Sly Cooper and M Plus One

I spent one magical week buried deep in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. I voraciously tore through the game's story and worked myself to the limit to clear the game's extra challenges. When I beat the game fully, I was rewarded with developer commentary unlocked for each stage. Whatever possessed me, I decided to take a listen. The Journey I took through Sly's development only made me appreciate the game all the more and introduced me to a fascinating concept: "M plus one."

For the uninitiated, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is a platforming game that challenges the player to win through stealth rather than combat. You play the role of the titular Sly Cooper, infamous thief, as he slinks, jumps, and swings around a wild variety of creative and stylish stages. In this game, the equally titular Thievius Raccoonus, a book containing the secrets of the Cooper family, has been stolen and separated page-by-page all over the world. Sly - and you - must use his family's legacy of skills and know-how to recover the pages, reassemble the heirloom, and thwart the ambitions of the villainous guilty party.

And I repeat, this is a stealth game. You are given a complex, hallway, building, etc. and your goal is to reach your target without being seen. All of the stages have tight security, so you'll be sneaking through the shadows, above everyone's heads, and taking shortcuts that keep you out of plain sight.  Therefore the environment design is very important not only to this game's presentation, but how it plays. Every power line, window, rail and pole is free game for getting around. And don't think this is all optional, because being caught or trying to engage an enemy head-on is recipe for disaster. You are a capable fighter able to single out targets, but you won't last long in a really hot area. Besides, it just feels cool to take secret paths and leap around rafters in a borderline parkour fashion.

You'll want to stay up and above this guard

I came for the story, the characters, the setting and the gameplay, and I stayed for the time trial challenges. Beating levels unlocks challenge versions of those stages. They aren't any different, but you'll be racing a strict timer. Beat the timer, and you beat the challenge. Beat the challenge, like I said above, and developer commentary is added to the game. And this isn't simply audio that you hear in a menu. The game actually places an object at the beginning of each stage that begins the audio log. If you're so inclined, you can play through the stage while the audio is playing. You can play the game and learn about the development process at the same time!

I essentially played the game three times. One for story, two for challenges, and third for the commentary. I am a complete sucker for any behind-the-scenes look at game creation, so I had no problem coasting through a third time with a developer talking in the background. Every stage had something new to note. The developer would talk about designing stages, character, enemies, the world, the story, and the gameplay. I distinctly remember one stage where the developer talked about how a stage's lighting worked for style and visibility. Sure enough, I looked around at the stage while I was hearing about the lighting and could absolutely see what the developer was talking about.

One topic that came up in the commentary was a concept called "M plus one." As described by the developer, M plus one is the design practice of introducing new concepts into the game and training the player to be proficient in those new concepts. "M" stands for "mechanic," and the "plus one" stands for the way which the game will gradually make the concept more challenging. This way, it forces the player to get better at that concept and prepare them for the puzzles and bosses ahead.

This game also has collectibles, colorful characters, great design, and more. I could go on but I can only fit so much in an article

Let's look at Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus as an example. If you want to get onto a higher platform, you jump to gain that height. However you can also jump to cross over gaps that you can't run over. Meanwhile, Sly has a cane that he uses in combat and as a way to operate levers. There are also poles that Sly can use his cane on to swing from and cross larger gaps. Now imagine instead of a gap, you're leaping off the side of a cliff and trying to land on a platform that is moving. See how M plus one works? You have these simple concepts, you hone them through a series of challenges, and then you combine these concepts to make all-new challenges that still fit with what you know about the game and the world.

Hearing it plainly like that is one thing, but where and when they place the commentary for their explanation could not be more perfect. You see, the explanation of M plus one comes relatively late in the game, when we've already had experience learning concepts and combining them without a name for it. In comes this developer talking about M plus one. At this point I am exploring around a casino-like stage while the developer rattles off examples of M plus one. And I kid you not, he talked about what I was doing at that exact moment.

In the casino stage, I was jumping between platforms. The platforms were actually large roulette tables, and they were spinning. This made it a little more difficult to jump properly since the very ground beneath me was moving me around. At the same time, there were bars of electricity that I had to jump over. When the roulettes weren't trying to spin me into those bars, they were spinning in the opposite direction of where I was trying to go so I would have a more difficult time jumping over the electricity! And right when I am dealing with this situation, the developer is talking about that very stage that I'm playing, that very obstacle I'm up against. I felt a connection with the developers at that moment. It really drove home for me that amount of care and planning went into this game.

