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November 27, 2019
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So far in this book, I have been quite critical of gaming. However, I am not against gaming at all because many games train you in attributes in which will come in handy in real life. My problem with gaming is it taking over people's lives entirely. When you cease to be of value to the society because all of your time is spent on games, then there is a real problem. However, if one utilises games to improve their abilities while still contributing to the real world, then they are effectively utilising games to improve their character, not take it over.
I love games. The Nintendo Switch Lite just recently came out. It is the console that I have been waiting for my entire life and it even has amazing games such as Skyrim and Witcher 3, all extremely portable. Nintendo now beats all other consoles because they can play the same games now as any other console but all portable. In addition, the Switch has amazing unique titles such as Mario and Zelda that no other console can release. I will be spending the next year collecting amazing titles for this very capable and inexpensive piece of equipment. My life will literally revolve around games, but I will not stop writing and I will not stop studying. In fact, next year I will be starting a Master's degree of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation). Games are amazing and have the potential to greatly improve someone's life by giving them experiences that they would not normally be able to experience in real life. When you buy a game, you are buying experiences. And those experiences improve our lives in some way by gaining skills and knowledge in particular fields as a result of the gaming experience. The thing is, life is a game. But most don't realise it and never take the opportunity to play it. As a result, it plays them. Or maybe I should say those who realise that life is a game play the NPCs (fools).
Games with rich stories and voice acting are amazing. They give us the opportunity to live experiences that under normal circumstances we would not be able to experience. The main difference between TV and games are your involvement: your interaction to get the cut scenes to play out. Games are interactive and train your brain whereas television is passive and merely watches other people perform actions. My heart is with those who make their own worlds, not those who live everybody else's worlds. Television and movies have their place, but its true place is mostly turned off. Television is best used to introduce topics and to learn information. Games should be used for your entertainment. The only exception that I would say for this is when the media conveys deep truths about who we are as a society such as South Park. And who doesn't love comedy? Laughing is extremely healthy so we must learn the best pieces of media available to help get our laugh on, and maybe improve society a little in that process.
The future potential for games and education to merge is limitless. One can easily acquire all the education they require but augmented into a game, so much so that the borders between entertainment and education become indistinguishable. This has not currently happened as most games that are created are merely time wasters. However, the future of games and educating people to obtain meaningful employment is near! Once people realise the educational possibilities with this amazing form of entertainment, the new university's courses will be rolled out, but as meaningful games that train you in the application of many real life skills. The future of education is within games. The future of education is within tricking the students into learning without even realising it. And games give us so many possibilities as we simulate real life, only ever acting as a simulation, meaning that there would be no real world consequences so one is given the opportunity to really test out their new virtual lives.
However, any good game takes many developers and voice actors. This is the power of the collective. The collective is amazing and can produce content that would be impossible for one individual to do themselves. But utilising this method empowers the individual from the collective. We have had it backwards all this time. We got the individual to work for the collective when the true health of a society is when the collective works for the individual. And society will work for the individual by providing them games where they make vital decisions that affect the rest of the game world. This will teach us cause and effect and will enable us to develop our moral operandus. We don't want movies and TV. We want interactive movies and television in which our decisions form the stories in which we play.
Even though currently I am placing such a high value on games being active and low value on the passive television zombieing, I want to clear up this confusion before we progress further into the technical details of what I am presenting. There are two sides to every coin. In fact, a coin with only one side is incomprehensible to our human psychologies. Try and fathom one. It is incomprehensible. It is one dimensional and we don't exist in one dimension. Once we add the second and third dimension, left and right; up and down - then we are able to create a scale, hot or cold. Ironically, we feel the same bodily sensations from extreme cold as we would extreme heat: the pain feels the same to be burnt as it would to be to be frozen. A prime example is our far right and far left political systems being practically identical. So our poles we are working with is theory and practice. And for the purposes of this chapter, theory will be passive television watching and practice will be the digital games in which we play. A good example of this would be watching walkthroughs for games in which you are stuck. But one must not limit themselves to one mode of operation. Variety is the spice of life. I watch comedy shows with the humour I enjoy so that type of humour can rub off on my day to day actions as well as within my work. Can you see how this works? We must balance our theory and practice in order to obtain the most enjoyable playthrough in this game we call life.
To obtain the maximum quality experience in a game, don't try to be somewhere else. Games that force you to play like this are poorly designed. This is a secret that very few people know. If it was commonly understood then most people in our world would be life gamers. The characters we create to pull you into a game will place rather urgency on the main quest line because they are dicks and want you to follow what they want you to follow and quickly. However, there will only be few times within the game in which time is truly of the essence. Thus enjoy where you are and what you are doing: do not strive for some unknown future. Explore the map; solve its puzzles and unlock its secrets. Enjoy grinding when you have to and use it as a chance to explore. Find and play all the minigames. Good minigames have very high replay value, especially if they have multiplayer opportunities.
