I don’t tend to care a huge amount about Steam Achievements. You know, those little optional objectives in video games that the Steam platform keeps track of for you, so you can feel like you’ve done something worthwhile instead of just played a video game for several hours?
My partner cares. Collecting all the Steam Achiements is more-or-less the main way she interacts with video games. I occasionally will go out of my way to get one if it sounds like a particularly fun challenge, or if I was derping around in the neighbourhood anyway, or if I only have a couple left to get, but otherwise, I don’t tend to pay that much attention. It’s just not what I’m usually playing the game for.
As a result, most of the games in my Steam library are ones where I think I probably could earn all the Achievements in-game, but I probably never will.
But here’s a completely different and significantly more absurd question: how many of them do I think I could earn in real life? What proportion of the Achievements across the various games in my personal Steam library do I think I could fulfil the listed requirements for out here in physical meatspace?
There’s only one way to find out, so I’m going to start at the beginning with the first game alphabetically in my Steam library.
80 Days is a delightful and surprisingly dense steampunk reimagining of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days – with bits of a few other Jules Verne stories mixed in on certain routes. You play as Passepartout, manservant of Philius Fogg, in a quest to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days or less. En route, you may travel in a wide variety of intriguingly described steampunk vehicles, stumble into various distracting adventures, and perhaps even fall in love.
It’s a very cute and admirably designed game, which I unfortunately have not played very much because the Eighty In-game Days countdown timer is always going, with no option to pause while you consider your options, and I am bad at dealing with that kind of stress. Thus, I only have exactly three of the Achievements – one for making it around the world, one for visiting the World’s Fair in Paris, and one for visiting over 20 cities in a single trip.
But how many of its Achievements could I theoretically meet the criteria for in real life? I have compiled a list.
Achievemnts I Have Already Fulfilled in Real Life
The Ocean Floor: Walk the ocean floor
Technically speaking, any piece of ground which is submerged by the waters of an ocean at low tide is, definitionally, part of “the ocean floor”. I have paddled beyond the low tide mark of the sea on a couple of different beaches during my time. Technically counts!
Achievements I Could Fulfil in Real Life if I Tried
20 Cities: Visit at least 20 cities in a single trip
There are more than 20 cities in the UK. There’s, like, seventy-something, in fact. I could take an extremely lengthy zig-zaggy train trip through all of them if I really wanted to.
Completed Trip: Travel all the way around the world
This one would require flying to Australia and back, which is pricey but not completely out of my conceivable price range.
80 Days: Complete the trip in 80 days or less
It only takes a matter of hours to fly to Australia. I could probably get there and back in a day or two if I were willing to book in advance.
70 Days: Complete the trip in 70 days or less
See above.
60 Days: Complete the trip in 60 days or less
See above.
No Banks: Travel all the way around the world without using a bank
It doesn’t actually say you can’t have already taken all your money out of the bank before you start, nor does it say you can’t book all flights and hotels in advance. Heck, it doesn’t even say you can’t use a credit card.
30 Cities: Visit at least 30 cities in a single trip
Again, that’s just an arduous trip around the UK.
50 Days: Complete the trip in 50 days or less
Still way longer than two long-haul flights.
He is Lost!: Have Monsieur Fogg die
Monsieur Fogg is fictional and public domain, so I could have him die in a story I wrote pretty easily. This is almost certainly the easiest one on here that I haven’t already done.
As Far as the Moon: Travel Over 239,000 Miles in Total
The average human apparently walks about 74,500 miles in their lifetime. Add in all the journeys taken by car, public transport, etc, plus the occasional holiday on a boat or a plane, and 239,000 “in total” seems like something you could absolutely do by accident. I don’t know that I will, but I could if I tried.
Despair in Vienna: Ruin the Life of a Man in Vienna
There’s a lot of men in Vienna, and I bet several of them have extremely ruinable lives. If I really put my mind to it, I bet I could figure out how to get a guy addicted to heroin even with a language barrier in the way.
Turn the Tide of War: Aid the Belgrade resistance
Doesn’t specify which resistance, or how you aid them. I don’t know anything about Belgrade, but I assume there are anti-government political activists there, same as any city in the world. Do I think I could find one on my first night there? No. Do I think I could in theory travel there, find such an activist, and donate them some money before I went completely bankrupt and had to go back home? Probably.
Love in London: Find true love waiting for you on your return to London
I have a couple of friends in London, and technically I have been there before so any future visits would be a “return”. I cannot necessarily guarantee that any of my London-based friends truly love me, but if nothing else I could always adopt an affectionate dog, take it to London, leave it with someone while I go out on a day trip, and then return to London to reunite with the dog. Sorted.
40 Days: Complete the trip in 40 days or less
Still pretty easy.
The Summit of Mount Elbrus: Visit the secret observatory of Mount Elbrus
There actually is an observatory on Mount Elbrus in real life, and you can hike to it. I dithered a little on whether it’s fair to count that observatory as “secret”, but the internet says it isn’t usually open to the public so I’m counting it.
No Hotels: Travel all the way around the world without using a hotel
A youth hostel is not technically a hotel, so even if I couldn’t get same-day flight timetabling to work I could still do this.
Barelling Forward: Go over Niagara Falls!
