You Are Playing Games? Cation! Side Effects Included!

This is a very interesting side effect that I developed over time. It's not like you work for it deliberately, but more like something you become good at while you play games. And here it is … drums please … the "Eye for details". What do I mean? The ability to reverse engineer how things work. Let me try to give you an example from my gaming experience and one from my martial arts practice.

First time I became aware of this was while I was playing Heroes of the Storm. It was like I understood better and better how the game mechanics work, especially for Nova (she is my top favorite hero there). It was very obvious when I tried to defend myself with her, to block Li Ming's big magic balls, or to get another talent if you have a lot of melee opponents. Those small details make you better at the game as a whole. It's the same in other games like Dragon Age: Inquisition (managed to beat it on Nightmare difficulty), Mass Effect, Civilization 6 and so on. I'm sure you got the point.

Here is the example from the martial arts world. In order to make a technique yours you have to master the smallest details in it. The smaller the detail you correct, the better you are. First you start with the basic movement. No one will expect from you to see something totally new and do it perfectly the first time (actually, perfection can't be achieved, so I strive for excellence). After you got the basic movements or concepts for that matter you go on to the next detail and so on.

For me personally games have helped me a lot by focusing my attention on the details. We become better at spotting details the more we practice it. I believe this skill can easily be transferred to you everyday activities. Let me know if you have seen such side effects in your life in the comments below.

Keep learning and may the Force be with you!

How Many Things Can You Focus On?

When Civilization 6 was released, together with my girlfried we sat down and had a look at the game and started playing. What we figured out is that as the game is quite complex you can't get the whole picture in a blink of an eye. Then we decided to focus on one victory at a time. What this means is that we began playing several games trying to win with culture, then science, then domination and so on. The game is much more digestible like this, because it's easier to become very good at only one thing.

After playing Civ 6 about a week my mind made an interesting analogy with martial arts and then with my starting years as a programmer. How is Civ 6 approach similar to martial arts? Well, you usually train one single technique per training session. This gives you focus and allows you to get deeper understanding of the corresponding technique. This means you have much more chance to recognize a situation where you can use it.

The programming was quite similar. I was first focused learning C for about half a year, then switched to Java for another year, then to C++. It wasn't simultaneously, it was one language at a time. This doesn't mean I had very deep understanding about each of the languages, but I was aware of them. In order to get deeper understanding you have to be emerged in much more deeper and longer learning process.

Let me know if this approach worked for you in the comments below.

Keep learning and may the Force be with you!

Are You a "Thief"?

“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” - Pablo Picasso

Yesterday I had a match in Heroes of the Storm. We lost. But I had Medivh hero in the other team, who become MVP. What did I do after the match? Opened the talents screen and stole his talent’s setup. Then made 3 matches with them to get the feeling of what’s different. Let me give you another example. I struggled to stay in top 200 in PvP battles in Galaxy of Heroes. Then I started searching in YouTube for other gamers which play SWGoH to see what they are doing differently. Then I applied some of the strategies I saw in those videos and guess what? I’m now constantly there and improving.

It’s the same in martial arts. You have to steal the technique from your sifu/master whatever you call him. My Sifu Bozhidar Stanchev always tells us that you have to first see what’s been shown to you and then imitate (steal) it as close as possible. It’s the same in many other aspects of life, but I guess martial arts and arts in general is where it’s more obvious.

So, there is no shame in stealing from another person’s strategy and try his approach. Just make sure you adapt those strategies to your own personal style. In case you have doubts refer to the quote at the beginning of the post.

Let me know what skill you’ve "stolen" lately in the comments below.

Keep learning and may the Force be with you!