The actual M plus one commentary - starts at about 1:38 in the video

My friends, I love this concept. It's one way to learn and I am pretty sure it's one of the most commonly employed methods of learning out there. But now we have a name for it, and a pretty cool name at that. The more I think about it, the more I realize it's good to have a name for the way we're learning and to really break it down. After all, what is one of the most common pieces of advice for tackling a large task? To break it down into smaller tasks. Good advice, but I know it's hard to do such breaking down when I'm flustered. The issue in my case is that I'm going the wrong way for my personal style. To break a big task down into smaller tasks, I'm still faced with making any sense of the daunting large task.

Using M plus one, however, the focus is on what I am capable of and how it equates to the end goal. For instance, I'm currently learning programming and have been tasked to make a bunch of programs from financial report generators to simple games. Often when I get these assignments, I look at what's required and my mind just burns out trying to figure out how to get there from a blank page of code. When I take inventory of what I know and how to use what I know to build up a program, I'm better able to calm down, find my center, and get to work.

If I want to make a calculator app, let's start from the ground up. I know how to make the program perform math functions. I know how to make the program take numbers from the user. I know how to make the program tell if the user puts in letters instead of numbers. I know how to make the program show the result of the equation. And so on and so on. From there, it's a matter of taking these things I know separately and combining them in a way that creates a program that acts like a calculator.

With some confidence and mastery of your basics, you too can be cool just like this speed runner!

This is a simple example, but it gets my point across. The real important part is to find where you are comfortable starting in your planning process and use that to its fullest effect. There are plenty of projects where you'll need to start from the top in order to spread the work among a team. But eventually, you will have to start and you will start from some sort of bottom. If you're too focused on the top to do your job or do it well, then M plus one will help you gain that focus. In that sense, we may think of M plus one as a jumping-off point for a task or project rather than a full guide from start to finish. I know it helps me out to, at some point, look directly at what I am holding in my hands. Just like Sly Cooper planning to snatch a treasure starting off with just his cane, wits, and agility.

How about you? Does M plus one ring a bell? Or do you have your own learning experiences with games you'd like to share? Perhaps you have your own project or task that can benefit from a little bit of M plus one planning. If you do, I want to hear about it.

Elite Beat Agents and the Meaning of Passion

Video game concept: A group of snappily-dressed gentlemen travel the globe and inspire regular people by dancing to popular music. Hope and motivation would be in short supply if not for these suit-wearing male cheerleaders.

If you're wondering what such a game would be like, look no further than Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS. This game absolutely took the handheld scene by storm during its release and people I know are still making references to this game. Just like in the paragraph above, the game is about the titular agents as they travel the world and spread passion to the people. How do they do it? By acting as cheerleaders singing and dancing to popular music.

As you can tell by now, Elite Beat Agents is set in a modern world of cartoon fantasy. And even though the game revolves around the agents, the stars really are the people that the agents inspire. These aren't your typical video game problem-solvers. Instead of saving the world, our protagonists have more relatable goals and issues such as babysitting, creating art, proving their worth or just trying to survive in a rough-and-tumble culture.

Some typical gameplay. The player is following the beach ball left to right and afterward going to tap the 2 and 3 buttons

Instead of saving the day behind the scenes, the Elite Beat Agents are all about filling their targets with the courage and passion they need to do it themselves. This being a game, simple problems quickly turn into wild adventures. But the themes of overcoming doubt in one's abilities are still there. Let's quickly go over how this game is played.

For the uninitiated, Elite Beat Agents is a rhythm game that tasks the player to tap buttons on the DS touch screen following the melodies of well-known songs. These buttons fade into the screen and have circles closing in on them, indicating the right time to tap. In some cases, the button then prompts the player to follow a path on the screen, or some other follow-up motion. The result is a whole routine of button-pressing that compliments the song perfectly. As the song goes on, there is a status bar on the top of the screen that goes down. Should it empty entirely, the stage is lost and the player has to try again. This bar is bumped back up by the player performing the song well. This gameplay does very well to excite and push the player to do well and earn a good ending.

On the note of endings and stories, Elite Beat Agents has some of the most energetic presentation I have ever seen in a game. It's rife with passion, over-exaggeration, endearing charm, great characters, excellent themes, and is just a pleasure to experience the whole way through. Let's take a look at one of the game's stages.

