2023-04-27
I keep playing this game regularly. I enjoy it immensely in single player and multiplayer alike and I'm not just going down the rabbit hole; I'm actively digging it deeper.
I've already mentioned that I've made my own mod for it, called Tea Tea Deluxe. That was some time ago by now, of course. A lot has happened since.
I took part in a 100 player experiment which was great fun.
I found Master Hellish, who's made some fantastic tutorial videos for the game.
Potato McWhiskey also has a couple of fun OpenTTD videos.
I've also started a little silly project that I call Tea Land. It's a multiplayer map combined with an in-character newspaper which gives the game a role-playing aspect.
But arguably the best and most important thing I've done is to donate to the project. For the past... uhm... probably 15 years my total cost of video games for my own sake has been 0. In that time I've bought a game for a PS 3, a Nintendo Switch, and 2 or 3 games for the latter. Some mobile games have also been purchased for small sums. But those were all for the kiddos, or for playing with the kiddos. I've spent absolute nothing on games for my own enjoyment.
How much do you spend on games? I think one AAA title with a couple of DLCs a year sounds like modest spending for an active gamer to me, but I don't really know. Let's assume it is. How many hours of enjoyment do you get from that? Again, I don't really know.
But I do know that OpenTTD has given me more than 200 hours of enjoyable play time so far. This isn't all it's done for me. I like the community. I've had great fun making my mod. It's taken me to fun livestreams.
Definitely worth about as much as a AAA title and a couple of DLCs would cost.
If you want to donate to OpenTTD too, then this is the place to go.
Donating to open source projects that bring you value is generally a good idea. You don't have to donate much or regularly, and not to every software you use. If you toss a penny in a tip jar today you've contributed. Santa counts it when he compiles the nice children list.
-- CC0 Björn Wärmedal