Since the beginning of the year, my body hit a brick wall. I found that I could not keep pushing myself like I did most of 2009. The level of stress I was carrying was starting to show and wear on my body and started to wear on my mind.

When you leave work, ideally you leave work at the office and come home. But between the on-call schedule and how busy I was last year, the divide between home and work started blurring. And instead of really enjoying my time at home, especially with the boys, I started regarding them as obstacles to getting more work done.

But being stuck at home with record snowfalls and getting sick over the last few months helped me realize just how much I had been overstressing and constantly focused on work instead of really enjoying my home life with my wife and kids.

Richmond's Record Snowfall - February 2010

I also recently got a physical and it was a bit of a wake up call of how much I’ve neglected my body and really pushed it to its limits with my reliance on junk food, sugar and caffeine. I am fortunate that my body isn’t in worse condition, but having high cholesterol is not good, especially with my family’s history of heart disease.

After taking soda out of my diet, I found that I could not force myself to stay awake any longer and that after having a taste of regular sleep, trying to deprive myself of sleep to work more has become incredibly difficult and has cut into my “working hours” for my personal projects.

WHAT? NO SODA???

But that doesn’t mean I’m stopping. I just have to be smarter about my time – getting enough sleep, exercise, family time, work and still have enough time to create games.

In the last few months…

• I was able to finish my site for building wells and fighting HIV in Uganda.
• I am finishing up a freelancing job within the next week.
• I am working on my next game with an artist friend of mine.
• And, I am incorporating my game company and trademarking this game idea of ours in the next few months.

I have to admit, I was very much resentful at hitting this hard limit of my body and my time. I whined, complained and even yelled in anger about how much I wasn’t getting done. But I’ve come to realize that I need to take care of myself for my family and to divide out my time properly – for work to stay at work and that the best hours of my day are with my wife and sons.

My family is my real work. Everything else is just a job.

The shortest route to making a game meaningful for a player is really simple.  Just make it a multiplayer game.  This Copernican observation was made by prominent game designer, Daniel Cook.

Danc points out that a lot of games make a false constraint by trying to make meaningful experiences for the player through cinematics, music and a moving story.  In reality, the shortest route to create meaning is simply to get other human beings invovled in the same experience.

Kumbayah sound better in a group than alone in the shower alone

As an example, Danc points out the widely popular Facebook games like Farmville and Mafia Wars and how it has become meaningful to people’s lives because of its social aspect.  But I think that games like Farmville and Mafia Wars fall short on creating something truly impactful.  What truly makes a game impactful is not just that a game is social, but that it gives you choices and consequences.

Many single players give you the illusion of choices and consequences by showing how your actions impact the story.  But this is artificial and fake.  You can play through every scenario again and again, and even laugh at the differences when you choose the “jerk” option rather than the “nice” option.  But you can’t take those things back when you are making a choice with a real person that has real consequences.

For instance, in Mafia Wars, you can put bounties on people’s heads and “oops you’re dead, minus some experience.”  There really is no real bite to it.

Politics through Facebook

But in this not-so-well-known Facebook game, Starfleet Commander by Blue Frog Gaming, your interactions with other players have lasting consequences.

There is an invisible choice that is made when you play Starfleet Commander that most people don’t notice.  At some point in the game, you begin to realize that the fastest way to grow is to attack other players.  It takes time, and a lot of resources to build an economic infrastructure.  And while other people are doing the same, impatience grows to take from the weaker players so that you can quickly grow.

Mine!

Unlike Mafia Wars, if you attack another player’s planet, take their resources and destroy their ships, those things are really gone.  To add insult to injury, vultures can even harvest the debris of destroyed ships as well, destroying not only your fleet infrastructure, but also the resources you put into building them.  The consequences are harsh, lasting and have cause people to switch to a safer “diplomacy” mode where everything they produce is taxed or to quit the game all together.

The ironic thing is that like the real universe, Starfleet Commander’s playing field is infinitely vast and ever expanding.  Resources are unlimited and plentiful.  What is limited is time and patience.  So the choice is made whether or not to take from others.  This is a real and lasting choice and people can and will hate you for taking what is theirs.