I envision games that are created to exercise and develop one's moral compass, as an ethics trainer if you will. Good games will be educational at their core. They will trick the player into learning real life skills. Both liniar and non-linear games have great potential, however, I am very attracted to non-linear games. This means many different potential endings based on the actions you make during the game. This gives the character the sense of creating their own destiny as well as greatly enhancing the replay value of the game. Unfortunately though, this is never implemented effectively and the stories feel empty and less fleshed out than a refined liniar game that put great consideration into their one storyline, meaning that liniar games have a better potential to develop more interesting storylines.
In a game you should learn as you play. The game should introduce you to and teach you new mechanics as you use them. You literally have to learn as you go. Sometimes this can be instructions followed by the player following those instructions. Sometimes this can be immersion, throwing you in the situation and expecting you to learn on your own. However the game teaches you, it is essential that it teaches you comfortably. You should enjoy your experience learning the new mechanics the game is introducing you to. In bad games, you will be unsure of what to do. In good games, you have clear direction about the types of things you could do next. A game should not force you to play in a certain way but allow the player to play utilising their own style in which they created and adapted from the game mechanics. This means that game mechanics should not be too limiting. I don't want to feel like I am playing the same game as every other person in the world. I want my experiences to be unique to me.
Games have the potential to be incredibly unique. Each game does not have to be a copy of another game. Innovation tells us to spend a lot of time on research and development to introduce new game mechanics which other game creators will want to copy. An innovative game is a game that takes parts from other successful games that works and creating unique new game mechanics that make sense. If those mechanics are good enough, then they will be included in many games of the future. The key is to making something that is extremely obvious and works for everybody. The only thing is that oftentimes things like this are not very obvious until after we implement them. It is like the ergonomic designs of controllers, keyboards, or chairs. We make a ton of uncomfortable stuff for years until we realise that it causes long term damage. Now many ergonomic designs feel obvious to us. The standard controller we use across all of our gaming systems feel obvious. But we had to first create and learn the design for these factors to become "obvious". The key to making effective game mechanics is making something new that, when used, is obvious. This will not only improve player experience but will also pave the way for new methods of control to be implemented in the future development of educational gaming.
All games are educational. What they educate upon and whether those learned abilities are transferable is the key. Most modern day games educate on skills that have little to no real world value. Yes, most games develop reflexes. But there is much more to an educational game than mere reflexes. Making games that have transferable skillsets is the future of education. You could even make a game about a computer shop where electronics come in and you have to fix them. This could even go so far as replacing computer chips on a mainboard level. Such a game could be addicting and teach a potential new employee how to do the work of their computer repair shop. Such a game has real-life skills that are directly transferable into our shared reality. And if it is realistic enough, it would give one the skills to be able to do repairs at a computer shop. And skills such as replacing chips on motherboards are skills that are highly needed in this world. There are not enough technicians that work on a mainboard level. And if there were, we would waste a lot less resources, fixing motherboard problems as they arise instead of throwing the entire thing out merely because of a bad chip or bad capacitor.
One of the worst feelings in a game is not knowing what to do next. This is fun at first as we try to learn what the game wants us to do. But if the game mechanics are not intuitive enough to lead you to a potential next step, then the game was poorly designed. I like games that I can do whatever I want but being stuck in an area is not fun. If you cannot figure out a puzzle or are too weak for your enemies, then you should have the potential to leave that area and go do other things, giving you time to contemplate potential solutions for a future date. Gamers hate being stuck in games. Thus, games should be created to avoid users feeling unsure about what to do next. Oftentimes the best solution to tricky situations is to make a puzzle solvable in multiple ways. Do not force your players to play how you want them to. Allow them to develop their own unique style to playing your game.
Games are not merely restricted to electronic interfaces. The best game we have in front of us is this game called, "life". Electronic games are best used as trainers for the game of life. What you do in life, your fate or your destiny, is the main quest line for your game creation. You are the developer for your own game. Unfortunately, copyright can oftentimes make this game difficult when broadcasting to other player and non-player characters. This open world is mostly inhabited by NPCs. However, occasionally on your travels, you will run into other players. This is your opportunity to gain allies for your mission. Other players also have their own personal mission so a mutually beneficial opportunity is what you should be trying to set up with other players. In addition, your romantic partner is also a player. Real people don't want romantic relationships with NPCs. Thus your playing field are players. In this case and currently, there are not plenty of fish in the sea. It will be very difficult not settling with artificial intelligence given the small number of players there are playing this hidden game. You will have to let a lot of beautiful NPCs go, clenching onto the possibility of one day finding your twin flame player. Because if I could find her, then I will have lived the best life possible. Don't settle for trash. You are a treasure hunter.
