Lousy Video Games

As a kid, I played way too many video games. But, I've come to appreciate how much is in common between video games and practicing.

The main difference being that practicing counts for things in real life.

Anyways...

Know what makes a video game suck pretty quickly? When the game is too hard too early in the game.

A great example is the relatively-unknown Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for the original Nintendo. The only side-scrolling Zelda adventure.

(If you don't know what side-scrolling means, you were probably born after 1997...or never played video games.)

It could have been a great game. The problem?

Within the beginning stages of the game, the monsters are way too freaking hard to beat. And you don't have nearly enough items or spells yet to help you out.

Should you survive until later in the game, you can become stronger and have a chance. But that's only if you bother to continue playing.

Video games should be challenging. That's the fun of it, after all. But the best ones increase that challenge incrementally. Not within the first few minutes of the game.

But there's the analogy, folks. You're probably practicing something. Working on something. Attempting a project. And maybe you want to cast it aside.

Try dialing the challenge down a little bit. And see if the game becomes a little more fun.