11 ms·

Life is a game, this is your strategy guide

359 points by oliveremberton 13y ago

Fasebook 13y ago
So which drawer is the Ultima Weapon in?
opendomain 13y ago
This is a fantastic article - I wish I had known this guide when I was young. I liked it so much, I sent a link to my teenage son. However, if you would not mind, could this be edited so my teeanage daughter would also enjoy it? Unless, of course, she wants to be a "ladies magnet" - I support her life choices. But if we want more women entrepreneurs, we should encourage them to follow a path like this without the possible sexism.
- seizethecheese 13y ago
  While I think that you're heart is in the right place, an expectation that personal advice be written in a gender-neutral environment is excessive. Oliver is a man (I presume) writing a guide based on his experience.
  - ehALoginName 13y ago
    As soon as I saw the picture of the sample players, and the "ladies magnet" bit I thought of.. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th... Hidden handicaps can hinder some level progression (like jobs, social acceptance) may really frustrate some players. No mention of the luckless that spawn in unfortunate terrain/hostile environments. Compared to similar players I feel like I need to level grind more than those that spent the same amount of time on it. And that's how I discovered the game is not balanced, which is sometimes rather depressing.
  - seizethecheese 13y ago
    *your
- oliveremberton 13y ago
  Thanks. I did agonise over that part at the time I wrote it. I couldn't think of a more inclusive alternative, and chose something a little comedic on purpose ('ladies man') in the hope it wouldn't be taken too seriously. Open to suggestions.
  - roel_v 13y ago
    Suggestion: ignore whiners like this who petition for 'manhole covers' to be renamed 'personhole covers'.
    - thezoid 13y ago
      Or you know... just name them to something generic like "sewer access point covers"
      - dubfan 13y ago
        Not all "access point covers" go to sewers. Some go to communication conduits. Sewerist.
  - Breefield 13y ago
    Sorry, you're on the frontpage, it's going to be taken too seriously. I don't think anyone is actually going to catch the joke that generally speaking, entrepreneurs and ladies magnets are not actually "something bigger" at all.
  - NickPollard 13y ago
    I thought it was a great article, but I think it would be better if the image of the 'random character's at the start showed racial variation - saying that your character is totally random and then having a picture of 6 white people was a bit incongruent to me. Otherwise excellent.
  - edent 13y ago
    I thought it was fun. But the protagonist in every screen shot appears to be a straight white male. Depending on how you're counting, that's about 15% of the world population. Why not make it interactive, and let the user choose who they are? Or add more variation to the images? Or talk about getting on with people who "aren't like me"? Good fun piece though.
whizzkid 13y ago
Small things that should be mentioned about this game, so far i have played; - Multiplayer is the only option you can select. - There is no pause button. - Your character is truly random selected so expect anything. - There is only one map which is way too big, I haven't had time to go most of the places yet but not complaining. - You only have one chance to survive the game, no 'save the state' option. It is a unique game with unique rules. I like it!
- Ygg2 13y ago
  > Your character is truly random selected so expect anything. Actually no, it's more like PRNG. Which stands for Predictably Random Natural Genetic. Lack of save state is really bad though. Also humans are hard to grasp. Really poor UI.
  - GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
    I think you're right that life's character selection is a random number generator that is in some ways predictable. But I think PRNG usually stands for Pseudo Random Number Generator, which in this context seems different. Almost as if you waited long enough, the same people would start appearing again...
  - _mulder_ 13y ago
    I see what you're getting at, but I disagree; you can't really chose your parents can you. So from your point of view, however you end up when you're born, is actually completely random and out of your control.
    - Ygg2 13y ago
      No but that's not the point. If you know seed of PRNG you can based on predecessors find next element. Also it's a joke :)
- michaelmcmillan 13y ago
  What about: You'll never win.
petsagouris 13y ago
Ok, this has been done on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/outside http://www.reddit.com/r/outside
hugofirth 13y ago
OK... ok - I get all this. But how do I build for Tanky DPS? Addendum: Article also forgets to mention the University stage, otherwise known as LFG.
Schwolop 13y ago
So Oliver had 86 karma before posting this. Assuming this marks the start of his intent to post all his 2014 articles, I shall enjoy observing how rapidly this number blossoms...
- oliveremberton 13y ago
  Thanks! I've not really posted much on HN before, although I've had a few of my posts turn up in here by themselves, and I thought it would be worth trying myself. crosses fingers
  - Schwolop 13y ago
    I think some crossing [of fingers] might be in order. HN has a weird hatred of Quora, so if anyone ever finds out how internet-famous you are there, there could be trouble!
    - oliveremberton 13y ago
      Sorry – "crossing"?
      - Schwolop 13y ago
        crossing of fingers. I probably could have worded that better...
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
notastartup 13y ago
How many of you clicked on the 'PRESS START' and then started to wonder if it's actually a key and realized you have no idea what you are doing like life itself. Only 19,345 days remaining in your life (assuming there's no way to extend life beyond 80 in my life time and still be solid) how depressing is that? The only thing that now makes sense is go full out Skyrim, raids and pillaging, indulging in hedonism and a senseless pursuit of scarce material goods. On another note, this site seems like a personal therapist. When I read one article I just feel calm and excited depending on the article. It's a freaking goldmine of life hacks.
- jzzskijj 13y ago
  "How many of you clicked on the 'PRESS START' and then started to wonder if it's actually a key and realized you have no idea what you are doing like life itself." I clicked, but just because I wanted to make sure I don't miss an easter egg or something.
splitbrain 13y ago
This is awesome. What I'd really like to have is an improved HUD for this game that permanently displays the internal states of Health, Energy and Willpower. Google Glass + some biosensors maybe.
Breefield 13y ago
Enjoyed all of this aside from the "finding a partner" section. Finding a partner is trivial, keeping that partner is the hard part. Unless you want to keep finding new partners all the time (some do).
- l33tbro 13y ago
  Finding the right partner isn't trivial.
  - danielweber 13y ago
    Maybe it's blasphemy for me to say this, but in my life it's been a lot harder to start a relationship than to keep one. Relationship books say that you have to work just as hard to keep one but that's nonsense. I don't need to buy my spouse flowers constantly or go on dates every weekend. (But surprise flowers are always a good idea.)
    - girvo 13y ago
      Well they're sort of right, but those material things aren't actually "working on the relationship", IMO. I've always taken it as "working in being the best person you can be" -- seems to have worked for the past few years for me so far :)
    - Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
      It's the same in my experience. It was very difficult for me to start a relationship, and much easier to keep it. Starting one still looks rather random to me, you roll the dice until finally someone that you like likes you too, and that's most of what there's to it. Your attitude or effort can give you some small modifiers or penalties to the dice roll, but that's about it. It might sound childish but honestly, if I have to start a new relationship at some point, I'll be as lost in a sea of pure chaos as I was the last time. On the other hand, keeping a relationship is pretty rational. Love the other person, care about her, don't be a dick, be emphatic, try to make her life as good as possible, and if you are not unusually unlucky you'll normally succeed. Maybe it's also that as people that for one reason or other have a very hard time looking for relationships, we tend to value them more and make more effort to keep them than those who have it easier to get into one.
