If LIFE were a game...

I think it would be turn based

Are you like me? Do all of your best ideas happen when you are standing in the shower? Sometimes I think ideas must fall from the spigot with the water. Today I was thinking how much life was like a video game. I figured if life was a game, maybe we get a certain number of turns per day. It was only a matter of time until I started doing the math on how many turns I have used so far in life, and how many I probably have left.  (Oh man, this is going to be one of those WEIRD design notes posts.) So how much time should a turn be? Most things we do take a half hour. For example it takes roughly a half hour to watch a TV show, eat a meal, play a video game for a bit, etc. So, to keep things simple, let us say that  1 Turn = 1/2 Hour of real life time.There are 24 hours in a day. So, you have a MAX of 48 turns per day. Everything you do costs a number of turns. For example, sleep. (Pffft. Like gamers sleep.) If you sleep for 10 hours... that is 20 turns! (New Game Rule: If you do not sleep, you become "sleepy" and doing difficult tasks will actually take extra turns.) Ok, before we continue... how about we take a comic break.

 

Mia J. Park posted this on her FaceBook page. If you are a fan of her music from the AQWorlds MerAngel event, be sure to give her a like.

 

That was random, yet adorable. 

 

LIFE: "The RPG Game" Rules

So I started breaking down all of the things we do into turns. Seeing life this way is really interesting... it also becomes a continious reminder that if you want to do something in life, you really gotta start doing it now!

 

Your Name: _______________________
Turns per day: 28 (Which is actually 48.... -20 for sleep)

List everything you did today and how many turns each thing took you.

Turn Costs

These are my numbers, be sure to come up with your own!
Work or School: 18 Turns
Eat: 1 Turn (Not eating will result in a -15 turn per day penalty)

Talk to someone about something: 1 Turn
Sleep: 20 Turns  (Not sleeping will result in "Sleepy" which increases how many turns an activity takes)

Working out: 2 Turns
Watch a Movie: 6 Turns

Go to the Mall: 6 Turns

Write a design notes post: 3 Turns
Jamming with the band: 4 Turns

Play Games for a little bit: 2 Turns

Play Games for A LOT: 8+ Turns

Writing the plot for an AQWorlds release: 8 Turns

Drawing 1 AQWorlds Monster: 8 Turns

Animating 1 AQWorlds Monster: 8 Turns

Getting distracted on the web: 1 Turn (Happens a lot!)

Creating a simple Game Design Document: 32 Turns

Designing a Card Game: 280 Turns

Building a MMO Multiplayer Game Engine from scratch: 2,400 turns

... add your own!

 

Advanced Rules

Some other thoughts included... caffine gives a temporary +1 turn speed buff. However, each usage of caffine lowers your caffine resistance ultimate resulting in a heavy -turn penalty. Being sick gives a -Turn penalty depending on sickness type. If you are part of a party, you may get +Turn bonuses if you work well together, but people working against you will definately cause -Turn Penalties.

 

How to make this useful to you

If you actually take the last week of your life and write down what you did and how many turns you used... you may find the same thing that I did. I have A LOT of wasted turns. I also do not have enough turns to do a lot of the big things that I want to do myself. That is... if you spend all of your turns doing one thing (like building a MMO game, writing a book, drawing a comic, building a website) you will achieve it faster than if you spread your turns doing a little bit of everything. Do not take my word for it -- add up your turns yourself.

 

What is really scary is, after work or school is over... most of us only have 10 turns left in the day. But we use 2 of those for eating so there is really only 8 TURNS PER DAY to do stuff you want! We need to use them the best we can. If you have a dream of doing something.... use your 8 turns to do it. Do not wait. Because if you waste a turn, there is no getting it back. 

 

P.S. Also, respawn does not appear to work. The Life RPG appears to be in "Hard Core" mode.
P.P.S. Oh, and if life is a game.... remember to HAVE FUN!

 

QUESTION: Comment on this post and give me a breakdown of your turns from today or even the entire week. I would love to see how you spend your points.