Life Lessons From The Fantasy Realm | by Lizzie Jackson

 During the height of lockdowns in 2020 I finally got my grubby, little hands on a refurbished PlayStation 4 console, and with nothing else to do while the world ground to a halt, I played. Courtesy of my PlayStation Premium subscription, I played a lot of games. It was the perfect escape from covid life. I had tended to stick with action-adventure games, like the Uncharted series and the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, but I had a friend recommend me Skyrim and I was curious - just not quite curious enough for the price tag. 

On the hunt for something with a similar vibe I stumbled across Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning and figured “Sure, why not? There’s nothing else I’ve got going on”. 

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) that had a tumultuous release in 2012, with the original company, 38 Studios,  going out of business the same year. Eventually, THQ Nordic bought the assets and remastered the game, re-releasing it as Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning in 2020. 

The game follows The Fateless One and their journey through the kingdoms of Amalur as they battle against an enemy army of fae led by Gadflow. With vibrant, stylised graphics, various factions to join, numerous side quests to complete, and three lots of downloadable content (DLC) extras, Amalur is a vast universe to immerse yourself in. 

And after waiting for the lengthy install time, what happened next was, at a conservative estimate, 200 hours of me exploring and completing pretty much every single thing you could do in this game universe. Every inch of map, collectable, side quest, all three DLC campaigns, including all of their side quests and almost every trophy.  I was completely enraptured with this game.  During my extensive time in Amalur, I found myself learning things, not just about the game. 

So, in no particular order, here are five things I learnt from my favourite RPG:

1) It’s okay to quit

You don’t need to drive yourself to despair trying and failing over and over until you hate something you once enjoyed. Stop. Reassess and retry if and when you feel ready.  Maybe the reason you’re stuck is that you aren’t properly equipped for the area and you need to level up your weapons or skills. Maybe the reason you’re stuck is that you don’t fully understand the task and you need to seek further clarification. Maybe the reason you're stuck is that you're actually trying to go the wrong way around a one-way dungeon and you need to check your objectives and actually follow them. Just because this is the twelfth dungeon you’ve done doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same as the previous eleven.

Sometimes though, the reason you're stuck might be entirely beyond your control and the only way to resolve it is to quit and restart.  And that is okay. Don't get me wrong,  I understand the temptation to just keep trying,  just keep chucking yourself at that brick wall because it'll have to crumble at some point, right? 

People like to talk about how never giving up is essential for success, but constantly retrying the exact same thing over and over because you don't want to back down? That’s only wasting your energy and resources. Sometimes, you can't defeat a massive evil ice troll with a broken sword, no armour, and no health potions. Although you might not realise it until you’re seconds away from losing your last health point. Sometimes you can’t untangle the situation, you just have to stop and start afresh. If life is like a ball of string, sometimes you can’t untie that knot, you just have to get the scissors out, cut the knot open, and start fresh. 

Sometimes, what you need is a full potion sack, the best armour you can get hold of, and a sword bigger than you thought possible to successfully slay the beast. Or, you know, more research and discovery time on your project, asking someone to proofread that report, and taking the time to make necessary edits before presenting it to your stakeholders so you give the best version of your report that you can. You just might not have recognised it until you were knee-deep in the project that you’ve gotten yourself in a knot and you need a big pair of scissors and a blank slate.  

2) It is okay to need to rest

If you're out of supplies and out of your depth and you’re rapidly losing health points, it's okay to run away, heal and try again later when you're better prepared. Take your holidays,  it's okay to need a break. If you feel like you’re always running on empty then maybe you need to talk to your manager about what's causing you to feel like that. It might turn out you can access some support through things like reasonable workplace adjustments which will enable you to do your job without destroying yourself. Take sick days if you're sick. It's okay to need to rest, you're not a robot and even machines need downtime for maintenance and repairs. 

Sure, you can try to brute force your way through wave after wave of enemy, boss battle after boss battle. But you need to replenish your supplies and repair your equipment. If you don’t, then you'll end up stuck in the dank bowels of an abandoned castle, unable to escape the evil sentient tree and its minions, and end up just another skeleton littering its lair. All because you let your weapons wear down and your potion sack empty. Recovering burnout is a long, slow and hard process: don't drive yourself to the brink by refusing to admit to yourself you're human and that you need to rest.  

3) Skill Up

Don't neglect to upgrade your passive (transferable) skills.  While it’s very cool to cast a fireball and you may want to dump all your skill points into it, if you never upgrade your magic pool, then you'll wipe out all your magic casting this singular fireball. This leaves you stuck, waiting for it to regenerate, by which point the enemy you're trying to barbecue may have recovered, attacked you or moved on entirely.  You are worth the investment in time it takes to nurture and develop new skills and maintain skills you already have. This doesn't just mean skills that are useful for work - you never know when something will come in handy.  

4) Failing is good, actually

Trial and error is essential.  I won't lie, it took me some time to fully get into the game. I’d never played a game like this before and had no clue how to build a good character or what any of the statistics meant. It took time to learn how things worked and how to make things work best for me and my play style.  The way I did this was through trial and error. It was way more helpful to me to physically try it than it was to just read a guide. Implementing changes and having the curiosity to try new things kept me engaged.

It's quite common to hear “you won't know if you don't try” but I think sometimes it's more accurate to say you won't know until something you've tried fails.  Without failing you won't be able to learn how to troubleshoot or improve or what to do if things go wrong.  Failure is required for effective learning and you have to get comfortable with the idea that you'll mess up and make mistakes.  Striving for perfection will make a challenge insurmountable. Nothing is ever 110% perfect.  Something can always change for the better.  The sooner you accept that perfection does not exist, the sooner you can get stuck in. Become comfortable with failure, it will become a lifelong friend. 

5) Ask for help

Yes, you might be the chosen one, the main character,  controller of your own destiny but that does not mean you have to go through ordeals on your own.  Seeking help, building a good team willing to support you, and learning when to delegate tasks to people more skilled in those areas will give you the best chance to get the best possible outcome. 

The reason I had such a good time with this game was because I took the time to detour from the main campaign. By exploring the world, trying new things, and making new friends, I ended up having a much richer experience and that is true of life just as much as it is a video game. Being curious and willing to try new things will definitely bring joy into your life, but doing it in a way that doesn’t burn you out in the process? Well now, that’s something I’m still learning.

What about you? What are some life lessons you learned in unexpected places? 

Lizzie Jackson is a Data Fellowship apprentice at Multiverse, based in Cheshire, UK, and is writing for the Apprentice Lens. Here's a little more about her: 

 Hi, I'm Lizzie, I'm a technology apprentice with Barclays. I'm an avid reader and have been wanting to get back into writing for some time now and this is the perfect opportunity to practise!