Questing Through Life
Seize the Day Like a Nerd
Animal Crossing: New Horizons took the world by storm in early 2020, and not just because everyone was stuck indoors and needed something light and joyful to give them a break from, well, everything. Since even before its booming pandemic success, the series has been lauded for gentle-paced gameplay, quirky characters, and nearly endless replayability.
All things that sound lovely in a game, right? And almost all the characters are gibberish-speaking animals in people clothes? Sign me up!
Except… I can’t stand playing Animal Crossing.
Now put down your pitchforks and torches and let me explain. I’ve tried several times to get into the franchise, but I bounce right off it every time for a very simple reason:
There’s no point to the game.
I don’t mean that as a diss; it’s just the style. Animal Crossing is a slice-of-life game designed to be enjoyed at a relaxing pace, like a videogame vacation (but with crushing debt and intrusive neighbors).
The problem I have when playing games like this is I spend the entire time looking for the why.
“Why am I doing this? What is the objective? Where is the end goal? When will I know I’ve finished the game? How can I measure if I did a good job? Who the heck does Tom Nook think he is???”
This is why I love games in The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy franchises. They are stories that use clearly defined quests to continually drive the player toward the ultimate goal of rescuing the princess, defeating evil, saving the world! Those are strong motivators that keep me invested for dozens if not hundreds of hours per game.
And that’s just who I am as a person. I am goal-oriented. Motivation does not burn naturally in me; it has to be sparked with a compelling result that is continually stoked by actionable benchmarks.
I find too often that I try to do something new out of a sense of obligation or during a temporary moment of inspiration, and all too quickly I burn out, lose interest, or backslide.
I know I’m not alone in this. But what I’m starting to figure out is that I can learn from my favorite games what’s missing from my attempts at leveling up in real life.
Let’s take some real examples for a spin, shall we? We’ll start with a main questline from one of my favorite game franchises, which happens to be summarized neatly in song:
Quest: To Be the Very Best (Like No One Ever Was)
Quest: Become the Pokémon Champion
Defeat the Elite Four
Beat the 8 Gym Leaders
Level up my Pokémon
Catch Pokémon
Leave my hometown, find some grass, throw some balls at wild animals with magic powers
Do you see the elegance of it? You have a clear objective, but to achieve it, you have to accomplish a bevy of smaller quests, each propelling you forward toward the end goal. Now compare it to this:
Objective: Be Healthier
Eat better
Sleep better
Exercise better
This… is awful. There’s no action. No goal. No fun. This is not a quest. This is not something to accomplish; it’s wishful thinking. So how do I fix that? Well, here’s an example:
Quest: Comfortably Wear the Clothing I Like (< a real goal I care about, not a vague idea I feel like I should care about)
Lose weight in a healthy, controlled manner (< reasonable and realistic)
Eat food that I like AND is good for me AND can be eaten without overindulging (< one step of many that can be taken, but quests should be tackled one objective at a time)
Slay the dragons of DoorDash and fast food (< “slay the dragons” is much cooler verbiage than “stop it, you should know better, you’re too poor for this”)
Grocery shop with a list without straying from it (< a specific, simple action instead of broad concepts)
Use a meal planner and share the calendar/plans with a friend for accountability (< start small right where you are)
This! This is a life quest!!! And here’s the big thing I want you to notice: we work our way from the bottom to the top, and each step is a quest unto itself. Getting out there and catching your first Pokémon takes time, and it takes even more time to catch your whole team, and even MORE time to train them!
Utilizing that parallelism, getting used to using a meal planner will take time and work. But I have to do that step before moving on to grocery shopping without going off from my list, and so on.
We are so conditioned to seek instant results and instant gratification, and we don’t like hearing that lasting success doesn’t work like that. But do I start up a game of Pokémon and immediately head to fight the Elite Four? No!
I completely understand that there are steps to follow to get there, and I enjoy the journey. Each conquered quest readies me for the next one, and each comes with cool characters, abilities, and loot that add to the experience.
Going out to catch your first Pokémon is exciting! It’s fun! And you wind up with super cool magic animal pals! But how can we make the first step of meal planning fun?
For starters, what if sharing the meal plan with my friend comes with a reward? What if it means we get to hang out and actually cook some of the meals together? Is there a way to make a literal game out of the meal plan where I challenge my friend to fill in some of the blanks to dare me to try weird combos?
The possibilities are endless!!! And we can have fun with each and every step/quest while making continual progress toward the main quest objective. Why aren’t we doing this???
I have so many things I want to do, many of them involving ways to improve myself. Between Christian discipleship, health, and career goals, I have a mountain of “wants” without the motivation to pursue them.
But if I can learn from my favorite games to make the journey count, to quest through life in pursuit of goals that actually matter to me, then maybe I can actually move forward instead of stagnating.
While Warriors of Light quest to discover the mysteries of the crystals and defeat the evil lurking in the shadows, I can quest to write down the stories in my head and become a published author.
While Pokémon Trainers quest to catch ‘em all and become the Champions of the region, I can quest to be active and healthy so I can be part of my friends’ lives for a long time to come.
While Link and Zelda quest to save Hyrule from Ganon’s clutches, I can quest to strengthen my relationship with Christ both because He is worthy of all praise, glory, and honor and because I want to be a better instrument of His will in bringing salvation to those around me.
When I look at it like that, I have such amazing journeys ahead of me. I just have to start with the small opening quests first, which are usually some of my favorite quests and fondest memories in games.
So what’s in your quest log, and what are the Level 1 quests you can do to start your journey? How can I pray for you to encourage you along the way? Because quests are best when you have an awesome party of fellow heroes questing along with you!
Visual goal trackers are great for this. Back when one of my goals was to get through my video game backlog, I listed the games in my journal and gave them all HP bars. The more progress I made, the fuller the HP bar became (backwards, I know). I also created a chapter checklist for my thesis novel that enabled me to write all 200 pages of it in two months. These pages are so satisfying to look at! Granted, you have to be able to forgive yourself when you miss a day or two.
I started playing Animal Crossing when the pandemic sheltering in place mandate and menopause hit at the same time and my anxiety was through the roof. True, it's a bit cutesy and doesn't have much of a point but for me, it's always hence been a great de-stressor and, admittedly, quite addictive.
However, as a fellow aspiring writer, I do normally prefer games that have a direction, a purpose, and room to create. For this reason my game of choice has, from its conception way back in the 1990s to the present day has been The Sims. Yes, there's always been a certain weirdness to it, but it has helped me to create so many characters, stories, and scenarios through the years.
Dungeon Siege comes a very close second. I do love those fantasy RPGs.