alecsmart1 13y ago
Nice. Can also add- Cheat codes: There are no cheat codes. Or if you want to be controversial- Cheat codes: - Find a rich partner - Win a lottery - Get born in a rich family (random)
- baby 13y ago
  I thought reading books was a cheat code? A lot of people try to figure out things by themselves, and some things have to be understood by oneself. But a lot of things can also be understood in books, or by listenning to the experiences of others that have failed where you are trying to suceed hundred of years before you.
  - charlieflowers 13y ago
    Reading skill-building books is like grinding orcs for two hours to get to the next level. (Reading fun books is another mini-game. Every now and then, you can find a book or 2 that is both fun and skill-building, which is more fun than any game I've ever encountered).
DaGal 13y ago
All those "BE PRODUCTIVE" subliminal messages are somehow damaging my willpower.
onion2k 13y ago
Every time I see an article like this I just want to grab the readers and shout "Read a philosophy book!" to them[1]. Literally every point in every article on how to live a happy life was being made by the likes of Seneca and Aristotle thousands of years ago, and there are good reasons why those writers are still the foundation for philosophy today - they were right. [1] I would recommend something like "Philosophy For Life (And Other Dangerous Situations)" by Jules Evans or "Consolations of Philosophy" by Alain De Botton as a starting point.
- ozim 13y ago
  Basicaly those readers try not to waste time on reading old creazy guys from ancient past. It is easier to get pieces here and there on random internet sites. I would sum this article with such quote: "It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing." On the shortness of life - Seneca
  - AutoCorrect 13y ago
    tldr
- sz4kerto 13y ago
  Agreed, and I'd like to add that there's a reason why a few thousand years after Aristotle (and the rest) we still don't know a good recipe for a happy/whatever life.
  - VLM 13y ago
    On the contrary, we know so many recipes, and some have proven much better than others, while some have become obsolete. Its like asking for "the" (singular) recipe for cooking food. What the philosophers are good at, is helping the reader come up with a logical method for making value judgments about those recipes. Its (mostly) not "here's a great piece of source code" its mostly more like "and this is why OO design is better (or not)".
Jach 13y ago
This is a fun little post. I did have a nitpick with the points about willpower, though. There's evidence that's it's limited if you believe willpower is limited, and nonlimited if you believe willpower is nonlimited (http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/Publications_files/Job,%20Dweck,%20%26%20Walton,%202010.pdf http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/Publications_files/Job...). (And in other ego depletion literature, loss of willpower may just be reflecting lower glucose levels.) > All players die after about 29,000 days, or 80 years. If your stats and skills are good, you might last a little longer. There is no cheat code to extend this. Wouldn't that be a great hack, to extend this number indefinitely, and share the exploit with everyone else? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_Foundation et al. are working on it...)
- malka 13y ago
  Great is not really the word I would use. Awful fits better.
omegaworks 13y ago
-Select- your character! Reminded me of a wonderful Louis CK sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY Of course you can't end up a person of color. Oh heavens no, anything but that!
l33tbro 13y ago
When did HN become a repository for sub-par Tony Robbins pap?
- robobro 13y ago
  Sadly, it's part of the toxic startup/marketing/web design/etc half of hn that's really quite terrible.
sz4kerto 13y ago
Is this supposed to be a joke or there are people who really do think that they have figured out the simple rules of how to lead a good life? Maybe I'm just becoming old, but I already hate this kind of arrogance.
- benburleson 13y ago
  It's not obvious the article is supposed to be "fun?" Man, I don't want to get old.
eshvk 13y ago
I am curious. Are video games such an influential component of American twenty something year olds that every fucking thing has to be couched in terms of gaming lingo? I see this shit on Reddit all the time and it baffles me.
- kyro 13y ago
  Agreed. Maybe I'm not part of that culture or fully understand it, but as I get older into my late-20s, this type of stuff puts me off more and more.
- baby 13y ago
  Maybe it's a difference of generation problem. I'm 25 and I found that article really refreshing.
- benched 13y ago
  I think you're off-base. Rather, the conceptualization of game theory is so all-encompassing of the dynamics of agents interacting in a resource-rich environment, that it can't help but make an informative metaphor for 'life'. On a completely different note, a lot of us grew up without fathers, or many adults paying attention to us. When I entered the world as a young adult, all I knew about making moves and talking to people was what I learned playing RPGs. And I wish I was kidding.
swombat 13y ago
The first 15 years or so of life are just tutorial missions, which suck. There’s no way to skip these. Umm... right. Seriously? That's all the advice this guy has on the first 15 years of life? Reading the rest, it doesn't look like he has much of use to say about anything else either.
- levosmetalo 13y ago
  Did you seriously expect to learn a meaning of life from a blog post? Or you were expecting an advice how to live better, faster, happier life? It's just a blog post that attempts to be fun. As much as can be expected is few nods and smiles while reading it, and a few seconds pause to think about it at the end. And that's it, it's not like author pretends he's Seneca or Aristotle or semeone else.
  - VLM 13y ago
    "Did you seriously expect to learn a meaning of life from a blog post? Or you were expecting an advice how to live better, faster, happier life?" Sure. There's plenty of blogs like that, aside from fluffblogs. Almost no one will agree with any given collection but here's one anyway. Mrmoneymustache for personal finance and any generic paleo blog for food, health, and fitness (robb wolf used to be the center of that world, seems he's being out-SEO-ed by competitors now). How much money will improve your life is debatable nonetheless you've got the zerohedge and thehousingbubbleblog. I tend not to agree with them, but thousands (millions?) of religious bloggers at least think they're improving lives, even if I think they're generally doing the opposite. If you allow podcasts (close enough to blogs, read a blog post out loud) there are uncountable educational lecture podcasts (I have listened to about a dozen history related ones, why are history podcasts so popular?) and the survival podcast (which is almost surely not what you think it is, its sort of a how to prosper being a very small scale homesteader, basically this is how to be a non startup non tech non govt handout entrepreneur) There's probably a difficult and complicated challenge for a startup to categorize blogs as either deep or fluff. In the spirit of PG, everyone thinking its too hard means its a great startup idea.
- oliveremberton 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ozziegooen 13y ago
Life game. Graphics: 9/10 Pretty good, shadows and lighting effects portrayed quite well. Some really strange pixelation going on though. It's on a very small scale, but still noticeable with the right instruments and upsetting to the general public. Sound: 6/10 Fantastic variety. Only works well for the first 2/3rds of the game or so, then becomes quite buggy. Story: 2/10 It's not obvious if there is really a story going on here. Most players experience relatively little classical narrative, and that which does exist seems quite randomly or recklessly placed, possibly completely contrived from otherwise non-storylike events. Multiplayer: 5/10 A wide variety of things to do with others, but many of them are considered quite boring or uninteresting. The gameplay mechanics sometimes seem to encourage active hostility or selfishness between players, which seems clearly suboptimal.
- 3pt14159 13y ago
  More like multiplayer 10/10. The boringness of the people that you spend time with is directly correlated to your own.
lgieron 13y ago
Seriously, THIS is the advice that you'd give to, for example, your son? Views like that (both the content and the form that was used to present it) are a great example for why lots of people see the techies as detached simpletons.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  What, you don't think that your main life decision was whether to be comfortable, well-off, or mega-rich?
