Ledger — collected pages.
All five checklists, on one page
LISTS 05 · ITEMS 41 · SHEETS 2 when printed
Everything the five steps ask you to check, gathered in order. The page is styled to print on plain white paper, so the sensible way to use it is to print it once and keep it beside the computer while you work through the course.
How to use them
The boxes beside each item are printed marks. This site stores nothing in your browser — no cookies and no web storage of any kind — so a tick made on screen would vanish the moment you left the page. Rather than pretend otherwise, the lists are designed for a pen.
Do one list per sitting, in order, and do not start the next until the previous one is complete. The sequence is not decoration: Step 2 produces the five values that Step 3 and Step 4 both use, and Step 5 refers back to a sentence you wrote in the very first list on the home page. Skipping ahead costs you the thread.
Several items ask you to write something down rather than to do something. Those are the ones worth taking seriously. A written figure can be checked later; a resolution cannot. The two numbers in the final list — minutes a day and dollars a month — are the clearest example, because their whole function is to exist before the question is put to you rather than afterwards.
Items that send you to a public source are deliberately not summarised here. Classification markings, consumer guarantees and privacy rights change, and the authoritative version lives with the body responsible for it rather than on a page like this one. Following those links once takes a few minutes and means the facts you hold are current rather than remembered.
If you reach an item you cannot complete, leave it unticked and carry on. An unticked box is information too: it usually marks the part of the decision you have not actually made yet. Coming back to it a week later, with the rest done, is a perfectly ordinary way to use a workbook.
Nothing on these lists requires a purchase, an account on this site, or finishing anything. A reader who completes all five and decides against installing anything has used the course exactly as intended.
Haul summary
By the end of the five lists you should be holding five things: a one-sentence description of what the genre actually involves; five written values describing your computer; the classification and consumer advice for any title you are considering; a short record of what you agreed to and what it costs; and two numbers, in minutes and in Australian dollars, that you decided while nothing was being sold to you.
That is the whole haul. It is portable — it applies to the next game as well as this one — and it was assembled for nothing.
Before anything else
- Desktop tower, all-in-one or laptop — and Windows, macOS or Linux.
- Mine alone, or shared with other people in the household.
- Roughly how old the computer is, in years.
- How much free space the main drive reports today.
- One sentence on why I am curious about this kind of game at all.
Step 1 — What a collection RPG is
- I can say, in one sentence and without using the word “fantasy”, what the activity in a collection RPG is.
- I know what energy is and why it limits how long a session can be.
- I can name the difference between the soft currency and the hard currency, and I know which one is sold.
- I understand that new characters are usually acquired at random, and I have decided how I feel about that before starting.
- I have looked at classification.gov.au once, so I know where the markings and consumer advice come from.
- I have decided whether a short daily habit is something I want, and written the answer down.
- I have not installed anything yet.
Step 2 — Checking your desktop computer
- I have written down my processor, as the system reports it, including its generation.
- I have written down my installed memory in gigabytes.
- I have written down my graphics hardware, and I know whether it is integrated or separate.
- I have written down the free space on the drive I would install to.
- I have written down my operating system and its version.
- I have allowed a margin above any stated install size, rather than planning to the last gigabyte.
- I have checked whether my household connection is metered, and if so what the allowance is.
- I have let pending system updates finish before installing anything new.
Step 3 — Classification, terms and purchases
- I have found the title's classification entry and read the consumer advice, not just the marking.
- I have located the terms of service and run the five searches: terminate, inactive, refund, governing, modify.
- I know what happens to an account of mine that goes unused for a long time.
- I have read the privacy notice far enough to answer: what is collected, why, who else gets it, and whether it leaves Australia.
- I have checked whether listed prices are in Australian dollars or converted.
- I have checked whether anything on offer renews automatically.
- I have read the ACCC's page on consumer guarantees once, so I know what cannot be contracted away.
- I have decided to install only from the vendor's own site, and I have not registered yet.
Step 4 — Registering and installing
- I checked the address in the bar before registering or downloading anything.
- I chose the version matching my operating system.
- I used a password that is not used anywhere else, and saved it before submitting.
- I confirmed the account's email address.
- I checked the downloaded file's name and size before opening it.
- I read the installer screens and declined any additional software offered.
- I let the first launch finish fetching its content before judging anything.
- I completed the tutorial rather than skipping it.
- I wrote down the account email address, today's date, and my drive's free space afterwards.
Step 5 — Settling in, and leaving well
- I have written a minutes-per-day figure.
- I have written a dollars-per-month figure in AUD, and zero is allowed.
- I can name the four standard forms an offer takes.
- I have somewhere outside the game to keep one line per purchase.
- My account password is not used anywhere else.
- I have turned on two-factor authentication, or checked that it is not offered.
- I have dealt with stored payment details if the computer is shared.
- I have put a three-week review in my calendar.
- I know, in order, what leaving involves: cancel renewals, uninstall, check free space, decide about the account.