All Entries Tagged With: "Life is more like a video game that you think"

Life is More Like a Video Game Than You Think – Chapters 5 & 6

The following piece was written by Brian Wilmeth, a 25 year old aspiring author (and gamer) from Park Slope, Brooklyn. He is currently working on a book entitled “Life is More Like a Video Game Than You Think” (working title), and in it he describes many ideas how life is basically one big game and we’re all essentially just trying to “level up” in a sense. We here at DualShockers have been fortunate enough to have the author of the piece send us a condensed a version, one of which we can share with our readers. It isn’t the chapter you will see when the book is published, but more of a detailed summary of what your can expect when it is.  We will run this as a weekly series, giving all of the readers out there an exclusive chapter per week. Check back often, as this young and hungry author seems to have a real hit in his hands. Enjoy the reading.

Chapter 5: Video Games and Simplicity

There are some quirky video games out there. I once played this game called Orbox. The point of the game was to get your square to a red square without falling off the screen. It was a puzzle to solve and each level usually took a lot of tries. I wasn’t really happy playing it and I wasn’t really bored either. It was sort of the “I’m bored so I’m going to try this game” scenario.

Another game like this was simple internet ping pong. The mouse was used to control the paddle and your swing of the ball. Not as fun as real ping pong, but definitely good for a screen. I even played Ping-Pong without the Ping.

When there are so many wonderful video games out there, why would I play these? Well, these games are very simple, and sometimes simple can be a good thing. Final Fantasy III for the Super Nintendo was anything but simple. There were 1000s of items in the game and nearly 20 characters, yet I probably only used maybe 100 of those items and usually the same 4 characters. I made a complex game more simple.

Not everyone likes simplicity. It can be boring sometimes. People often distract themselves via TV, work, or video games, to avoid simplicity. So is simplicity a good thing or not? In my opinion, if you can enjoy simplicity, you can enjoy anything. As a kid I enjoyed simple video games and as I grew older it took more complex games to make me happy. But now I find myself going back to simplicity and enjoying it all over again.

Another game I liked as a kid was Sonic the Hedgehog. The game idea in itself is immensely simple. You have a character similar to Mario that jumps, rolls, and runs really really fast. What an exciting idea! Now build around it huge levels to make the most of those attributes and you have a great game. This game was like the next step up for me from games like Mario and Mega Man.

Chapter 6: Items, Upgrades, and Life

I loved video game items. Mushrooms were one of my favorites. Touch a mushroom and become supersized. What’s the point of being supersized? Well, in the original Mario there was no point except now it was easier to get hit as a big man. It gave you a second life yes and now you could break bricks and access the fire flower. But why become supersized at all? Why not turn a different color, and stay the same size? Why, because it was cool, that’s why!

There are also real life mushrooms, but they don’t make you supersized. Some are simply part of a healthy diet and some make you crazy. I recommend the former.

I always like video game items. Collect this and all the sudden you have a special ability. If only it were that simple in life. Well sometimes it is. If you collect a gun you can now shoot bullets. If you collect running shoes you can now run with less discomfort.

But what is the point of this chapter then? In games, items are used to become stronger and more powerful to make accomplishing a goal easier. In life too, there is no way to accomplish a goal without items. We have books, computers, phones, and other items that make our goals achievable more quickly. Ancient cave man didn’t have many items. Maybe a club for wacking things. Try getting to the moon when your only item is a club.

As technology becomes more advanced, reaching goals actually becomes easier. I remember a day when making a video game used to be accomplished only by the most experienced programmers. Now with the internet, software, cheap computers, and google, anyone with the proper motivation can learn how to program video games. I used these tools as a C++ beginner and learned how to program tetris in less then a years time, without using my college education!

Cell phones are another great example. Now meeting people is easy. Before cell phones people had to discuss an exact place and time to meet, and if any mistakes were made they wouldn’t meet and would have to go home. But with cell phones we don’t have to be so specific. “Lets meet at the mall”. “Where?”. “Who cares, I’ll call you when I get there”.

MapQuest is another great item but has its drawbacks. The good thing about mapquest is it does the thinking for you. People don’t even need to know where they are in space and time if they can follow directions accurately. But if a mistake is made by you or mapquest then you’re going to be very lost. Which is why the new use of GPS systems is an even greater item.

Items are used as a way of making our goals easier. So make good use of them in video games and in life!