  - lgieron 13y ago
    It's not that hard - orienting your life around becoming rich is clearly a trap and, as for the remaining two options, it's better to make more money than less as long as the job doesn't suck too badly.
    - Tloewald 13y ago
      Defining your life around money goals is probably a bad idea period. If you can, do what you love.
      - lgieron 13y ago
        I'd say - set yourself a comfortable base by selling your time and talents (ex. by working as a programmer) and then, if you have enough spare time, do what you love. Going 100% after passion is as dangerous as going 100% after money.
return0 13y ago
"The default life in post-industrial western cities is a game, this is your strategy guide." - FTFY Not all the people in the world live such mechanical, predictable lives.
pete_b 13y ago
AKA a colorful and witty guide to being a self-assured and self-validated narsissist
girvo 13y ago
This got a whole stack of upvotes, reached #1 on HN... But most of the comments here are super negative. That's weird, why would that be?
- ceeK 13y ago
  Interesting point. I quite enjoyed it, but didn't take it as seriously as everyone else in this thread. I mean, it's relating life to an 16-bit computer game, what would one expect? I expect perhaps there may be a few more like me, upvoting the article because they enjoyed it, but then leaving it at that. There's not much to discuss when you realise the true purpose of the article. Negative comments seem to come from people who took it a bit too seriously, in which case it becomes easier to generate discussion points.
- baby 13y ago
  because the most vocal people are always a minority. I'm not saying the article is good, but it's enjoyable and the comparison to life with a video game is fun to read. What most of the comments here fail to see.
- oliveremberton 13y ago
  Things that are popular are incendiary to those who don't like them. If an obscure artist makes some music you don't like, nobody cares. But if that artist sells a million records, you'll see an online explosion of rage. It seems we're wired to react when our tastes don't match those of the groups we hang around in.
- VLM 13y ago
  Right out of the site guidelines, "would find interesting". Not "dropping out of my religion to make him my new guru" Also a long list of things I like is boring and not worth talking about, and probably about the same list for most of us. For example I liked his graphics arts style/technique and the story pacing cannot be improved, and I suspect I'm not alone in those opinions. This guy certainly knows what he's doing WRT those topics. Wasn't that boring to read? I'm sure he would feel better if every post was "dude, love your font choice" fawning, but if he wants blind unconditional love, he should buy a dog, not get submitted to HN. Somehow nobody has brought up ties to the classic Hasbro "Game of Life" which is the very first thing I thought of when I saw the article. Now that is an observation of something weird happening. I can't be the only HN reader to have played the hasbro game and gotten a mild nostalgia kick...
cell303 13y ago
I really don't know how to say this without sounding like a complete bozo, but I really think that this is a very, very sad perspective on life. It tries to quantify every aspect of life (or rather: disregards any aspect that can't be quantified) and therefore leads to a view of the world that is completely mechanic. What's worse are it's dogmatic undertones. It kind of suggests that these are general rules that apply to everyone. And if you don't want to be a loser you have to play by those rules. Games have winners and losers. Who is to become a winner or a loser is decided by some arbitrary rules that are predefined and can't be changed. Is that the kind of mental mindset that you want to equip yourself with? That you will be either a winner or a loser, by the standards of other people? Please, we already have a high chance of getting burnout in our profession. You don't have to forcefully increase it. So as a little comic relief, here is a quote form the article: > When your willpower is low, you are only able to do things you really want to. By contrast, here is a quote from Bob Dylan that I happen like: > A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. So if you want to be a success by the standards of Dylan, you know what to do ;)
- pknight 13y ago
  It's because it is a sad depiction of life and totally misguided for the purposes of making a catchy post. He took the games analogy to far the way of mechanical games that emphasize the hamster wheel approach to life. That's not to say game play doesn't provide a very good analogy. Life makes much more sense when you relate to it like a variety of games each with their own rules. When you know the rules, everything becomes more clear. What you do with it is still up to you, but it's better than being in the dark. Having a more playful approach to life and finding the fun in the most trivial of activities is rewarding. But unlike what the author emphasizes the in-the-moment experiences matter more than the milestones one reaches for the sake of reaching milestones.
baby 13y ago
I like how it simplifies everything to something we can all understand. And in the end, yes you should get more sleep.
notacoward 13y ago
Also... * We all have to play in hardcore mode - death is permanent, no saves or restarts. * Difficulty level is chosen for you at birth, and you can't change it during the game.
daGrevis 13y ago
I would like to share my opinion on living life. What is the main goal? Some may think that it's getting better at something to get a raise and more money. First there is a school, then there is the 1st job, the you try to get a better one and you are trying and trying and trying to get higher. In my opinion, that's not the main point and it's just a side-effect of the life. Article suggests that 1st 15 years of life is a training or a tutorial, but I disagree. They are as much as important as any other time period. Person should do what makes he or she happy. If it's playing video-games or spending time with friends at a bar, it's okay. Of course, it won't affect your skills on getting a better job (so more money), but if it makes you a happier person, do it! Life is all about being happy and doing what you love to do. There is no magic-prize at the end of the life, only memories. What will be the point of having much money and good CV in you will sacrifice your happiness on it. In my opinion, this video[1] nicely shows what I'm talking about. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4
- babby 13y ago
  While I mostly agree with you, one could also argue that there is a meaning to life and that is not to be happy but is to instead do all that one can do to further human survival (or whatever we end up turning into). One person providing some obscure service eventually bubbles up to the guys colonizing other worlds. There is a default meaning to our life, and it's merely survival. I believe there is a balance between giving into ones emotions and not; doing many great and small things which accumulate into mattering in the grand scheme of it all, determining ones worth. You're lying on your death bed and you ask yourself; how meaningful were my actions to this universe?
  - codonaut 13y ago
    One could argue that survival is the meaning of life, just as one could argue that eating cake is the meaning of life. Just because we have a massive instinctual desire to survive doesn't necessarily mean that it is the default meaning of life.
viach 13y ago
There is a suspicion that we can have persistent game items/artifacts between sessions.
fromdoon 13y ago
I find this very interesting. Most of us who have crossed the 25 year mark, would already have read/seen something like this. But this is an awesome way to teach some valuable lessons to kids. The analogy of life to a game is something that is clear, simple and pretty intuitive for a growing kid. Since most of the kids these days have played some games or other.
md2be 13y ago
Welcome to a world with no mozart, no Jesus, no Buddha, no Poe, no Pele, no Einstein .....
md2be 13y ago
Really? Look through the history books and see how people who made their mark followed this formula?
hardwaresofton 13y ago
It would have been nice to have some other races... as starting points/included in the strategy guide at all.
BrownBuffalo 13y ago
Brilliant. The sandbox example rox.
pyrrhotech 13y ago