Isn't there enough room for all of us?

For my section of the universe, one particular aggressor kept hammering away at weaker players until he grew to an enormous size and threatened all the players in the area.  Where I was once quietly gathering my resources by myself, I was suddenly called upon by others to gather together and defend against this bully.  I found myself digging in my heels and rushing up the technological ladder to create a fleet equal to or greater than the aggressor.

For people who know me in person, I am naturally a protector.  But I never expected to experience that personality habit in a game.  I found myself growing my fleets and colonies simply to push myself to protect others.

Our alliance, “Fading Suns” came together and we made another choice.  After vanquishing this threat, we decided that we were not going to become an aggressor alliance and simply to continue to be a defensive alliance while actively seeking out to go after other aggressor “bully” players in the game – of which there are plentiful.

Nobility in war

One of my friends was completely wiped out last night.  And as I write this, he is in correspondence with his attacker asking him questions like, “Why do you do this?  Do you feel better about yourself by doing this – attacking people who are so much weaker than you?”  And the usual replies come back:

“It’s your own fault for playing so stupidly.”
“It’s just a game.”
“Life’s unfair anyway.”

My friend in his wisdom said back, “If life is unfair, shouldn’t you work at making it better rather than worse?”

I don’t think that this conversation on morality would happen over something like Farmville or Mafia Wars.

How Farmville Wars got started

Some people may laugh this off and say, “Man you are taking this really seriously.”  I really don’t think so.  I think that not enough people really like to ask the only meaningful questions in life.

Who do I make myself to be by my actions – in work, in play, at home, with others, when I am alone?
Who do I like to pretend to be – in books I buy, movies I watch, games I play?
Who am I?

Those are the only questions that really matter.  And like it or not, how you conduct yourself in play does matter.  It’s something I have to constantly tell my boys, after all.

One of the major criticisms of video games is that makes people withdraw from the real world and that gaming has been often unfairly used synonymously with irresponsible behavior.  But there are a lot of positive behaviors that games can influence, if used in the right hands.

I recently picked up “Wii Sports Resort” for my family.  I cannot under emphasize how much I love many of the Wii games that cater towards party and family play.  The Wii alone has made my wife a big time gamer, and Wii Sports is a welcome addition to our family gaming library.

My eldest son, who is about 4 1/2 years, really picked up on Basketball.  He still has trouble with shooting, but is a real monster when it comes to slam dunks.  After playing a few games with him to learn the ropes, I quickly stopped giving him a handicap and found that I had to play at my best to win.

My eldest son is highly competitive and doesn’t like to lose.  After a grueling round of playing, I was barely in the lead and half a second before I could claim victory, my son pauses the game and hits “restart.”  He “rage quit.”  I couldn’t believe it.  I told him that I would not play with him if he did that again because it was rude and unfair.  So, after some tears and some encouraging words from my wonderful wife, my son came back said he was sorry and said that he will just try harder next time.  A gaming experience became a wonderful life lesson.

Monster Slam!

But what surprised me even more was that the following day, my son asked me if we could play real basketball.  I’m happy that he loved playing laundry-basket ball more than the Wii.  But he would never have discovered it, had it not been for the game.

This phenomenon is more common than one would think.  Apparently, there has been a notable increase in musical instrument sales – especially rock band instruments – since the debut of games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

You're going to be seeing more dudes like this.

Now, there are certainly games that take people away to mythical fantasy worlds to explore places they have never seen before.  And there is certainly temptation to go off into these worlds and never come back.  But this phenomenon is not peculiar to games as many a bookworm would tell you.

Not all games take people away from the world.  Sometimes it is games that make more people interested in the world around them.

So after this teeth-grinding and harrowing month I had at work, I am taking a long stay-cation and treating my wife and family.  Don’t worry, I plan to do some major blogging again.  It’s just that my eldest son has been playing this particular game and has been begging me to show him what it is like for real.  I’m more than happy to oblige.

Gone Fishing