Page 40 - Voices-2022-04

QUARTER NOTE

Appreciate Incremental Learning

David Freedman, PM2

Ask anyone who knows me well, and they’ll repeated battles, and even

tell you I’m an inveterate gamer. I love video fewer ways to bypass the
games, especially open world titles that allow boss by going a different
for greater exploration opportunities. And in route. In Elden Ring, a
that vein, like many people, I eagerly awaited lot of this frustration was

the arrival of Elden Ring, a game in which the mitigated because of the open
player is tasked with navigating a hostile world world setting. If you couldn’t defeat a particularly
with innumerable threats. Games in the Dark difficult foe, you could traverse the world, solving
Souls series are known to be incredibly difficult, puzzles and decimating less powerful enemies

much more so than the “standard” video games until you gained more experience, gear, and
most of us play. When I say difficult, what I courage to go back and face your nemesis again.
mainly mean is, watch your back. Often. Trust Maybe you’d win this time, maybe you wouldn’t,
me, you will die a lot. You’ll learn a great deal but at least you made the effort.

from it, too. I recently gave a speech entitled “Learning to
I didn’t always enjoy these types of games. Appreciate Incremental Learning.” (Yes, I used
Quite often I found them incredibly frustrating the word “learning” twice in the sentence. How
to the point of wanting to smash my controller gauche.) I acknowledged that for me, becoming

against the TV screen. It wasn’t until I played and more comfortable with incremental learning
beat another game with similar difficulty called has been a shaky process. In my notes, if not
Hollow Knight that I finally started to understand my speech, I included several facts, namely:
the appeal of these games. Yes, they’re hard. I’m an actor who wants to play different roles

They’re meant to be. They don’t hold your without worrying about how people view my
hand the way many other games do. Rather, facial paralysis, never mind that most casting
you learn to walk into a situation cautiously so directors would not be able to ignore it. Secondly,
you don’t die instantly and can hopefully negate like everyone else, I’d love to get rich quickly

your foe’s offensive in the process. In the case through winning the lottery, even though by
of the earlier Souls games, there were very few doing so I might open myself up to multitudes
ways to approach the stronger bosses without of people wanting to take advantage of me
figuring out a strategy to beat them through because of my winnings. And lastly, I want to

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