My Real-life OCD Diagnosis Makes Me Thankful for The Blood of Dawnwalker

My OCD is a lot more under control than it was a decade ago, thanks to weekly therapy and a lot of work (thank your local behavioral health expert). I am now able to play open world games a lot more easily than I could before.

There was a time, back in college, where I had to force myself to essentially ignore all side quests in a game like The Witcher 3 just so I could get through it. Otherwise I'd get stuck trying to 100% the entire map.

This is a habit I still have – that desire to "see it all" – but I am just the tiniest bit more disciplined. Even so, I do struggle with big games sometimes, which is why I deeply appreciate The Blood of Dawnwalker.

If you're unfamiliar, The Blood of Dawnwalker is a vampire game that sees you adventure through the world in both day and night. During the day, you're a witchy-dude capable of hexing baddies and causing mischief with magic. But by night, you're a blood-starved beast that can rip an enemy apart with your bare hands. You can turn into a wolf — or smoke — to make travel faster. Then there's the blood-hunger mechanic, where you can accidentally eat people you care about if you're not careful. It's a great time.

But the most controversial part of Dawnwalker is how you get from day to night. See, Dawnwalker has an almost Persona-like time mechanic, where you have a certain number of pips for your daytime and nighttime. Doing things, like quests or even learning new skills, costs pips. So destroying some barrels or opening a gate might spend most of your daily allowance of time pips, meaning you'll suddenly find that it's nighttime by the time you finish your quest.