“Where does that door lead again?” Confusion arose in yesterday’s gaming session. My girlfriend held the controller for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. As part of her turn, she had stormed headlong into a new dungeon. I kept asking her to backtrack, but that was not her style. “No, no, no, just keep going!”
Once it was my turn, I did all the backtracking I had longed for—not because my girlfriend’s approach was wrong but for my own peace of mind. It was part gaming experience, part personality: I want to discover all of one area before moving on to the next. This helps me build context for what’s to come, and it also prevents landing in a room whose puzzle you can’t solve for lack of a tool you failed to pick up before.
In life as in games, there’s no one way to play them. If you want to charge, charge! Keep walking straight until you bump into an obstacle, then assemble your pole for vaulting over it on the spot. But when you feel unsure, cautious, and want to steel your nerves, map the terrain. Explore every nook and cranny before moving on, and mark each find as done and dusted.
Let your preparation give you confidence so you can step into the unknown with clear eyes. None of us know the future, but it often helps to remember which path we took to get there.
