 3D is just another game like numerous other games. It was supposed to be a fun time pass, the line which I have crossed many days back. Now it all offered me angst over failure of missions or battle making me ache for success leading to more distraint over a simple materialistic thing that hardly matters. All these thoughts aided in gathering will to uninstall the game and eventually I did it.
48 odd hours since I have removed the game. There has been a frequent urge to install it back which I have been dodging pretty well and with the progress of time the urge frequency has declined to a larger extent and I believe I have got rid of the habit.
This is just a little anecdotal experience over one of many obsession I have had. It wasn’t meant to inspire you but if it does, happy.