Good games provide players a unique experience. No run through will be the same as another. However, in saying this, shared experiences are crucial to a successful game. I wouldn't want a game that provided me such a unique experience that I was unable to relate to another gamer's experience in the same game. Thus, I should be able to speak with my friends about a game in which we both had similar shared experiences. Maybe it was a loveable character in the game or an extremely interesting puzzle in which we wish to discuss. I should be able to converse with my friends about the details and they should be able to understand what I am talking about. People are the purpose of this world. And even single player games should be created to be social. The key is implementing the right combination of unique and shared experiences.
I like games where you have to partake in combat. However, our world focuses too heavily on combat games. Sure, you can create whatever world you like and as a result can create a crazy world where everybody is killing each other. However, this is not realistic. Most modern games rely too heavily on combat to obtain and maintain the player's attention. We need to carefully examine our world and what people do for fun in it, and create simulations of it that offer a huge variety of possibilities performing actions to accomplish a goal: real life. A good game might start out with you in your apartment in a city. Combat is a rare thing but you have the option of becoming a martial artist and this then opens you up to the possibility for combat and starts the quest line for the marital artist. The more realistic we make our games, the more realistic application their skillsets provides. I dream of a world where anyone can do anything because the games offered train you in whatever you desire. I see school being replaced by gaming. And this is very possible given our capabilities with teaching within a game. We don't even need to always trick the player into learning. Maybe we should just program a school and in that school you have subjects and you can then learn those subjects wherever you want and your grades for those subjects are stored on your Nintendo University online account...
It is difficult to say what is bad and what is good with games. Because the same bad technique could be applied to another game in a different way and thus becomes a good technique. But the brainstorming process is integral. Some ideas sound great in theory but do not work practically. Some ideas sound confusing and convoluted, but work brilliantly in practice. The only way to find out is to try it. However, the best of ideas sound great in theory and work great in practice. There is so much future opportunity here because the sky is the limit, meaning there is no limit. Just throw whatever out there idea you have and try it. If it doesn't work, move on to the next idea. Research and development is a long and arduous process. But think innovatively enough and you can create game mechanics that will be so good that they will be adopted by the future standard of our gaming community.
The potential for role playing games is infinite. Everybody likes playing to unlock new content! How about unlocking new areas? Unlocking new rooms filled with puzzles or even different cities or worlds. Imagine the potential if one unlocked a fully functioning laboratory. What things could I do? And maybe I could unlock new things to do in that lab as I explore and collect materials from the the game world. I want a city to call my own. I want a world to call my own. I want worlds to call my own. I want lush and beautiful landscapes as well as cities with beautiful and interesting buildings. I want an apartment to call my own where I can hang out and setup and store the items I acquire during my in-game adventures. I want to start off on my feet and as the game progresses, obtain a variety of ways to travel faster and with more excitement, like a horse, car, jet, or dragon. And I want both worlds: fantasy and reality. Thus my asserted theoretical game must include the real and the imagination. Two worlds minimum for me to visit and explore. Huge maps with many regions. I see a game which one would want to play for the rest of their days. I see a timeless game that educates its players on a large and ever expanding variety of topics.
I dedicate this book to all of the children of the world who have lost their lives in a school shooting. What is the point of having a central facility to educate children when you can just hand them a Nintendo Switch and their courses (game cards). The ways in which we educate are about to change drastically. Those in charge know this very well but choose to keep schools around because their parents are working. Grade school has now become a glorified day care centre. The children need to be looked after as their parents work so "school" just makes sense. Just remember that by keeping schools around also keeps school violence and massacres around. School needs to change. We need to burn down the buildings. And we need to learn how to educate at home. This does not have to be a difficult task. For one adult could watch a handful of children as they carry out their Nintendo studies. But what we really need to do is trust our children more at home by themselves. They are safer there than they are at school. The question we really need to ask is at what age can we train a child to be responsible enough to be capable of staying at home by themselves or with other children. The problem with our children of today's lack of responsibility is entirely parental, meaning that our children are being coddled so that they stay young and immature for much longer than is biologically required. And if no other solution can be found, you can always have the older children supervise the younger ones. The only reason for modern day schools to exist is out of greed and selfishness. The dinosaur days of our elders is behind us. We are the future. Let's not make the same stupid mistakes as the wicked generations before us did. Let's become something better. Let us evolve. It is called the rapture. Time to ascend!