Very cool and fun. However, I think we need to stop talking about this 80 years nonsense. My grandad is 83 and ran a marathon last year. He still works everyday, and talks about where his company will be 15 years from now. I have 6 great aunts alive in their 90s or older (I just attended one of my great aunts' 100th birthday parties over the holidays). The point is that the human body if treated well in the ideal conditions is meant to live 120 years or so. Over time, litte damages we do to it like not get enough sleep, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, eat trans fat, take drugs, stress at work add up to years off. No one is perfect, and just about everyone will end up taking a decade or two off this max even if their goal is not to. But living to 100 while still enjoying life should be everyone's goal. Remember that having a 100 year life span gives you 25% more life than 80. That's a really big difference and enhances your perspective greatly. I don't feel that life is over at 35, in fact it's pretty much just getting started. And this is all not counting any technological advances that may enable us to drastically increase our lifespans. I hope Mr. De Gray and Kurzweil are correct. But even if they aren't, you should shoot for at least 100.
crux 13y ago
This is a charming article. But it's somewhat sad to read. Because it operates on the nearly universal assumption that life is a game, or a battle, or a scavenger hunt—and the way to win is to maintain a high 'state' and get lots of 'achievements'. The reason this gaming terminology is so appealing to us is that it overlays nicely on the way we already think about life: you're constantly making some grade or another; you're constantly doing better or worse than your peers. A generation ago business was the most appropriate metaphor. But whether our obsession is with who's giving us a raw deal and who we're getting over on, or where we have advantages and where we have disadvantages (what am I at +1 for?), the basic sensibility doesn't change. The perspective here is consistently egoistic. It's not even mentioned. It's just assumed that the way one goes through life is as an individual, with one's own interests solely at heart, and one's own state the only thing to be managed. You win by maximizing your own state, by grabbing as many achievements as you can before you die. And even if you're not a dick about it, your concerns are very much limited to your states, health level, and the contents of your inventory. This is no way to go through life! It leads to suffering and a small view of things. I'm really interested to see, actually, what this community makes of that insight. It will dawn on people eventually—or at least its negative will: that everything we've been putting so much damned energy into isn't making us happy. But this community is so relentlessly introspective, communicative, articulate, well-equipped, and outright successful. And we have so many blogs like this one: so many people actively, sincerely, unabashedly interested in the science of happiness and fulfillment. So the potential there is pretty big. The potential for massive burnout and dissolution or massive reorientation.
- erikb 13y ago
  Sorry, I couldn't find the alternative in your approach. Please reformulate for me what approach to life do you actually suggest. I'm really interested to see another point of view. My last years were mainly spent from switching to just living life to the style mentioned in the article and just everything feels so much better since. I am happy to go to work in the morning. I am happy to write my thesis. I am sometimes even happy to be critized by other people. And my social life also increased drastically since, containing more meaningful relationships to other people on all levels. And heck, I'm even doing sport because I know it ups my motivation, health and happiness. I was used to being one of the least positive people about life prospects, now at least in my circles I am one of the most positive people and others are actually spending time with me just to grab some of the positive energy. If you have a life style to offer that makes me and the people around me even more happy I would be really happy to learn more about it!
dummy00 13y ago
Setting goals and pursuing them - very well Trying out different strategies to be more effective in reaching your goals - perfectly ok Convinging yourself that you have complete control over what's happening to you and becoming too serious about the game - big mistake.. You should always allow a good doze of doubt and be open to the unknown, because ultimately .. we have no clue what a fuck we're doing here...
pond_lilly 13y ago
finally, someone figured it all out
city41 13y ago
It seems like the author was influenced by Scott Adams, he talks about a lot of this stuff in his book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big". If this article intrigued you, I recommend the book. It's a very down to earth and practical look at how to be successful.
erikb 13y ago
Awesome guide! I agree with most points. Just a minor point is that rule number one of money is actually never use your own. The rule in the book should be more like the rule number one of managing resources of all kinds, as was also explained to skill. Put your skill into things that grow your skill. Put your time into things that get your more time. And sometimes it also means put your engergy to grow your skills, etc.
nilkn 13y ago
> It’s almost impossible to get rich working for someone else. A very minor nitpick, but this has been proven false so many times. If "rich" means $1M+ during the mid-life period (I think this qualifies as rich if you are willing to live outside of major cities), plenty of people have accumulated that level of wealth by working for others. Go work for a big tech company, save/invest all your bonuses (of which there will be many), and save/invest a good portion of your salary, and you could potentially be a millionaire in only 10 years (for a programmer with just a bachelor's degree, that could translate to early to mid 30s). If "rich" means $10M+, then that is indeed quite a bit harder to do (unless we're talking about age 65+, in which case the above person will easily achieve it). It can still be done by joining the right pre-IPO company, working on Wall Street as a trader (admittedly, a very demanding career--but not "impossible"), achieving partnership at a major law firm, or working your way up the corporate ladder (Satya was making $8M/year before being promoted to CEO).
dbuder 13y ago
needs a save game feature
lilsunnybee 13y ago
On the way to the gym you got into a car crash. After a difficult recovery you now have chronic pain and memory loss problems. Max Happiness is reduced from 10 to 5. All relationship counters reduced by half due to mood changes and inability to relate. These effects are permanent. Continue with life? -Sure- -Quit-
dllthomas 13y ago
Today's SMBC is relevant: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3259#comic http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3259#comic
kyberias 13y ago
I'm disappointed by the total lack of evolutionary perspective in this article.
rrggrr 13y ago
genius. great article.
rrggrr 13y ago
genius. great article.
rrggrr 13y ago
genius. great article.
opinologo 13y ago
Supporting (and implementing) the idea of life as a game, you can check: http://habitrpg.com http://habitrpg.com
guspe 13y ago
Life is not a game. And that's because, unlike any game, life has no rules. By following this strategy guide, there's absolutely no guarantee you will succeed (btw, what exactly is it to succeed in life?). People might get a sense of comfort in thinking that life has a recipe, that it has some sort of inherent quest you must conquer. But there's isn't. Religion, technology, culture and art are our way to deal with that. Life is open for you to make whatever you want of it. And this is the beauty of it all. Do you want to make it a game? Go ahead, lay some rules, build a strategy, get your achievements. But I think there's more to life than following rules and managing your resources. I wouldn't be surprised if the rules changed without warning or if my resources were suddenly depleted without apparent reason. Because life doesn't care about the rationalizations you came up with. Life is a unique experience that, fortunately, cannot be framed within a metaphor. There are many ways to live (life as a game, life as a movie, life as a story, life as a poem, life as a checklist, life as a tough math problem) and all of them are right. So maybe we shouldn't bother too much about living the right way and instead just enjoy the ride.
huangc10 13y ago
"death gotta be easy cuz life is hard" - 50 Cent

