A video game has different states, showing when you start, when you are currently playing, and when the game ends. Basically videogames don’t need to follow story development. You just play until the game is over, usually caused by actions of the player that couldn’t be done based on the standards of the games; simply put, you lost _____. (I’m in the mood of following games…)
There are two options to make a game over; one is to lose in a game, which is that your player was defeated, that certain rules made you lose, or that you hadn’t completed the objectives of that game. Another is that, you win the game fulfilling the objectives and beat the game to the very end.
The thing is this: when you state a game over on an ending scene, it’s not that bad compared of the game over when you lose or you couldn’t reach a certain goal. Those kind of game over come with a scene in which the player knows he lost. Of course there was a continue screen or a restart and you can try again to beat it.
Here is the main thing of this post. I’m kind of afraid of those “game over” screens, and having to lose on video games. Here are some examples why:
Once there was a place on the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, when you need to pass through the insides of a tomb, to get the Song of the Sun. I was a child when some friends and I played that game. I wasn’t playing at that moment. So there was that room, in which you need to pass those nasty zombies who paralyze the player and slooowly approach you and suck your energy life. I wouldn’t care about that moment, even though that could be scary enough for a child…. The thing was when they fell on that “trap” they let the player to be defeated, which means you have no life, which means “Game Over”…. The fall over, the song, the screen, and the chance of doing it again…, that was the freaking part.
That thing kind of surprised me a lot. Maybe of the awful playing of my friends, but I wasn’t daring to go and see the screen again when one of my friends were confronting those zombies. When I knew they would be playing against those, I just run away from the room and hide somewhere until I would know they have lost or they have succeeded that part. Also I would run away when the player (Link) was with a little of heart lives, because I would know some stupid action and it would end in a game over.
Another thing was when playing Super Mario World from SNES. So there you have at your Mario, playing to beat Bowser and their minions. Of course you were prone to lose a life in an easy manner. But you wouldn’t get a game over until you have lost all lives. When that happens, a black screen appears stating “game over”, you need to restart your points. You would just continue from the save point or from another point, which I don’t understand why you have those options.
The thing is, that scared me a lot, of course I didn’t scream or something similar. That game over screen was there around my head all the time. When I was a child, that thing happened. One night, after playing that game, getting to sleep in my bed, thinking that screen over and over again, the sound, it sounded like despair to me at that time, hopelessness, nothing more depressing enough, but annoying enough you cannot sleep with that. That thing was there all along! And I didn’t want that thing to prevent me from going to sleep!
I cried, that was too much for my head. I just wanted to sleep and my mind didn’t let me, and I just let my mind to generate again and again the same Idea, and didn’t finish/concluded it. I just went to use the most reliable resource a child can have in order to calm my Generating Ideas of Weird Motion: my parents. I went to their room, I said that I cannot sleep; they just went to my room and put some radio on near me. They said not to think too much about the thing I was thinking, and just with the flow of the radio I could be able to sleep.
But that experience made me fear about those”game over”, that was very cautious on playing them again. I was playing videogames normally, because my way of playing was strategically and well planned. And the only way to stop getting game over when I thought that was unavoidable was to turn of the console and restart again. Anyway that was the same thing, so what thing can I lose it.
Other weird game overs: Donkey Kong 64, that game over was done when you get out of the game. I didn’t do that, not after the moment I did it appeared the game over screen and the freaky laser bean pointing towards DK’s island. That was unexpected!! I didn’t like it. And then on LoZ: Majora’s Mask, when your time was out, and the moon was about to get into the city, that was terrible. I didn’t see it. But the thing that you have less time and you are running out of time made me anxious enough, and as the zombies episode I run away from it.
So I could state that I can avoid game over, or I just hate seeing “game over” screens. I would expect the situation before doing it, and then finish the game seeing none of those types of screens….
I think that could be related in my way of doing things and making decisions, I just can’t talk to everybody I want about the things I like the most, because I would need to confront the unexpected things of what I think. My idea generation is good to make conclusion, but it is also good to make ideas that has negative points. Maybe that’s one good point of why I cannot dare myself to talk to everybody. Because if I expect too much from a person and that didn’t make a good retribution, making an obvious rejection, I would feel like that time when my efforts in a game weren’t enough to fulfill the goals, which means “Game Over”….
I would give everything to overcome my “Game Over” reaction, in the games, and in life too. Maybe if the risk is not too much, I could implement a “Continue from Check-Point” Idea Representation, and I could talk to everyone I could talk to, whatever it is a new person, an admirable person, a soon-to-be friend or a friend who I haven’t talked in years. I would like to not to fear when someone new talks to me and I just stay there and say nothing. I want to say something!
“- Maybe I can do awkward conversations to break the ice and start the conversation.”
“-Ok, start now!”
“-How?”
“-You know. Like you like to say every day, do like every person who makes starting conversations writing something nice.”
“-I just do that to the people I know”
“-And also the people you aren’t used to talk, or you have talked but for now you are not taking. Those kind of experiences.”
“-Yeah, that’s could be a challenge…”
“-Also, don’t get afraid from a game over, it’s part of the experience, or you don’t want to experience the real challenge of the gamer…?”
“-Waah, that’s awful I know, but it’s weird….”
“-I know it’s weird but nobody is seeing you are losing every time you are playing certain game. And don’t you dare to search FAQ’s only to avoid them too.”
“-I have made all of these; I’m not a good gamer… ;A; waah.”
“-Practice my friend, all you need is practice! Also being caring and a good friend to your friends OK?”
“-Ok… I’m still doing my best that I can…“
