As many of you know, I enjoy video games. I wouldn't call myself a major gammer, but when I start playing a game I get hooked. I play it more hours then I should. Each new level and mission feed my burning desire to complete things. I yearn for that completion. For some sick reason it's always been a goal to play through entire video games in one sitting. It rarely happens, but when it does, I wear it like a merit badge.
One such experience in which I was very close to completing this goal of beating a game in one sitting was the year after college in Walden Hall. My friend Jeff, Witty Jeff to many friends, and I had started playing a game called Justice League Heros at about 10:00 at night. I say, as I often do at the start of video game sessions, let's not go to sleep until we beat the game. Jeff agreed and seven hours later we are starring at the last boss! We we're so close, but Jeff was tired and had to work in a few short hours. I knew that soon Jeff was going to need to leave and we needed to beat the game pronto. Finally we dealt the final blow to the last boss. Then it was the all too familiar video game plot, the boss we had just beaten was but a mere puppet in the empire of video game evil. Turns out we we're only 2/3rds done with the game. Jeff left and I went to bed. We we're tired, confused, negatively surprised and frustrated at that moment.
This is what happens to us. A wrench is thrown into our plans! Someone we thought we were going to spend the rest of our life with dumps us, we fail a class, we get laid off from a job, a good friend lets us down in a moment of need, a snow storm screws up our Saturday.
Our plans get screwed up. It sucks. It really does. The bigger question of how do you deal with it. I think it's ok to mope, pout and have a pity party for a short time. The key is it needs to be short. Then you need to get over it and move on. Yes, you need to deal with those feelings, but letting them take power over you for long periods of time is what will destroy you. You must see it as the crappy cliche analogy as one door closing means more opening. Anything less will put you in a place of danger and unhealthy destruction.
A few nights later Jeff came over and we beat the game at a reasonable hour. Things were better then. You get over those feelings and/or you learn to live with them and they loose their power over you. More game time meant getting to hangout with a good friend I don't see enough. Perhaps you have a little more game time left then you were expecting? My advice: Enjoy it.
This reminds me of Mark Rosewater's writing about Magic; he tends to use real-life anecdotes and life lessons to explain why he's made certain design choices. This is sort of the reverse.
ReplyDeleteP.S., Zatanna rules. Being the only healer, having some of the best crowd control, and still putting out reasonable ranged damage easily makes her the most powerful character.