359 points by oliveremberton 13y ago

So which drawer is the Ultima Weapon in?

This is a fantastic article - I wish I had known this guide when I was young. I liked it so much, I sent a link to my teenage son. However, if you would not mind, could this be edited so my teeanage daughter would also enjoy it? Unless, of course, she wants to be a "ladies magnet" - I support her life choices. But if we want more women entrepreneurs, we should encourage them to follow a path like this without the possible sexism.

seizethecheese 13y ago
While I think that you're heart is in the right place, an expectation that personal advice be written in a gender-neutral environment is excessive. Oliver is a man (I presume) writing a guide based on his experience.
- ehALoginName 13y ago
  As soon as I saw the picture of the sample players, and the "ladies magnet" bit I thought of.. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th... Hidden handicaps can hinder some level progression (like jobs, social acceptance) may really frustrate some players. No mention of the luckless that spawn in unfortunate terrain/hostile environments. Compared to similar players I feel like I need to level grind more than those that spent the same amount of time on it. And that's how I discovered the game is not balanced, which is sometimes rather depressing.
- seizethecheese 13y ago
  *your
oliveremberton 13y ago
Thanks. I did agonise over that part at the time I wrote it. I couldn't think of a more inclusive alternative, and chose something a little comedic on purpose ('ladies man') in the hope it wouldn't be taken too seriously. Open to suggestions.
- roel_v 13y ago
  Suggestion: ignore whiners like this who petition for 'manhole covers' to be renamed 'personhole covers'.
  - thezoid 13y ago
    Or you know... just name them to something generic like "sewer access point covers"
    - dubfan 13y ago
      Not all "access point covers" go to sewers. Some go to communication conduits. Sewerist.
- Breefield 13y ago
  Sorry, you're on the frontpage, it's going to be taken too seriously. I don't think anyone is actually going to catch the joke that generally speaking, entrepreneurs and ladies magnets are not actually "something bigger" at all.
- NickPollard 13y ago
  I thought it was a great article, but I think it would be better if the image of the 'random character's at the start showed racial variation - saying that your character is totally random and then having a picture of 6 white people was a bit incongruent to me. Otherwise excellent.
- edent 13y ago
  I thought it was fun. But the protagonist in every screen shot appears to be a straight white male. Depending on how you're counting, that's about 15% of the world population. Why not make it interactive, and let the user choose who they are? Or add more variation to the images? Or talk about getting on with people who "aren't like me"? Good fun piece though.

whizzkid 13y ago

Small things that should be mentioned about this game, so far i have played; - Multiplayer is the only option you can select. - There is no pause button. - Your character is truly random selected so expect anything. - There is only one map which is way too big, I haven't had time to go most of the places yet but not complaining. - You only have one chance to survive the game, no 'save the state' option. It is a unique game with unique rules. I like it!

Ygg2 13y ago
> Your character is truly random selected so expect anything. Actually no, it's more like PRNG. Which stands for Predictably Random Natural Genetic. Lack of save state is really bad though. Also humans are hard to grasp. Really poor UI.
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
  I think you're right that life's character selection is a random number generator that is in some ways predictable. But I think PRNG usually stands for Pseudo Random Number Generator, which in this context seems different. Almost as if you waited long enough, the same people would start appearing again...
- _mulder_ 13y ago
  I see what you're getting at, but I disagree; you can't really chose your parents can you. So from your point of view, however you end up when you're born, is actually completely random and out of your control.
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    No but that's not the point. If you know seed of PRNG you can based on predecessors find next element. Also it's a joke :)
michaelmcmillan 13y ago
What about: You'll never win.

petsagouris 13y ago

Ok, this has been done on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/outside http://www.reddit.com/r/outside

hugofirth 13y ago

OK... ok - I get all this. But how do I build for Tanky DPS? Addendum: Article also forgets to mention the University stage, otherwise known as LFG.

Schwolop 13y ago

So Oliver had 86 karma before posting this. Assuming this marks the start of his intent to post all his 2014 articles, I shall enjoy observing how rapidly this number blossoms...

oliveremberton 13y ago
Thanks! I've not really posted much on HN before, although I've had a few of my posts turn up in here by themselves, and I thought it would be worth trying myself. crosses fingers
- Schwolop 13y ago
  I think some crossing [of fingers] might be in order. HN has a weird hatred of Quora, so if anyone ever finds out how internet-famous you are there, there could be trouble!
  - oliveremberton 13y ago
    Sorry – "crossing"?
    - Schwolop 13y ago
      crossing of fingers. I probably could have worded that better...
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]

notastartup 13y ago

How many of you clicked on the 'PRESS START' and then started to wonder if it's actually a key and realized you have no idea what you are doing like life itself. Only 19,345 days remaining in your life (assuming there's no way to extend life beyond 80 in my life time and still be solid) how depressing is that? The only thing that now makes sense is go full out Skyrim, raids and pillaging, indulging in hedonism and a senseless pursuit of scarce material goods. On another note, this site seems like a personal therapist. When I read one article I just feel calm and excited depending on the article. It's a freaking goldmine of life hacks.

jzzskijj 13y ago
"How many of you clicked on the 'PRESS START' and then started to wonder if it's actually a key and realized you have no idea what you are doing like life itself." I clicked, but just because I wanted to make sure I don't miss an easter egg or something.

splitbrain 13y ago

This is awesome. What I'd really like to have is an improved HUD for this game that permanently displays the internal states of Health, Energy and Willpower. Google Glass + some biosensors maybe.

Breefield 13y ago

Enjoyed all of this aside from the "finding a partner" section. Finding a partner is trivial, keeping that partner is the hard part. Unless you want to keep finding new partners all the time (some do).

l33tbro 13y ago
Finding the right partner isn't trivial.
- danielweber 13y ago
  Maybe it's blasphemy for me to say this, but in my life it's been a lot harder to start a relationship than to keep one. Relationship books say that you have to work just as hard to keep one but that's nonsense. I don't need to buy my spouse flowers constantly or go on dates every weekend. (But surprise flowers are always a good idea.)
  - girvo 13y ago
    Well they're sort of right, but those material things aren't actually "working on the relationship", IMO. I've always taken it as "working in being the best person you can be" -- seems to have worked for the past few years for me so far :)
  - Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
    It's the same in my experience. It was very difficult for me to start a relationship, and much easier to keep it. Starting one still looks rather random to me, you roll the dice until finally someone that you like likes you too, and that's most of what there's to it. Your attitude or effort can give you some small modifiers or penalties to the dice roll, but that's about it. It might sound childish but honestly, if I have to start a new relationship at some point, I'll be as lost in a sea of pure chaos as I was the last time. On the other hand, keeping a relationship is pretty rational. Love the other person, care about her, don't be a dick, be emphatic, try to make her life as good as possible, and if you are not unusually unlucky you'll normally succeed. Maybe it's also that as people that for one reason or other have a very hard time looking for relationships, we tend to value them more and make more effort to keep them than those who have it easier to get into one.

alecsmart1 13y ago

Nice. Can also add- Cheat codes: There are no cheat codes. Or if you want to be controversial- Cheat codes: - Find a rich partner - Win a lottery - Get born in a rich family (random)

baby 13y ago
I thought reading books was a cheat code? A lot of people try to figure out things by themselves, and some things have to be understood by oneself. But a lot of things can also be understood in books, or by listenning to the experiences of others that have failed where you are trying to suceed hundred of years before you.
- charlieflowers 13y ago
  Reading skill-building books is like grinding orcs for two hours to get to the next level. (Reading fun books is another mini-game. Every now and then, you can find a book or 2 that is both fun and skill-building, which is more fun than any game I've ever encountered).

