"You have unlocked a new ability!"
During last evening's jogging session, something funny has occurred to me. Namely, in games as you start off, the game designers give you a stick, a torn robe and a mean look on your character's face, and send you off to kill off rats. They may be giant mutant rats, but they are rats nevertheless, giving you a large pain with their sheer number and peskiness. So as your character swings at them, she will gain the precious XP which, in time, make everything easier and easier. At some point the rats become a mere nuisance, no longer a terminal problem.
This has occurred to me because, while my theory that the game designers are simply evil and want to have as much fun with the player as possible, there must be something on this system even in the real life. Namely, yesterday running a distance has become a small problem in comparison with what a kilometer represented a few years ago. As I already put, this season I started with 2,5 km and nearly died in the process, while yesterday we stopped at 8 km and felt we could go on if we wanted to.
I know this is obvious, but I found analogies to this everywhere. One goes to school and years later can do a job and do it good. Or take driving lessons which, at least for me, were a huge pain, but now I can sit in my car and go wherever I want to. If I want to. I can even bring the analogy back to the games themselves. I remember myself ten and a half years ago, how I could play games on my PC, the keyboard and the mouse giving me no problems, but then hege pushed into my hands this thing that looked like an Elder God impression, had a stick and a bunch of buttons, and told me I could play a Zelda with this. Needless to say I wasn't exactly good at it.
Today, a PS2, DS, a Wii and a PS3 later, I can enjoy a game on mostly any system, and I actually, more than a decade after it has been originally made, can play Ocarina of Time at home. It feels good to have suffered at some point (or, rather, at length) in the past, because now I can enjoy the rewards, even if they didn't come with the telltale "you have gained a new level! Rest to meditate on what you have learned". Like that gorgeous sunset we have been awarded with yesterday, such that, if we took a photo, it would have been kitschy.
This has occurred to me because, while my theory that the game designers are simply evil and want to have as much fun with the player as possible, there must be something on this system even in the real life. Namely, yesterday running a distance has become a small problem in comparison with what a kilometer represented a few years ago. As I already put, this season I started with 2,5 km and nearly died in the process, while yesterday we stopped at 8 km and felt we could go on if we wanted to.
I know this is obvious, but I found analogies to this everywhere. One goes to school and years later can do a job and do it good. Or take driving lessons which, at least for me, were a huge pain, but now I can sit in my car and go wherever I want to. If I want to. I can even bring the analogy back to the games themselves. I remember myself ten and a half years ago, how I could play games on my PC, the keyboard and the mouse giving me no problems, but then hege pushed into my hands this thing that looked like an Elder God impression, had a stick and a bunch of buttons, and told me I could play a Zelda with this. Needless to say I wasn't exactly good at it.
Today, a PS2, DS, a Wii and a PS3 later, I can enjoy a game on mostly any system, and I actually, more than a decade after it has been originally made, can play Ocarina of Time at home. It feels good to have suffered at some point (or, rather, at length) in the past, because now I can enjoy the rewards, even if they didn't come with the telltale "you have gained a new level! Rest to meditate on what you have learned". Like that gorgeous sunset we have been awarded with yesterday, such that, if we took a photo, it would have been kitschy.