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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Phoenix Wright and Focus

By now, my Nintendo 3DS is my preferred exercise companion on the treadmill. Sure, other devices offer similar services, but nothing captures my attention like a good Pokemon battle, RPG cutscene, flight around Wuhu Island, or courtroom drama. For today's topic, we will discuss why that last example is so effective.

We all can agree that the Phoenix Wright games really make us think. Capcom's law games create these little worlds of scenarios, character, evidence, and motivations. At its most intense, I have found myself so immersed in a Phoenix Wright storyline that I began seeing the real world in terms of alibis and some way in which a murder could have been hidden.

Officially known as the "Ace Attorney" series, some games in the franchise even star other characters and take place at various times in the world's history. Phoenix Wright just happens to be the most recognizable aspect of the series .

For the uninitiated, Ace Attorney games work your problem-solving skills more than they do your reflexes. You won't be defeating enemies one after the other, nor won't you be grinding up stats, picking up loot, earning weapons, or even much of controlling your characters. The bulk of Ace Attorney gameplay is in its dialogue. You will spend more time hearing characters talk and explain things than you will taking any sort of action.

Everything happens in menus, and every option opens up a colorful and endearing new event

On paper, this sounds dreadfully boring. But in execution, this is perhaps the most enthralling way to play a video game that I have yet experienced. Like I said above, an Ace Attorney game is more than interactive media. It is a window into a world of intrigue and murder mystery. And yes, every court case boils down to murder at some point.

Every chapter follows the same formula: Your main character meets a person who is charged with murder and takes the case to defend this person. From there, you hit the streets to scour the crime scene, find evidence, and talk to people related to the incident. The games are all very linear, so you'll be following a carefully crafted storyline the whole way through. When your investigation is over, it's time to head to court where you will engage in debate with the prosecutor, whose job it is to see your defendant found guilty.

Already you can see how Ace Attorney can keep a person hooked. The gameplay and the storyline are chained at the hip. Whereas most of what happens in a video game is part of the "experience" and you can go for long stretches without continuing the story, Ace Attorney is in storyline mode full-tilt. If the game ever stops, it's because it needs you to nudge it in the right direction. You are never not ingrained in an Ace Attorney storyline for as long as you are playing it.

By now you're probably wondering what it is the player actually does which presents any challenge. Well, there come times in the story where your protagonist will have to put money to mouth and prove their point with some evidence. But they won't do it by themselves. When you hit that impasse, it's up to you, the player, to sift through the evidence and find that piece that will throw doubt on the other person's claims, forcing them to elaborate or admit to lying. So, if your witness claims to have never been at the crime scene and yet you found their phone right next to the body, time to raise an OBJECTION!! Digging up the truth is very rewarding, and watching your character pursue that line of logic further just makes it all the better.

 But allegedly, the victim wrote the defendant's name with his right hand. Curious...

Bringing it all together, what does this game being good have to do with me being on the treadmill? Nothing, directly. But it does help me focus on the exercise. And funny enough, it helps me focus by taking my mind all the exercise almost entirely. And let me say ahead of time that this is a particular sort of multitasking that not everybody can do, so be careful if you try it out.

First, by concentrating on the game I am less aware of my surroundings. Not by a whole lot, just enough to where I am not constantly checking the clock, calories, or distance. This way, I won't be thinking about how much further I need to go. Likewise, since I'm not focused on the strain of the exercise, I won't have any reason to exaggerate how tired I feel just to give myself a reason to cut it short.

Second, the attention that I am not giving to the exercise pours straight into the game. With the amount of attention that game commands, it's not likely to let go of that focus any time soon. The storyline is constantly in motion, so at any time you can just click on it to see more. Further, the conversations and characters are entertaining enough where pretty much any exchange contains at least one smirk or laugh out of the player. There is a lot going on at any time in the game, so you'll be thinking about the storyline and what the newest developments mean for the larger mystery afoot. Even putting the game down to think about something will keep you invested enough to where you won't get bored while exercising.

The game's music is also exceptional and has everything to do with the Ace Attorney experience. The iconic "Cornered" theme is catchy, especially in a capella.

There are two caveats for this method. First, playing a game while exercising requires being able to multitask in a very particular way. While I can stay enthralled in my game, I still need to keep up with the treadmill, maintain balance on the belt, and keep an eye on the timer so I can scale up the speed according to my routine. If you cannot multitask like this, then this whole method could prove dangerous. Practice first on low speeds, even if you already multitask well.

Second, there do come those times in an Ace Attorney game where you will get utterly stumped. The solution is out there, but your thought process won't find it. In those cases, the game's hold can wane. In that case, you may want to switch up for a game that doesn't require problem-solving to continue, like Animal Crossing.

These things aside, I have a great time on the treadmill with 3DS games, Ace Attorney in particular. If the story really picks up, I might even pull some overtime just to keep in the zone.

All of that said, I'd like to hear from you. What activities keep you in "the zone" like a good game does? Which activity would you like to have a zone for? A game-like perspective on that activity may help in accomplishing this. On the other side, what are good games you like to play while doing something else? And on the other side of the other side, what are some things you like to do while playing games? I know I like to wind down at the end of the day by catching up on my videos while playing some Borderlands 2 or Cube World. I look forward to seeing what you all have to say! Until then, game out.