DaGal 13y ago

All those "BE PRODUCTIVE" subliminal messages are somehow damaging my willpower.

onion2k 13y ago

Every time I see an article like this I just want to grab the readers and shout "Read a philosophy book!" to them[1]. Literally every point in every article on how to live a happy life was being made by the likes of Seneca and Aristotle thousands of years ago, and there are good reasons why those writers are still the foundation for philosophy today - they were right. [1] I would recommend something like "Philosophy For Life (And Other Dangerous Situations)" by Jules Evans or "Consolations of Philosophy" by Alain De Botton as a starting point.

ozim 13y ago
Basicaly those readers try not to waste time on reading old creazy guys from ancient past. It is easier to get pieces here and there on random internet sites. I would sum this article with such quote: "It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing." On the shortness of life - Seneca
- AutoCorrect 13y ago
  tldr
sz4kerto 13y ago
Agreed, and I'd like to add that there's a reason why a few thousand years after Aristotle (and the rest) we still don't know a good recipe for a happy/whatever life.
- VLM 13y ago
  On the contrary, we know so many recipes, and some have proven much better than others, while some have become obsolete. Its like asking for "the" (singular) recipe for cooking food. What the philosophers are good at, is helping the reader come up with a logical method for making value judgments about those recipes. Its (mostly) not "here's a great piece of source code" its mostly more like "and this is why OO design is better (or not)".

Jach 13y ago

This is a fun little post. I did have a nitpick with the points about willpower, though. There's evidence that's it's limited if you believe willpower is limited, and nonlimited if you believe willpower is nonlimited (http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/Publications_files/Job,%20Dweck,%20%26%20Walton,%202010.pdf http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/Publications_files/Job...). (And in other ego depletion literature, loss of willpower may just be reflecting lower glucose levels.) > All players die after about 29,000 days, or 80 years. If your stats and skills are good, you might last a little longer. There is no cheat code to extend this. Wouldn't that be a great hack, to extend this number indefinitely, and share the exploit with everyone else? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_Foundation et al. are working on it...)

malka 13y ago
Great is not really the word I would use. Awful fits better.

omegaworks 13y ago

-Select- your character! Reminded me of a wonderful Louis CK sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY Of course you can't end up a person of color. Oh heavens no, anything but that!

l33tbro 13y ago

When did HN become a repository for sub-par Tony Robbins pap?

robobro 13y ago
Sadly, it's part of the toxic startup/marketing/web design/etc half of hn that's really quite terrible.

sz4kerto 13y ago

Is this supposed to be a joke or there are people who really do think that they have figured out the simple rules of how to lead a good life? Maybe I'm just becoming old, but I already hate this kind of arrogance.

benburleson 13y ago
It's not obvious the article is supposed to be "fun?" Man, I don't want to get old.

eshvk 13y ago

I am curious. Are video games such an influential component of American twenty something year olds that every fucking thing has to be couched in terms of gaming lingo? I see this shit on Reddit all the time and it baffles me.

kyro 13y ago
Agreed. Maybe I'm not part of that culture or fully understand it, but as I get older into my late-20s, this type of stuff puts me off more and more.
baby 13y ago
Maybe it's a difference of generation problem. I'm 25 and I found that article really refreshing.
benched 13y ago
I think you're off-base. Rather, the conceptualization of game theory is so all-encompassing of the dynamics of agents interacting in a resource-rich environment, that it can't help but make an informative metaphor for 'life'. On a completely different note, a lot of us grew up without fathers, or many adults paying attention to us. When I entered the world as a young adult, all I knew about making moves and talking to people was what I learned playing RPGs. And I wish I was kidding.

swombat 13y ago

The first 15 years or so of life are just tutorial missions, which suck. There’s no way to skip these. Umm... right. Seriously? That's all the advice this guy has on the first 15 years of life? Reading the rest, it doesn't look like he has much of use to say about anything else either.

levosmetalo 13y ago
Did you seriously expect to learn a meaning of life from a blog post? Or you were expecting an advice how to live better, faster, happier life? It's just a blog post that attempts to be fun. As much as can be expected is few nods and smiles while reading it, and a few seconds pause to think about it at the end. And that's it, it's not like author pretends he's Seneca or Aristotle or semeone else.
- VLM 13y ago
  "Did you seriously expect to learn a meaning of life from a blog post? Or you were expecting an advice how to live better, faster, happier life?" Sure. There's plenty of blogs like that, aside from fluffblogs. Almost no one will agree with any given collection but here's one anyway. Mrmoneymustache for personal finance and any generic paleo blog for food, health, and fitness (robb wolf used to be the center of that world, seems he's being out-SEO-ed by competitors now). How much money will improve your life is debatable nonetheless you've got the zerohedge and thehousingbubbleblog. I tend not to agree with them, but thousands (millions?) of religious bloggers at least think they're improving lives, even if I think they're generally doing the opposite. If you allow podcasts (close enough to blogs, read a blog post out loud) there are uncountable educational lecture podcasts (I have listened to about a dozen history related ones, why are history podcasts so popular?) and the survival podcast (which is almost surely not what you think it is, its sort of a how to prosper being a very small scale homesteader, basically this is how to be a non startup non tech non govt handout entrepreneur) There's probably a difficult and complicated challenge for a startup to categorize blogs as either deep or fluff. In the spirit of PG, everyone thinking its too hard means its a great startup idea.
oliveremberton 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ozziegooen 13y ago

Life game. Graphics: 9/10 Pretty good, shadows and lighting effects portrayed quite well. Some really strange pixelation going on though. It's on a very small scale, but still noticeable with the right instruments and upsetting to the general public. Sound: 6/10 Fantastic variety. Only works well for the first 2/3rds of the game or so, then becomes quite buggy. Story: 2/10 It's not obvious if there is really a story going on here. Most players experience relatively little classical narrative, and that which does exist seems quite randomly or recklessly placed, possibly completely contrived from otherwise non-storylike events. Multiplayer: 5/10 A wide variety of things to do with others, but many of them are considered quite boring or uninteresting. The gameplay mechanics sometimes seem to encourage active hostility or selfishness between players, which seems clearly suboptimal.

