There’s an Aztec city building game called Tlatoani. It’s in early access, but has enough meat on the bone that it’s one of my goto games.
Out of curiosity I checked Steam DB for active player numbers. I have discovered at any given point I am 10% to 25% of the given player base BY MYSELF. I am 1 of 4 people playing this game right now in the world. With the prevalence of the internet I always assume whatever weird bullshit you’re into there’s at least a thousand people talking about it; making memes outsiders could never comprehend. It’s actually novel to fly under the radar for once.
What do you do that doesn’t have a community associated with it?
Making almost all of my food from whole ingredients.
The most processed ingredient that I would use is corn flour and such, or maybe cheese. I’m not gonna find wheat or whole dried corn and fire up a grindstone lol. But yeah everything is made from the whole ingredients to the greatest degree reasonable. An example I think everyone can relate to is ketchup … If I want it I start with fresh tomatoes and a cutting board.
But yeah it’s fun as hell for me - a wonderful blend of nerdy science & chemistry, plus that beautiful artistic side which allows me to be a rule-breaking creator.
Most people think its cuckoo that I ferment my own peppers for hot sauce, make tortillas from scratch, braise my meats for hours, cut and desiccate potatoes for fries, pickle various vegetable concoctions, make mustards, fry my own chips for nachos…
I love the hell out of the craft but many think I’m a little overboard. Fair enough. No family, kids, girlfriend, mostly a loner… I got time plus it’s super fucking nerdy and process-driven (in many ways) if you lean into it that way!
I also developed some great “systems” so I can batch cook, and its become so routine after 5 years that I’ve slip-streamed it all into my daily puttering so its like hours of time overall, but minutes of actual work.