Games That Secretly
Teach Life Lessons
Ever wondered why so many gamers have that one game that they absolutely cherish and are nostalgic about? How is it that games can have such a tremendous impact on an individual? While many factors contribute to that impact, one stands out, and that is the profound life lessons games can offer. It’s challenging enough to create a game,
but to imbue life lessons in it, that is just next level effort. Let’s discover some incredible life lessons delivered through games.
Writer: Bambie
Designer: Yato
Frontend: Kasual
Publisher: Xaros
End Editor: Maikiejj
Developer: Capt
A triumph against self-doubt
Self-doubt is quite prevalent in today’s society, as it affects all generations, not just the young. It plagues the mind and pollutes the everyday thoughts of people, no matter who they are.
Sabotage by a doppelganger?
A game called “Celeste” takes you on a journey of peaks and troughs, where you play as a character named “Madeline”. Madeline is an everyday person who takes on an adventure to climb a mountain in order to challenge her anxiety
Among other characters, she encounters an antagonistic “mirror” of herself, whom we call “Badeline”. After Badeline hears Madeline’s plan to climb this mountain, she continuously casts doubt in Madeline’s mind, filling it with pessimism and bringing her down both literally and metaphorically, as she attempts to stop her from fulfilling her new found mission. During the playthrough, she constantly brings out the worst
of Madeline, even causing her to lash out at one of the characters who helped her. That character ends up fighting Madeline after Madeline lashed out at the character. Madeline even has a panic attack from all of the pain within her. At that point, Madeline had had enough, so she gathered her confidence and moved up the mountain to confront Badeline, telling her that she wanted to abandon her.
Sabotage by a doppelganger?
Badeline, in anger, throws her down the mountain. After she seeks the advice of another character, she collects herself and climbs up the mountain again, this time to attempt to reconcile with Badeline.
After meeting her again, she finally realises that not only is Badeline the personification of her anxiety, but that she was simply scared for her life, so she was trying to slow Madeline down so that she doesn’t make it to the Summit. Madeline apologises
to her and asks her to team up to climb the mountain, reassuring her that she doesn’t have to be afraid anymore. Madeline then hugs her alter-ego, finally accepting herself for who she really is. They unite
and become one, the “real” Madeline, stronger and with more confidence than ever.We see them interacting with each other throughout the rest of the game positively, with Madeline encouraging her other half to apologise to the character she hurt earlier.
Her other half also encourages her to keep climbing after Madeline questions the difficulty of the climb. Both are glad this whole thing happened, and they are hopeful for the future, even if it includes failure.
Finally, they reach the top together, and Madeline sits and enjoys the view, now being her own best friend, triumphing over self-doubt.
Early on in the game, Madeline mutters to herself, “You can do this”, foreshadowing her journey to triumph against self-doubt
Perspective is key.
Depending on the circumstances, there can be a great number of perspectives, and such is the case in Superliminal. Superliminal is a puzzle video game that meddles with optical illusions, various enigmas and perception.
It perplexes reality with the player viewing the world from a first-person point of view and having to utilise their viewpoint to their advantage.
How many perspectives are there in life?
It challenges the player to manipulate objects based on their positioning in view to change their size and location in order to proceed to the next room. Why is this relevant, though?
Well, because, as the game proves to you, each perspective is different and can literally “change” your reality. In fact, in this game, perception IS reality.
Every person lives life through their own lens, their very own feelings, their personal experiences, and every one of them has their own truth through their perspective.
With different perspectives come great life lessons
This is why there is less simplicity in right or wrong than people realise. Each person’s perspective is their own reality, and the only real way to truly understand someone
else’s point of view is to imagine you are that person, and living their life. So it is up to every one of us to show understanding to all opinions, even if sometimes it does not reflect reality
in our understanding and opinion. The common argument to this is that sometimes a fact is a fact, and while that may be true, even the PERCEPTION of that fact could be different.
“The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.”
Steve Jobs
Do not let your past define
who you are today!
Everyone reminisces, whether good or bad, but the past does not define who you are, and that is made clear in Red Dead Redemption 2. Your past only indicates who you were, disregarding your potential for change.
Thus people use it to assume that you remain that person. While that might be the case for some people, a lot of the time, people change. This is one of the life lessons that Arthur materialises for his own story, and one we can learn from.
The future is uncertain, and your actions shape it
Arthur had a history of loyalty and violence as he was an esteemed gang member. His hands were not clean, as he destroyed lives being a key member of the “Van der Linde” gang. His faithful following of Dutch (the leader of the gang) was a result of Arthur viewing him as a “father” figure, and Dutch shaping Arthur as an outlaw. Over time, as the story plays out, Dutch becomes increasingly more
violent, which slowly causes Arthur to build a sense of distrust towards him. After certain circumstances of an internal setup occurred, Dutch and Arthur end up in an operation together. In a series of unfortunate events, Arthur falls to the ground and is held at knifepoint, and even though Dutch could have helped him, he left him. This was the final straw, where all of Arthur’s trust and loyalty to Dutch were finally broken.
It is never too late to reflect and seek redemption
These events play their part in Arthur having a change of heart and deciding to help people, especially his people. By choosing a different path forward, he spends his energy
seeking redemption and making amends.This leads to isolation and personal growth for Arthur, as he reflects on his past and seeks redemption for his actions.
Red Dead Redemption 2 shows us that even though we do not know what the future holds, we can still make the most of it through our actions.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” – Marcus Aurelius