3pt14159 13y ago
More like multiplayer 10/10. The boringness of the people that you spend time with is directly correlated to your own.

lgieron 13y ago

Seriously, THIS is the advice that you'd give to, for example, your son? Views like that (both the content and the form that was used to present it) are a great example for why lots of people see the techies as detached simpletons.

Tloewald 13y ago
What, you don't think that your main life decision was whether to be comfortable, well-off, or mega-rich?
- lgieron 13y ago
  It's not that hard - orienting your life around becoming rich is clearly a trap and, as for the remaining two options, it's better to make more money than less as long as the job doesn't suck too badly.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    Defining your life around money goals is probably a bad idea period. If you can, do what you love.
    - lgieron 13y ago
      I'd say - set yourself a comfortable base by selling your time and talents (ex. by working as a programmer) and then, if you have enough spare time, do what you love. Going 100% after passion is as dangerous as going 100% after money.

return0 13y ago

"The default life in post-industrial western cities is a game, this is your strategy guide." - FTFY Not all the people in the world live such mechanical, predictable lives.

pete_b 13y ago

AKA a colorful and witty guide to being a self-assured and self-validated narsissist

girvo 13y ago

This got a whole stack of upvotes, reached #1 on HN... But most of the comments here are super negative. That's weird, why would that be?

ceeK 13y ago
Interesting point. I quite enjoyed it, but didn't take it as seriously as everyone else in this thread. I mean, it's relating life to an 16-bit computer game, what would one expect? I expect perhaps there may be a few more like me, upvoting the article because they enjoyed it, but then leaving it at that. There's not much to discuss when you realise the true purpose of the article. Negative comments seem to come from people who took it a bit too seriously, in which case it becomes easier to generate discussion points.
baby 13y ago
because the most vocal people are always a minority. I'm not saying the article is good, but it's enjoyable and the comparison to life with a video game is fun to read. What most of the comments here fail to see.
oliveremberton 13y ago
Things that are popular are incendiary to those who don't like them. If an obscure artist makes some music you don't like, nobody cares. But if that artist sells a million records, you'll see an online explosion of rage. It seems we're wired to react when our tastes don't match those of the groups we hang around in.
VLM 13y ago
Right out of the site guidelines, "would find interesting". Not "dropping out of my religion to make him my new guru" Also a long list of things I like is boring and not worth talking about, and probably about the same list for most of us. For example I liked his graphics arts style/technique and the story pacing cannot be improved, and I suspect I'm not alone in those opinions. This guy certainly knows what he's doing WRT those topics. Wasn't that boring to read? I'm sure he would feel better if every post was "dude, love your font choice" fawning, but if he wants blind unconditional love, he should buy a dog, not get submitted to HN. Somehow nobody has brought up ties to the classic Hasbro "Game of Life" which is the very first thing I thought of when I saw the article. Now that is an observation of something weird happening. I can't be the only HN reader to have played the hasbro game and gotten a mild nostalgia kick...

cell303 13y ago

I really don't know how to say this without sounding like a complete bozo, but I really think that this is a very, very sad perspective on life. It tries to quantify every aspect of life (or rather: disregards any aspect that can't be quantified) and therefore leads to a view of the world that is completely mechanic. What's worse are it's dogmatic undertones. It kind of suggests that these are general rules that apply to everyone. And if you don't want to be a loser you have to play by those rules. Games have winners and losers. Who is to become a winner or a loser is decided by some arbitrary rules that are predefined and can't be changed. Is that the kind of mental mindset that you want to equip yourself with? That you will be either a winner or a loser, by the standards of other people? Please, we already have a high chance of getting burnout in our profession. You don't have to forcefully increase it. So as a little comic relief, here is a quote form the article: > When your willpower is low, you are only able to do things you really want to. By contrast, here is a quote from Bob Dylan that I happen like: > A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. So if you want to be a success by the standards of Dylan, you know what to do ;)

pknight 13y ago
It's because it is a sad depiction of life and totally misguided for the purposes of making a catchy post. He took the games analogy to far the way of mechanical games that emphasize the hamster wheel approach to life. That's not to say game play doesn't provide a very good analogy. Life makes much more sense when you relate to it like a variety of games each with their own rules. When you know the rules, everything becomes more clear. What you do with it is still up to you, but it's better than being in the dark. Having a more playful approach to life and finding the fun in the most trivial of activities is rewarding. But unlike what the author emphasizes the in-the-moment experiences matter more than the milestones one reaches for the sake of reaching milestones.

baby 13y ago

I like how it simplifies everything to something we can all understand. And in the end, yes you should get more sleep.

notacoward 13y ago

Also... * We all have to play in hardcore mode - death is permanent, no saves or restarts. * Difficulty level is chosen for you at birth, and you can't change it during the game.

daGrevis 13y ago

I would like to share my opinion on living life. What is the main goal? Some may think that it's getting better at something to get a raise and more money. First there is a school, then there is the 1st job, the you try to get a better one and you are trying and trying and trying to get higher. In my opinion, that's not the main point and it's just a side-effect of the life. Article suggests that 1st 15 years of life is a training or a tutorial, but I disagree. They are as much as important as any other time period. Person should do what makes he or she happy. If it's playing video-games or spending time with friends at a bar, it's okay. Of course, it won't affect your skills on getting a better job (so more money), but if it makes you a happier person, do it! Life is all about being happy and doing what you love to do. There is no magic-prize at the end of the life, only memories. What will be the point of having much money and good CV in you will sacrifice your happiness on it. In my opinion, this video[1] nicely shows what I'm talking about. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4

babby 13y ago
While I mostly agree with you, one could also argue that there is a meaning to life and that is not to be happy but is to instead do all that one can do to further human survival (or whatever we end up turning into). One person providing some obscure service eventually bubbles up to the guys colonizing other worlds. There is a default meaning to our life, and it's merely survival. I believe there is a balance between giving into ones emotions and not; doing many great and small things which accumulate into mattering in the grand scheme of it all, determining ones worth. You're lying on your death bed and you ask yourself; how meaningful were my actions to this universe?
- codonaut 13y ago
  One could argue that survival is the meaning of life, just as one could argue that eating cake is the meaning of life. Just because we have a massive instinctual desire to survive doesn't necessarily mean that it is the default meaning of life.

viach 13y ago

There is a suspicion that we can have persistent game items/artifacts between sessions.

fromdoon 13y ago

I find this very interesting. Most of us who have crossed the 25 year mark, would already have read/seen something like this. But this is an awesome way to teach some valuable lessons to kids. The analogy of life to a game is something that is clear, simple and pretty intuitive for a growing kid. Since most of the kids these days have played some games or other.

md2be 13y ago

Welcome to a world with no mozart, no Jesus, no Buddha, no Poe, no Pele, no Einstein .....

md2be 13y ago

Really? Look through the history books and see how people who made their mark followed this formula?

hardwaresofton 13y ago

It would have been nice to have some other races... as starting points/included in the strategy guide at all.