The "Makes No Difference" stage - Interesting because the outcomes rely on the lead actor, which relies on Chris's directing

Stage 2 of the game introduces us to director Chris Silverscreen as he works hard to produce the next great blockbuster hit. Morale drops when one of Chris's bosses comes onsite to tell him that his job is strictly on the line. Chris carries on, but the extra weight is dragging him down. Chris's self-doubt and stress pile up, culminating in the desperate cry of "HEEEAAALP!" Thus, the Elite Beat Agents embark to motivate Silverscreen and make "Romancing Meowzilla" a huge hit!

I really must stress the significance of the "HEEEAAALP!" screams in Elite Beat Agents. It's the call that summons the agents to the target's aide, but it means so much more. The emotion that drives every character to yell this call is a very relatable one. Even though the situations are different, the emotions are the same: Self-doubt, anxiety, stress, maybe even helplessness. In short, the nagging voice that says "I can't do this. This is way bigger than I am." I am absolutely sure every person has felt this at some point. Perhaps some among us are feeling it right now. And I can assure you many of us will feel it more times in the future. Thus, I am certain we can all relate to feeling this emotion, especially to the point where we would shout "HEEEAAALP!" if it meant receiving any degree of help.

You can see the magic of the agents right away when they lift Chris straight out of his funk and get him waving with the music. After all, the best start to a daunting task is to loosen up. A little bit of waving with the music to take his mind off of the stress of the task will only help. You may also interpret this as him "riding the wave" of positive thinking and progress. This will be more significant in a few paragraphs.

Here you can finally see the game in action. All gameplay is reserved for the bottom screen while the top screen shows Chris as he works toward producing his movie. On the bottom screen, the  buttons appear to the beat of the music and you will gain points for tapping and dragging, depending on your reflexes and timing. Your performance not only affects the meter that you keep above failing levels, but it also affects how the events on the top screen play out. Performing the gameplay well will depict Chris as making progress. Performing poorly will depict Chris as struggling or failing to reach his goal. Performing perfectly will depict Chris succeeding greatly and with infectious gusto.

I find this very well represents what it's like to progress through a daunting task. You'll have your highs and your lows, and moments when you're just coasting through with moderate progress. In fact, depending on your task, you may coasting much of the time.

More sample gameplay. The circles around the buttons close in and when they overlap with the border of the button, that is when the player must tap.

The music you're hearing is a cover of Sum 41's "It Makes No Difference." And I must say, Elite Beat Agents has one of the most memorable soundtracks not necessarily because the songs on it are all original and of great quality - in fact, the entire core soundtrack are all covers of popular music. What makes the songs stand out is the context that they are used. In this game, music and gameplay are intertwined. The routine of button-pressing is set to the music, so you become intimately familiar with the music out of necessity for playing the game well. I find that this set-up has given me a fondness for all of the songs in the game's soundtrack. It helps that when you perform well, these songs are the background themes for your awesomeness. You can see comments all over the Internet from people who have a problem with popular music saying that this game makes it enjoyable.

You'll notice that in this game, stages take place in typically four sets. At the end of each set, depending on if your meter is above or below 50%, an event occurs that shows if your protagonist succeeds at the immediate task. In the case of this stage, we see if Chris's directing pays off and his lead actor pulls off the performance of a lifetime. In this stage and any other, seeing these little victories along the way to completing the stage is very rewarding. Remember that quivering ball of doubt that your character was at the beginning of the stage? Well look at what they're doing now!

Between sets, we return to seeing our character doing the wave, but as the stage progresses we see more characters joining in. I love this aspect of the game, since in my eyes it signifies the point when those characters are "on the same wavelength" as our protagonist, so to speak. It's one thing for Chris's lead actor to do his job, but it's another for him to really understand Chris's passion and motivation. With the lead actor joining Chris in the wave, I feel like he's really on board and sharing in that passion to make a great movie. Later on, even the antagonistic executive joins the wave, which goes to show even the bad guys in these stories see things more the protagonists' ways. To be fair, the executive does soften up when he sees the progress made in the movie.

The ending you get for a stage is based on how many sets you passed. The best ending is if you pass every set, there's  a neutral ending if you miss any sets, a bad-ish ending if you miss all the sets but still pass the song, and running out meter entirely will "reward" you with a soul-crushing failure scene. Trust me, these are hard to watch. In Silverscreen's case, all of his efforts and directing prowess pay off. "Romancing Meowzilla" is a huge hit, he makes his bosses happy, he keeps his job and can keep doing what he loves.

