Stuff that Playing Games Has Taught Me About Real Life

[maidenofmystery]

For the most part, the real world and the world of games don't intersect very much, and for good reason. After all, the reason most of us play games is to escape the too-familiar realities of our everyday existence for a while and enjoy the novel situations that the game puts us in and the new sides of us that the game brings out: the strategist,

Comments

[reginahime]

Jumping IS hard. I don't really have the dexterity and reflexes for platformers either, but lots of practice and experience make a pretty good substitute. Recently, I've started replaying Donkey Kong Country 2 for the SNES, which is an extremely fun game with some very creative levels. It also gets very tricky many times and really tests your skill. For example, there are a couple levels that take place in a giant beehive and there is sticky honey on the walls that you have to climb to get up to higher areas of the level. But you can't just climb up along the honey... no, apparently the only way you can move from sticking to the honey is to jump away from it, so in order to make the ascent, you have to jump away from the honey, then in mid-air, push the opposite direction button on the controller so you can jump back toward the honey wall, this time landing a little higher up on it. Repeat until you reach the top. And sometimes you have to do these jumps quickly because there are bees that fly in particular spots that will get you if you don't move from them. And this is not, by any means, the most difficult thing in the game, either. Ultimately, you have to get used to the fact that trying something only four or five times is not going to be enough. I've beaten the first two Donkey Kong Country games in their entirety and played through them several times, and it's still taking me more than ten tries to complete some of these levels. Telling myself, "I know I've been able to do this part before!" doesn't always make it feel less impossible when you try ten times and still fail. But you do get a nice sense of accomplishment when you finally beat it and quickly save the game so that you don't have to ever do that again... at least until your next play-through.

James plays a little bit like Craig in Idiot, but instead of attacking with his trumps, he just plays high cards like aces or face cards to try to draw out my trumps. He especially likes to do it when he's matching, because he knows I'm far more likely to throw out my trump in exasperation to avoid taking 4 or 5 extra cards. And really, in situations like that, it's usually better to just give up your trump than to take too many cards, because taking cards not only makes you give up your turn to attack, but prevents you from taking new cards from the deck. When Craig throws out his trump or high card to draw out yours, he's losing a good card too. But if you keep hoarding, you'll never get to draw and all the new cards in the pile will belong to him, including any other trumps left in the deck. Sometimes it's better to just lose your trump jack, if it means you might get a king or ace that's still in the pile... and probably closer to the endgame, when it would be far more useful.

I'm going to have to think about what kinds of things I've learned from video games, and maybe I'll comment again. Or make my own such entry, if I think of a lot to say. ;)