Niagara Falls is actually kinda famous for having people jump the barriers. There’s a Wikipedia page about it. Doesn’t say you have to survive.
Achievements I May or May Not have a Chance at in Real Life
The World’s Fair: Visit the World’s Fair in Paris
The Bureau Internationale des Expositions hasn’t held any kind of World’s Fair in Paris since 1969, but they hold a new one somewhere in the world every few years so it could happen in Paris again within my lifetime.
Saved from the Noose: Rescue a man from hanging
It doesn’t say he needs to be being hanged by the state – in fact it doesn’t even say you can’t hang him yourself and then cut him down before he dies – but even so, I don’t know whether I could feasibly arrange to be in the same place as a man being hanged, let alone succesfully rescue one. Not impossible, but doubtful.
Crack the Case: Bring a murderer to justice using your powers of deduction
Technically speaking, all this would require would be for me to see a person acting suspicious, hear about a murder in the area, put two and two together and tip off the police, and for that tip-off to then not only prove correct but also lead to a succesful conviction. Not a likely sequence of events, but not impossible.
Love in the Ice: Reignite love in the frozen north
I’m not a relationship counsellor. If I were to move to northern Canada and make a hobby of trying to salvage failing romances, I can only imagine my success rate would be minimal. But it might not be zero. So I’m putting this one down as a ‘maybe’.
Flying High: Become intimate with an airship
Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently, that’s something you can do in this game.
Okay, look, I don’t want to, both because it sounds physically unpleasant and because someone might catch me doing it. But I could, in theory, make some kind of attempt to fuck an airship. If I had to.
A Career in Journalism: File a news story in the Times
I’m a decent writer, so I think I probably could become a qualified journalist if I were willing to dedicate several years of study to it. Even if I did, though, could I necessarily get a piece into The Times? Unlikely, but – crucially – still not impossible.
Betray a Soul: Betray a living creature to the Didacian nuns
In real life, ‘Didacian’ just refers to followers of St Didacus. According to Wikipedia, a “strong devotion” to St Didacus still exists in several places in Spain. Could I, theoretically, discover (or engineer) a situation where someone or something was trying to hide from some Spanish nuns, and subsequently intervene on the side of the nuns? Sure, maybe, but it sounds like something kind of out of my control.
Achievements which are Possible in Real Life but which I Personally Could Not Do
Lightweight Champion: Become an American boxing champion
I am white enough to probably get American citizenship if I tried, but I weigh the same as an average teenage girl and have consistently lost arm wrestling contests to them. I have been in one physical fight in my life, and I went down in one hit.
From Earth to the Moon: Launch for the Moon!
I’m smart, but I’m not “work at NASA” smart.
A Life of Crime: Embark on a life of crime in the company of the world’s greatest jewel thief
Doris Payne has not returned my calls.
A Night in the Ruins: Spend the night in Machu Picchu
I looked it up; the staff make you leave after 4 hours, and I’m not very good at hiding from tour guides.
Achievements which are Simply Impossible in Real Life
Take That Varmit: Knock out Jesse James
Yes, they spell it ‘varmit’ here for some reason. Anyway, it’s pretty clear that in context they mean Jesse Woodson James, the outlaw, who died in 1882. Technically speaking one could theoretically knock out Jesse Gregory James the gun dealer, or indeed just name your pet dog Jesse James and then knock it out, but, come on, everyone knows that if you say “Jesse James”, without specifying further, you mean the famous dead one. We like to stick to the Rule of Stones around here (“a sandwich is any item for which, if you told people it was not a sandwich, they would throw stones at you”).
Under the Sea: Travel beneath the ocean waves with a certain infamous captain
In context, “a certain infamous captain” is clearly Captain Nemo, who is fictional. You could maybe argue the wording is ambiguous enough that any captain who was both “certain” and “infamous” would count, but, look, in the modern day captains can be either “infamous” or “allowed to travel in a submarine” but not both.
Aboard the Kawhoka Othunwe: Travel across the northern wastes aboard the Floating Reservation
“Floating Reservation” is a clever pun – in the game it’s a First Nations reservation which floats, but in real life it’s an unassigned room booking. Unfortunately, there is no way to cross any northern wastes “aboard” an unassigned room booking.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth: Descend into the heart of the Earth itself
It’s hot down there.
The Greatest Treasure: Enter the secret vault of the Artificers
So far as I can find, capital-A ‘Artificers’ don’t exist in real life. Lower-case artificers exist, and some of them might have secret vaults one could enter, but we care about our capitalisations around here.
The Artificer’s Rescue: Save an Artificer and her device from falling into the wrong hands
See above. I briefly considered arguing that “an Artificer” could colloquially refer to “a person who plays an Artificer in D&D”, but, no, I think the Rule of Stones would kick in there.
Final Tally
1 Achievement I’ve already earned in real life. (2.86% of the total)
17 that I could. (48.57%)
7 that I maybe could. (20%)
4 that I personally could not. (11.43%)
6 that no-one could. (17.14%)
Meaning that, in total, I could pull off 51.43% to 71.43% of the Steam Achievements for 80 Days in real life.
That’s more than half! Is that normal? I don’t know! This is the first one of these I’ve done!
Guess we’ll find out!
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The Court of Ranternal Affairs 