For me, what's more rewarding than winning in this game is seeing the evolution of its characters as the stages progress. They go from self-doubt to unflinching confidence - which you may notice is signified with a very distinguishable face bearing sharp half-circle eyes like masked superheroes - something that I refer to as the "fervor face." It's the face of a person who is well past the point of "Can I do it?" and only focused on where and how to make it happen. I love it.

The "Sk8er Boi" stage - A prime example of the protagonist using the fervor face

The next stage places us in the backseat of Jack, an ace taxi driver. He's good at his job, but he has a problem driving too fast. After being let off with a "friendly" warning from a police officer, a woman in labor barges into his car and tells him to step on it for the hospital. Jack can't risk being caught speeding again, but time is of the essence. With nothing else to do, Jack starts his engine and makes for the hospital with a shout of "HEEEAAALP!"

As we can gather, most - if not all - of the cries for help are not so much "This is out of my league, please help me out of this responsibility" but more "I'm going in to make this happen! Back me up!" For characters like directors and taxi drivers that are normally mundane in video games, this is a great attitude. The music for Jack's stage is Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi. The fun part about this song is how it tells a story, thus the lyrics are prevalent and clear. Even though the lyrics don't have much to do directly with the events of the stage, I still feel there is some connection. Perhaps because the pace of the song's story arc matches the stage's pace and there's some synergy when both stories are at their climax.

The "YMCA" stage - Look at this man tear through his plight

Another of the game's stages which makes great use of lyrics is the game's seventh stage, in which we join the quest of a sailor out to find treasure. The song for this endeavor is the time-tested and iconic YMCA, credited as being covered by TC Moses. And I must give props to TC Moses because regardless of if this song sounds like the original or not, the version we have in Elite Beat Agents is every bit as fun and energetic. I know I would be down to explore the depths of the ocean to such a tune. I can't tell you how pumped I was just hearing the initial horns and drum beat.

The "Anthem" stage - The story of a wash-up who hasn't given up on himself

The last stage I want to mention is the game's fourteenth stage, featuring an allegedly washed-up baseball player, Hulk. He had his run in the big leagues and struck out in more ways than one. He lives a life downtrodden melancholy until one day when the amusement park he works at is under attack from a volcano monster. It's up to Hulk to save the park from destruction using weaponized baseball skills! Of course, this story isn't as down-to-earth as the rest, but the themes are possibly deeper. Hulk has already seen the worst brunt of failure and yet puts in the effort to save the park and his biggest fan who is caught in the action. To me, that makes Hulk's story powerful in its own right. Rather than avoiding failure at all costs, he is overcoming the current paralyzing effects that a past failure can have on a person.

In the end, the power of music may get our protagonists up and doing, but it is the power of passion that makes everything possible. Behind every character and story is some sort of passion or drive. The same can be said of anyone. Every person has something they're interested in, and if we could we would pursue those interests with our hearts and souls fully invested. However, many of us don't pursue these interests for a variety of reasons. Either we don't find them practical as a living, we believe we don't have what it takes to make a living of it, or we just turned to the more practical occupations to place all our effort. And in some cases, the more practical occupations are our passions and we're as happy as can be. In any case, we all have something we want to do and do it well, and in a perfect world, we would all be masters of our trade. And to all of the masters of their trade currently reading this article, I commend you.

In Elite Beat Agents, antagonists take the forms of executives, traffic cops, aliens, unruly children, and the weather itself. But the real conflict throughout the entire game is people versus themselves. Every character is perfectly capable, but the only thing stopping them is their own self-doubt. Once they get that confidence, the problem doesn't stand a chance. It's in this way that we might even think of the agents themselves as purely symbolic. It's incredible to think all these people can gather the courage by themselves, but more comforting and empowering to think that we all have this group of agents somewhere in the distance confident enough in our ability to cheer us on by dancing to popular music.

The first stage of "Osu! Tatake! Ouendan" - The simple story of a student needing to study for exams

And I can't end this article without talking about Ouendan. Many people in the gaming community already know about Ouendan, so they can skip to the next paragraph while I clue the rest of us in. "Ouendan" is the colloquial name for "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan" the Japan-only game to which Elite Beat Agents is an international "sequel" of sorts. I'm no expert, but I'll explain this as best I can with my limited knowledge and research: An Ouendan (spelling may vary) is a Japanese cheer squad not unlike cheerleaders in function. Though whereas cheerleaders rally up support by having a good time, the typical Ouendan will instead deliver an intense, stoic performance. I imagine it's because they take belief and inner strength very seriously. Thus they project such a professional tone to help their team's resolve sturdy up as well.

