Just One More Time

This is a little phrase I sometimes say to myself when playing games that is unbelievable false and yet I continue to believe it every time I play.  It's the type of thing that comes up when a game has a short challenge and a high score possibility. 

For instance I was playing a challenge map on Batman: Arkham Asylum last night (which is a wicked awesome games by the way, if you own a XBox 360, PS3 or a computer that can handle it buy the game!) and playing one of the challenges where you take on four rounds of bad guys in a fight, and after about the third time through and not setting a new high score (that requires almost perfection to achieve) I said to myself, out loud of course “One more time!`I then proceeded to play the same challenge about ten more times sometimes resetting about half way through when I knew I wouldn't beat my old score.

This brings to mind a poster I used to have in my office when I worked at Computer Installations Plus titled ‘Everything I needed to know I learned from Tetris”

Tetris is of course another of those games where the “One more time” line gets spoken.  But it’s about persistence, when you know you can do something all it takes is the right combination of events and trying to make it happen.  In life you might do this but the results take  a long time to see in some cases, with a game you get instant feedback on how well you did with a score, I think that’s what drives this “One more time” thing for me.

I know a number of people that have a similar fascination with beating their high water marks at different things and as long as that persistence is applied to other things in life as well it can be a very good thing.  If you persist you can achieve that which you are going for, be it a high score in a game, a high mark on a test and even some things that have a less tangible result like better relationships or acknowledgement of what you do.

By the way, I eventually did beat my old score and achieved the 455th rank in the world! Go me!