Life is More Like a Video Game Than You Think – Chapter 4

The following piece was written by Brian Wilmeth, a 25 year old aspiring author (and gamer) from Park Slope, Brooklyn. He is currently working on a book entitled “Life is More Like a Video Game Than You Think” (working title), and in it he describes many ideas how life is basically one big game and we’re all essentially just trying to “level up” in a sense. We here at DualShockers have been fortunate enough to have the author of the piece send us a condensed a version, one of which we can share with our readers. It isn’t the chapter you will see when the book is published, but more of a detailed summary of what your can expect when it is.  We will run this as a weekly series, giving all of the readers out there an exclusive chapter per week. Check back often, as this young and hungry author seems to have a real hit in his hands. Enjoy the reading.

Chapter 4: Leveling Up and Life

I’m starting to believe that the reason I liked RPGs so much was because it gave me a representation for the correct way to live life. For those who don’t know, RPG stands for Role Playing Game. You take on the role of a character or group of characters on an adventure. In this adventure, the characters usually start out really weak and puny, but by the end before you know it, they are extremely powerful.

When I first played these games (e.g. Secret of Mana), I didn’t even know the characters were getting more powerful. The change was so slow that, I failed to notice a rabite (an enemy from the game) started to die only after 2 hits instead of 3. I love the idea of becoming more powerful as a character for some reason. If only life were like that. Wait, it is!

Those who go work out at a gym (not me) knows that muscle mass is built slowly through consistency and effort. It is the same with improvement in sports, health, and even video game skill. Of course it is not as simplistic. It is often more difficult to level up yourself and often has more pain associated with it. But don’t you think that those video game characters feel the pain too? Is it fair that you get to sit and watch as the characters you control get eaten to death by a pack of hungry wolves for the sake of leveling up!? No it is not. If you want to grow in life sometimes pain is involved, but it is worth it if it means you can grow to new heights.

In video games when leveling up you may achieve an increase in stat points, hit points, magic points, and other things that increase your overall abilities. Back in the day when I was playing World of Warcraft I had a blast leveling up. Leveling up was quick and easy in the beginning. At one point things became slower; I found myself at level 22 struggling to get to level 23. Finally at level 47, I put the game down. It was too much! Many of my friends reached the highest level, level 60.

And now they have what, 80 levels!? No thank you.

Why do people commit to reaching level 80 in World of Warcraft? I’m not sure, but I know, one reason may be the certainty of reaching it. You always know where you are on that path; the experience bar tells you so. It also always lets you know the experience you need to get to reach the next level.

Life is similar. I know in reaching new levels of ability on guitar, each new level takes more and more practice. That is why there are many who can play a song 90% perfectly but only a few who can play it at 100%.

And there are many people who quit a long that road because they may become stuck at one point and not know how to bypass it.

But what if there was a little experience bar for everything you did? You are now a level 13 guitarist and you are this far away from reaching level 14 guitarist. Probably two things would happen. A lot more people would be good at the guitar and people would stop lying to themselves about how good they are at the guitar.

It’s amazing how many people I see that over-exaggerate their skill level. I used to do this constantly. I would tell myself I was the greatest Mario Kart player in the world, and then when I saw videos of people online who would crush me, and was promptly put in my place. This is level 5 pretending to be level 15 syndrome and I think we all go through it from time to time. For me right now, I’d rather just be a level 15 then have to pretend I’m one. I think that’s why it’s important to be honest about where you are at with everything. If I pretended I was level 15 when I’m really level 5, then I probably won’t take those steps to get to level 6.

I think a lot of people quit also because they see a level 60 guitarist (or anything) and they say to themselves, I’ll never be that good, might as well quit now. What they don’t realize is they can get that good; they just have to go through level 1, level 2, level 3, but people often want to go to level 60 overnight.

I have a friend who was like this. He was once complaining to me about how bad he was with women, and I mentioned all the improvements he made over the last year. “But you actually went on several dates, before you weren’t doing that at all!”. “Yeah but I’m not having sex, I’m not in a relationship, bla bla”. So I explained it to him in video game terms, “so you wanted to go from level 5 to a level 10 but you only went from level 5 to a level 6”. I think he got what I was trying to say.

Life is More Like a Video Game Than You Think – Chapter 2

The following piece was written by Brian Wilmeth, a 25 year old aspiring author (and gamer) from Park Slope, Brooklyn. He is currently working on a book entitled “Life is More Like a Video Game Than You Think” (working title), and in it he describes many ideas how life is basically one big game and we’re all essentially just trying to “level up” in a sense. We here at DualShockers have been fortunate enough to have the author of the piece send us a condensed a version, one of which we can share with our readers. It isn’t the chapter you will see when the book is published, but more of a detailed summary of what your can expect when it is.  We will run this as a weekly series, giving all of the readers out there an exclusive chapter per week. Check back often, as this young and hungry author seems to have a real hit in his hands. Enjoy the reading.