The Ouendan game very much takes a stoic approach to passion and motivation. Compared to the Elite Beat Agents, the Ouendan members are serious. Not mean or disagreeable, just very intense and focused on their task of bringing drive to the people. Instead of doing the wave, character in Ouendan put on their fervor faces back with the flames of passion. I guess you can say the attitude in Elite Beat Agents is "Take it easy, you've got this" and the attitude in Ouendan is "You are so capable of overcoming this challenge that it is your solemn duty to do so!" Personally, I can see how the stoic approach well represents Japan while the laid back approach powered by popular music appeals much more to the general international audience.

Different though their methods may be, Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan both set out to celebrate the common person and to me they succeed. Every profession, hobby, and undertaking in these games are shown in an impressive light. And you know what, in the right light, that applies to us in real life as well. Anyone can truly seize life if they keep their passions front and center in their minds and in their hearts.

We can't discount the power of music, either. With my playlist open as I type, I can vouch it helps. How about you? What music do you listen to that gets you in the mood for what you love? Perhaps the next time you listen to it, you can imagine a squad of agents dancing to it in the distance.

But before we sign off entirely, let's cut some onions

Wii Fit and a Spoonful of Sugar

It is the middle of November and by now people all over the world are exercising to their trial versions of Wii Fit U. I am one of them, which is good since I fell out from being consistent with the first Wii Fit. But I'm back on the Balance Board and things are looking up! I have already partaken in many of Wii Fit U's games and I am having actual real fun! And that fun is pivotal to today's topic.

"Wii Fit" is a household name to many, but for the uninitiated, Wii Fit is a game that gets the player to exercise. Since the game cannot provide physical feedback like standard exercise machines, it instead provides instructions and challenges that require the player to pose and move around in certain ways. For instance, Yoga exercises in a Wii Fit game show the player how to adopt a given Yoga position, then assess the player's ability based solely on how able he or she is able to maintain their balance on the Wii Balance Board. I could choose not to do the pose and stand comfortably so that the game would give me a favorable rating, but beating a video game wasn't exactly on my mind when I chose to buy Wii Fit.

Wii Fit U offers many yoga exercises, strength exercises, dance steps, balance games, and more, but what really got me inspired writing was my first experience with Wii Fit U's "Free Step" exercise. The activity is a simple one 1) Step on to the Wii Balance Board with one foot while raising the opposite arm and moving the other arm back. 2) Step on to the Wii Balance Board with the other foot while returning your arms to a neutral position. 3) Step off the Wii Balance Board with the first foot, this time raising the same-side arm and moving the opposite arm back. 4) Step off the Wii Balance Board with the second foot, returning your arms to a neutral position. It takes some getting used to, but Free Step gives you plenty of time to adjust. How much? Oh, in the area of a half-hour.

This deceptively simple screen has everything you need to step like a pro

If that last bit made you say "What!?" let me tell you my reaction was very much the same. When you start Free Step, you are given the option to quit at any time. You are also given the goal of completing over 2000 steps within that time. The game can work off of the Wii U's Gamepad so that your TV can be freed up for other things while you step through your half hour. Since my first playthrough of Wii Fit U was intended to just be a trial run to see what the game had to offer, I figured I'd do a good 100 steps and call it to see what else I could do.

So, I was off. The screen displayed a stage where my character and a bunch of my handmade Mii characters had their own Balance Boards. The onscreen character automatically did his steps, which was my prompt to imitate him to make sure I'm doing it correctly. The game even provides a helpful stepping sound effect to signal the moment when your moving foot should touch down each time. I took all of these into account and began my steps. The game only counts steps you actually do, and uses pressure on the Balance Board to verify those steps.

As I worked to imitate my character as close as possible, stay in step, and switch feet as smoothly as he did, 100 steps came and went. I don't know what it was, the step counter, the little Miis standing around supportive, the trainer's voice informing me of my progress, or just how little I looked at the ingame timer counting down from thirty minutes, but I was feeling pretty good. The steps weren't physically demanding at all, but I was still working up a good amount of effort. I was also getting bored, but in the best way. I got the idea of what to do and the steps were too slow. I then noticed that Free Step has three tempo settings and I had been stepping to the lowest one. It was time to get Wii Fit! I clicked onto the second setting, found it alright, then clicked onto the third setting. And then I was off for real.

