Do video games teach you valuable life lessons? This guy thinks so.
25 year old Harold Cheng is writing a book. And not just any book, but one that derives life lessons from video games. Titled Respawn! The gamer’s guide to life, love and destroying your enemies, the e-book-in-the-works will be an illustrated collection of approximately 135+ pages of life lessons gleaned from video games.
“It takes a special someone to be able to defeat demon gods or one-winged angels,” he said, when asked why he decided to create Respawn! “I just think that there’s a lot of lessons we can learn from our favourite video-game heroes.”
Fully illustrated by Cheng, Respawn! is also going to feature a blurb from Brian Fargo (yes, the Brian Fargo, the Wasteland 2 guy) as well as input from Richard Garriott of the Ultima series and Stieg Hedulnd, a multi-talented game designer who designed Diablo and Diablo II, among many projects.
Respawn! is currently awaiting funding from an IndieGoGo campaign that hopes to not just encourage anecdotal contributions from the gaming community, but to also move the book from the digital realm to the physical one. Generous funders can opt for paperback and even hardcover editions of the book.
However, the underfunding of the campaign has changed Cheng’s plans a little. As of today, he has raised just $1,638 of his intended $8,500 goal so far, with 28 days left to go. So, where you originally had to be a backer of Respawn!’s IndieGoGo campaign to contribute an anecdote, Cheng is planning to create an online space where people can come and give their input on how video games have affected their lives, and the best ones will be put into the book.
Considering Cheng hails from Singapore, a land some may know as being generous with government grants, you might wonder why he hasn’t sought out any financial assistance with his socially-promoted artistic gaming entrepreneurship endeavour.
“I kinda get the feeling I might have to make certain changes here and there to be eligible. At the end of the day, I want the book to hit the market as awesome as originally intended!” he said.
And in spite of his underfunded IndieGoGo campaign, Cheng is going to go ahead with that. You will still see the book even if Respawn! isn’t fully crowdfunded. “Besides a little bruising of the ego, plans to proofread and format the manuscript will still go ahead nonetheless,” Cheng said.
“The plan is to make good on my promise to all initial backers, so we’ll definitely be seeing some very exclusive hard copies floating about. If the response is good following the launch of the e-book version, I hope to release special edition physical copies in the future.”
As a sneak preview of the book’s contents, here are a few lessons from video games that have stuck with Cheng.
Persistence always beats adversity – Dark Souls
“Just sitting here won’t change a thing. It’s the same old stuff. So let’s go.” – Kingdom Hearts
NPCs let things happen. Heroes make things happen. – every RPG game ever
There is also some advice on love for gamers (which, incidentally, has an entire chapter to itself in Respawn!):
“There’s nothing you can do if the Princess always seems to be in another castle. Regardless of how things turn out, always be proud of being confident enough to put yourself out there. Always remember that no one can tell a Hero what he’s worth, that is something he decides for himself.”
You can fund Respawn! The gamer’s guide to life, love and destroying your enemies via its IndieGoGo campaign, sign up for its mailing list, or like its Facebook page. Author Harold Cheng can be found on Twitter @etapixels.
The post Do video games teach you valuable life lessons? This guy thinks so. appeared first on Games in Asia.
The post Do video games teach you valuable life lessons? This guy thinks so. appeared first on Games in Asia.
