Gameshark
One of my favorite games growing up was a football game called NFL Street 2.?
A key element of the game is balancing the skills of each player —thoughtfully tweaking attributes like running speed and catching ability to create a complementary set of players that are more than the sum of their parts.?
By design no player could be perfect?—?increasing one attribute meant making concessions on another attribute. This is what made the game so challenging and rewarding.?
Some third parties, notably one called Gameshark, sought to remove this constraint. All you had to do was load up Gameshark first, enable the ‘cheat codes’, load up NFL Street and voila: now you can max out every setting without limitation and have a truly perfect team. Every player runs blazing fast, catches every ball, and nails every tackle.?
Two schools of thoughts on this:
One loves these cheats. You succeed instantly.?
The other, of which I’m a part of, becomes instantly bored. Where’s the fun in winning the game if someone with zero skill has the same chances of winning as someone who is highly skilled??
Exceptionally easy things aren’t fun; exceptionally hard things aren’t either.?
But the middle?—?that is moderate challenges that push us but don’t feel impossible?—?are often deeply satisfying.?
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To that end, you can always lament a challenge… or you can embrace the opportunity it presents to sharpen your skills and to feel good about what you accomplish as a result.?
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About me:
I'm a second-generation Taiwanese American trying to find life’s greatest sources of meaning and make the most out of it