Subtle Plane

All checklists

Six checklists: one to do before you start, and one from the end of each of the five steps. They are laid out to print on ordinary A4 paper with the boxes empty.

How to use them

The boxes are printed, not interactive. Nothing on this site remembers which items you have done, because this site stores nothing in your browser at all — no cookies, no saved progress, no account. That is a deliberate choice, and the practical effect is that these lists work best on paper, with a pen.

Work through them in order. The first list is preparation and takes about ten minutes. Lists one to five follow the course, and each assumes the one before it is finished: Step 2's comparison against a requirements table only makes sense once you have written down what your computer contains, and Step 4's spending ceiling only means something once there is an account it applies to.

Not every line will apply to you. If nobody under eighteen will use the account, skip those lines without ceremony. If you have decided you will never spend money inside a game, the Step 4 list shrinks to looking up the classification and writing a zero. The lists are a prompt to think about each thing once, not a standard to be met.

A few of the items ask you to write something down rather than to do something. Those are the ones people are most tempted to skip, and they are the ones that pay off later. The six lines describing your computer will save you twenty minutes every time you consider any game. The spending ceiling, dated, is the only version of a budget that survives contact with a shop.

If you are helping someone else — a parent, a teenager, a flatmate — print two copies and work through them together rather than doing it for them. The point of a checklist is that the person who will live with the result is the person who ticks the boxes.

Finally: finishing these lists does not commit you to anything. You can complete all six, decide the game is not for you, and have lost nothing but an hour. That is a perfectly good outcome, and it is one of the reasons the course puts the questions before the installation rather than after it.

Before you start

  • Find out what is inside your computer and write down six lines: operating system, processor, memory, graphics, free storage, and whether the system is 64-bit.
  • Decide which email address you will use for game accounts, and keep it separate from banking and work.
  • Agree a spending figure with yourself, even if the figure is zero dollars.

Step 1 — What free to play actually means

  • Write down which of the three payment models the game uses: up-front, subscription, or free to play.
  • Find the game's own platform line and copy it down word for word, including the operating systems named.
  • List three things the game's page states as fact, and three things it implies without stating.
  • Write down one question the page did not answer, and where you will look for the answer.
  • Decide whether this is a game you will play alone or with other people in your household, and note who.
  • Check whether anyone under eighteen will be using the account.
  • Write the sentence “I have not installed anything yet” and leave it true until Step 2 is finished.

Step 2 — Will it run on your computer

  • Confirm which operating system your computer runs, and that the game lists it.
  • Write down the processor line in full, including the model number.
  • Write down the installed memory in gigabytes.
  • Write down the name of your display adapter.
  • Write down the free space on the drive where programs install.
  • Open the vendor's current requirements table and mark each figure as above, at, or below the minimum column.
  • Check whether your internet plan has a data allowance, and estimate whether the download fits inside it.
  • Decide where you will get the installer, and confirm it is the publisher's own site or an established platform.
  • If anything is below minimum, stop and reconsider rather than installing and hoping.

Step 3 — Accounts and email confirmation

  • Decide which email address the account will use, and confirm you can open that mailbox.
  • Choose a display name that identifies no person, school or workplace.
  • Create a password of at least four unrelated words, used for nothing else.
  • Record the password in a password manager or somewhere physically safe.
  • Leave every optional field on the form blank.
  • Read the publisher's privacy policy, looking for collection, sharing and overseas storage.
  • Open the confirmation email and check the sender domain and the link destination before clicking.
  • Confirm the address, then log in once to check that the account works.
  • Turn on two-factor authentication if the publisher offers it.
  • If the player is under eighteen, agree who holds the password and whose address receives receipts.

Step 4 — Classification and spending

  • Look the title up on the Australian Classification Board's site and write down the rating, the consumer advice and the decision date.
  • Identify which in-game currencies are earned and which are purchased.
  • Convert one typical in-game price back into Australian dollars.
  • Find out whether any purchasable item has randomised contents.
  • Write a spending ceiling in dollars for the first three months, and date it.
  • Decide whether a payment method will be stored on the account, and prefer not storing one.
  • Check where purchase receipts are sent, and that somebody reads that mailbox.
  • If anything renews automatically, locate the cancellation control before buying.
  • Read the ACCC's description of consumer guarantees so you know what they cover.

Step 5 — Your first fortnight

  • Turn visual quality down to match what Step 2 told you about your machine.
  • Decide whether voice chat is on or off, and set it.
  • Restrict messages and invitations to friends only.
  • Turn off email and desktop notifications from the game.
  • Find the mute, block and report controls and note where they are.
  • Set a session length and a way of being reminded when it ends.
  • Keep two evenings a week clear of play.
  • Buy nothing in the first fortnight.
  • Check your free drive space again after the first few updates.
  • At the end of two weeks, answer the three review questions in writing.
  • If you are stopping: cancel renewals, remove stored payment details, uninstall properly, and decide whether to ask for the account to be deleted.