BrownBuffalo 13y ago

Brilliant. The sandbox example rox.

pyrrhotech 13y ago

Very cool and fun. However, I think we need to stop talking about this 80 years nonsense. My grandad is 83 and ran a marathon last year. He still works everyday, and talks about where his company will be 15 years from now. I have 6 great aunts alive in their 90s or older (I just attended one of my great aunts' 100th birthday parties over the holidays). The point is that the human body if treated well in the ideal conditions is meant to live 120 years or so. Over time, litte damages we do to it like not get enough sleep, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, eat trans fat, take drugs, stress at work add up to years off. No one is perfect, and just about everyone will end up taking a decade or two off this max even if their goal is not to. But living to 100 while still enjoying life should be everyone's goal. Remember that having a 100 year life span gives you 25% more life than 80. That's a really big difference and enhances your perspective greatly. I don't feel that life is over at 35, in fact it's pretty much just getting started. And this is all not counting any technological advances that may enable us to drastically increase our lifespans. I hope Mr. De Gray and Kurzweil are correct. But even if they aren't, you should shoot for at least 100.

crux 13y ago

This is a charming article. But it's somewhat sad to read. Because it operates on the nearly universal assumption that life is a game, or a battle, or a scavenger hunt—and the way to win is to maintain a high 'state' and get lots of 'achievements'. The reason this gaming terminology is so appealing to us is that it overlays nicely on the way we already think about life: you're constantly making some grade or another; you're constantly doing better or worse than your peers. A generation ago business was the most appropriate metaphor. But whether our obsession is with who's giving us a raw deal and who we're getting over on, or where we have advantages and where we have disadvantages (what am I at +1 for?), the basic sensibility doesn't change. The perspective here is consistently egoistic. It's not even mentioned. It's just assumed that the way one goes through life is as an individual, with one's own interests solely at heart, and one's own state the only thing to be managed. You win by maximizing your own state, by grabbing as many achievements as you can before you die. And even if you're not a dick about it, your concerns are very much limited to your states, health level, and the contents of your inventory. This is no way to go through life! It leads to suffering and a small view of things. I'm really interested to see, actually, what this community makes of that insight. It will dawn on people eventually—or at least its negative will: that everything we've been putting so much damned energy into isn't making us happy. But this community is so relentlessly introspective, communicative, articulate, well-equipped, and outright successful. And we have so many blogs like this one: so many people actively, sincerely, unabashedly interested in the science of happiness and fulfillment. So the potential there is pretty big. The potential for massive burnout and dissolution or massive reorientation.

erikb 13y ago
Sorry, I couldn't find the alternative in your approach. Please reformulate for me what approach to life do you actually suggest. I'm really interested to see another point of view. My last years were mainly spent from switching to just living life to the style mentioned in the article and just everything feels so much better since. I am happy to go to work in the morning. I am happy to write my thesis. I am sometimes even happy to be critized by other people. And my social life also increased drastically since, containing more meaningful relationships to other people on all levels. And heck, I'm even doing sport because I know it ups my motivation, health and happiness. I was used to being one of the least positive people about life prospects, now at least in my circles I am one of the most positive people and others are actually spending time with me just to grab some of the positive energy. If you have a life style to offer that makes me and the people around me even more happy I would be really happy to learn more about it!

dummy00 13y ago

Setting goals and pursuing them - very well Trying out different strategies to be more effective in reaching your goals - perfectly ok Convinging yourself that you have complete control over what's happening to you and becoming too serious about the game - big mistake.. You should always allow a good doze of doubt and be open to the unknown, because ultimately .. we have no clue what a fuck we're doing here...

pond_lilly 13y ago

finally, someone figured it all out

city41 13y ago

It seems like the author was influenced by Scott Adams, he talks about a lot of this stuff in his book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big". If this article intrigued you, I recommend the book. It's a very down to earth and practical look at how to be successful.

erikb 13y ago

Awesome guide! I agree with most points. Just a minor point is that rule number one of money is actually never use your own. The rule in the book should be more like the rule number one of managing resources of all kinds, as was also explained to skill. Put your skill into things that grow your skill. Put your time into things that get your more time. And sometimes it also means put your engergy to grow your skills, etc.

nilkn 13y ago

> It’s almost impossible to get rich working for someone else. A very minor nitpick, but this has been proven false so many times. If "rich" means $1M+ during the mid-life period (I think this qualifies as rich if you are willing to live outside of major cities), plenty of people have accumulated that level of wealth by working for others. Go work for a big tech company, save/invest all your bonuses (of which there will be many), and save/invest a good portion of your salary, and you could potentially be a millionaire in only 10 years (for a programmer with just a bachelor's degree, that could translate to early to mid 30s). If "rich" means $10M+, then that is indeed quite a bit harder to do (unless we're talking about age 65+, in which case the above person will easily achieve it). It can still be done by joining the right pre-IPO company, working on Wall Street as a trader (admittedly, a very demanding career--but not "impossible"), achieving partnership at a major law firm, or working your way up the corporate ladder (Satya was making $8M/year before being promoted to CEO).

dbuder 13y ago

needs a save game feature

lilsunnybee 13y ago

On the way to the gym you got into a car crash. After a difficult recovery you now have chronic pain and memory loss problems. Max Happiness is reduced from 10 to 5. All relationship counters reduced by half due to mood changes and inability to relate. These effects are permanent. Continue with life? -Sure- -Quit-

dllthomas 13y ago

Today's SMBC is relevant: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3259#comic http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3259#comic

kyberias 13y ago

I'm disappointed by the total lack of evolutionary perspective in this article.

rrggrr 13y ago

genius. great article.

rrggrr 13y ago

genius. great article.

rrggrr 13y ago

genius. great article.

opinologo 13y ago

Supporting (and implementing) the idea of life as a game, you can check: http://habitrpg.com http://habitrpg.com

guspe 13y ago

Life is not a game. And that's because, unlike any game, life has no rules. By following this strategy guide, there's absolutely no guarantee you will succeed (btw, what exactly is it to succeed in life?). People might get a sense of comfort in thinking that life has a recipe, that it has some sort of inherent quest you must conquer. But there's isn't. Religion, technology, culture and art are our way to deal with that. Life is open for you to make whatever you want of it. And this is the beauty of it all. Do you want to make it a game? Go ahead, lay some rules, build a strategy, get your achievements. But I think there's more to life than following rules and managing your resources. I wouldn't be surprised if the rules changed without warning or if my resources were suddenly depleted without apparent reason. Because life doesn't care about the rationalizations you came up with. Life is a unique experience that, fortunately, cannot be framed within a metaphor. There are many ways to live (life as a game, life as a movie, life as a story, life as a poem, life as a checklist, life as a tough math problem) and all of them are right. So maybe we shouldn't bother too much about living the right way and instead just enjoy the ride.

huangc10 13y ago

"death gotta be easy cuz life is hard" - 50 Cent