As the minutes ticked down, the steps ticked up. With four steps in a cycle, it was 25 cycles for every 100 steps. At some point, the trainer even stops using specific numbers when telling you how many steps you've done. That's a good indication of when you're high up there! Over the half hour, I could move in tandem with my Mii on the screen and switch feet on the fly seamlessly. Pretty soon I was looking at the clock, but only to get an impression of how many more steps I could get out before the half hour was up. I was in a state of Zen that I was in no rush to leave. And yet, all good things come to an end. When the half hour was up, I had done well over 2600 steps and could feel them all in my thighs. And I still went for another 15 minutes on other games to round out the full hour of exercise.

Some of these games take crazy coordination. I love his enthusiasm!

Now, I consider myself middling at best when it comes to work ethic for exercise. Yet here I was putting in half an hour straight of steps. What happened? My friends, gaming happened. It's easy to feel negative about exercise if you haven't done it in a while, but it's even easier to feel positive about games, especially if you haven't played any in a while. Wii Fit U managed to take the eagerness I normally reserve for games and redirect it towards exercise. Whatever associations may be keeping me from exercising were rendered null in the face of my overwhelming love for games. You might say that the game "tricked" me into exercising, but I certainly don't feel tricked. And if it is fact that I was tricked, that's my kind of trick!

This experience taught me the importance of associations in human psychology. We as people can have very warped senses of priority based on previous experiences. This is where procrastination comes from, after all. I hear all the time about workers who have a report due the next day and they'll play five lives in Candy Crush before even looking at said report. It's not even a contest. It's also easy to understand how that happens. Candy Crush is fun, colorful, and gratifying. Comparatively, the report is arduous. Imagine if the worker could channel that eagerness from Candy Crush to that report. After all, that individual report needs to only be written once while Candy Crush will always be there.

And that's basically what happened with me on the Wii Fit U. I can't speak for everyone using the software, but I have gone on to incorporate more activities in my usual exercise routine and be more consistent with it. I may not have the benefit of a game tracking my progress, but the positive experiences I had with exercising filled in those gaps. I less thought about exercise as something strenuous and more like a cumulative activity that I am meant to improve and build on. Even if it were scientifically proven that exercise shouldn't be possible and fun, I am able to keep doing it as if it were. Thus, I was "tricked" not only into doing exercise, but enjoying it as well.

Two saying passes through my mind in response to this. One was "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." The other one was "A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." Though the first one is relevant, I believe my case with Wii Fit is more accurately described by the other. Many will recognize this quote as sung by Mary Poppins to motivate the Banks kids into cleaning up. Literally, the quote refers to the general bitterness of medicine and a child's unwillingness to take it, even if sick. But adding a spoonful of sugar will make the medicine taste appealing enough for the child to take. In context, Poppins is saying that menial tasks can be completed quickly and made fun if you don't think of them as menial and more gamelike. Sure, the film depicts "fun chores" as simply snapping one's fingers and watching the room clean itself, but clearly that is symbolic for how easy it is to clean one's room when you're having fun while doing it. At least that's how I choose to see it. And I digress.

Ms. Poppins explains it best herself

I would encourage official study into this topic of enriching non-game work ethic with game-like incentives, but that actually has been well underway for years. Many of you probably have been thinking the term "gamification" throughout this whole article, and you'll all be right. For a quick reference to what gamification is, I point you towards this early Extra Credits episode on the topic. Very good viewing. And as you can see from the video, gamification is still very early in its development and has incredible potential for growth, but it still represents everything I've been talking about throughout this article. In fact, you could say everything I've been writing about since March is a case-by-case argument for gamification's potential.

How about you? What experiences have you had with motivation in video games? What are some times where game-like thinking have helped push you along, or even been key to solving a problem? I have found that when I go into a game, I come into it with a sort of neutral optimism because I know the game was designed with my success in mind. This is an attitude that video games do in a way all to their own. I'm not even aware of this positive attitude, but I have brought it with me to non-game situations and been all the better for it. I'll bet every gamer also does this and has a great story from it.

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you in the Wii Fit U Gym Communities!

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