Life as an 8-Bit Game: A Guide

Original author: Oliver Emberton
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Life is a game that literally everyone plays. This article is your guide.

The basics

You may not even guess, but real life is a strategic game. It has fun mini-games - for example, dancing, driving, running, and sex - but the key to winning is simply managing your resources.

Most important: successful players spend their time on the right things. As the game progresses, money appears in it, but your main priority should always be the proper use of time.

Childhood

Life begins with getting a random character and a random starting position:
Choose your character
The first 15 years go to boring training missions (tutorials). It’s impossible to miss them.

Youth

As a novice player you will have a lot of time and energy, but almost zero experience. Most of the goodies (such as good work, things and partners) will be blocked until you get any experience.

This is the best time to upgrade your skills. So much time and energy you will never have again.

Now that you play correctly, your main goal is to properly allocate your time . Everything that you do affects your condition and skills:
Programming vs drinking

It would seem that everything is simple - but the catch is that you will not always know what tasks to choose, and the body will not always obey your commands. Let's figure it out.

How to obey your own teams

Many players notice that when they are going to do something - for example, "go to the gym" - the body completely ignores them.

This is not a bug. Each player has a condition that cannot be seen directly, but it looks something like this:
condition

If any indicator of the state falls, your body will ignore orders until you understand his needs . Try to learn when you are tired and hungry - you will not have time to blink an eye, as your attention will switch to Twitter.

The measure of will is especially important. Willpower melts during the day, replenishes slightly after eating, and is fully restored after a good sleep. When willpower is low, you can only do what is really interesting to you.

Each decision you make requires willpower, and decisions in which you suppress an attractive option for the less attractive (for example, practice instead of watching TV) require a lot of willpower.

There are several tricks to keep yourself in control:
  1. Maintain good condition. If you are tired, hungry or extremely lacking in entertainment, your will will go to zero. Constantly monitor the status of the character
  2. Do not demand too much will from one day. Distribute the most difficult tasks for several days and alternate them with less difficult ones.
  3. Start with the most important tasks. This will make other tasks more difficult, but will increase the chances of solving the most important task.
  4. Reduce willpower costs by limiting choices. If you are trying to work on a computer with access to Facebook, you will need more willpower because you constantly choose a harder task (job) instead of an easy one (Facebook). Eliminate such distractions.

The key objective of the game is to maintain a balance between your various priorities and the state of your body. The main thing - do not turn on the autopilot, otherwise you will never do anything.

Choosing the right tasks

In general, the game comes down to choosing the right tasks at the right time. Some tasks affect your condition, for example:
Cooking: plus energy, minus hunger

Others affect skills more:
Playing the guitar: plus musicality, plus face painting

You need to spend time on things that support a healthy state — in particular, eating and sleeping — to maintain a high level of willpower. After that, upgrade your skills using what's left.

Some skills are more valuable than others. Good skills can open up a whole path, such as this technology tree:
Skills
Others will lead to a dead end:
Deadlock skills

The greatest efficiency is achieved by a combination of skills. It is very difficult to upgrade one skill to become the best. Actually, it's almost impossible. But you can quite easily master several related skills that add up to something more, for example:
business + confidence + psychology = businessman
Cooking + dancing + psychology = magnet for women
See how psychology has just helped you become successful and attractive? It is worth exploring.

Place of residence

Your environment constantly affects your success, condition, and chances of moving to the next level.

Yes, the game can be played well almost anywhere, but in some places it is much easier to do. For example, if you are a woman and play in the wrong country, many achievements will not be available to you.

Each player has almost zero chances of being born in an optimal place, so study your options and think about moving as early as possible. The environment is a multiplier of all your skills and conditions.

Partner search

Attractiveness is a complex mini-game in itself, but basically it is a by-product of how you play. If you have excellent condition and high skills, you are already very attractive. A tired, irritable, stupid player is unpleasant and, perhaps, should not seek a relationship.

Marriage: happiness +1, headache * 2

Already in the early stages of the game, participants often reject themselves and are rejected by other players. This is normal, but, unfortunately, it can deplete your condition, since most players are hard pressed to reject. You will have to use willpower to continue the game, and willpower is replenished with sleep, so time will cure you.

80% of partner searches comes down to demonstrating their best sides, which - like so much more in life - means using your time on the right things. If you train, socialize, look after yourself and move ahead in a career, you will automatically radiate attractiveness. The remaining 20% ​​is just to be in places where you can meet the right people.

Money money money

In the next stages of the game, you will have to manage a new resource called “money”. At first, most players will increase money, but in fact this will only create more problems for them.
8 bit money

The most important rule of money is never to borrow, unless it helps to get even more . For example, an education or mortgage may be worth it (although not necessarily, it depends on education and mortgage). But borrowing to buy new shoes is not worth it.

Depending on your financial ambitions, there are several strategies:
  1. Do not worry about money. Low stress strategy: just live by income and set aside a little rainy day. Make sure, however, that the time saved is spent meaningfully, or you will regret it.
  2. Live in abundance. Carefully choose a career and environment, and be prepared to move in order to move on. You will have to seriously invest in the necessary skills, which will be worth the time. Do not forget to monitor your condition, otherwise you will undermine your health.
  3. Grow rich. Open your business. It is almost impossible to become rich by working for someone else. Wealth does not come only from work, it comes from owning things - assets - that give more than they cost. Your own company is a powerful asset that you can create from scratch. Invest your income in other assets, and in the end you don’t have to work at all.


Late life

Your options will change as the game progresses. Marriage and children will reduce time and energy, add more random elements to the game (“Emergency diaper change!”). It will become more difficult to engage in self-development.

Older characters usually have more skills, resources, and experience, and gain access to previously blocked quests such as “buying a house” or “writing memoirs.”
Old age: rumor -1, comfortable pants +10

All players die after approximately 29,000 days, or 80 years. If your condition and achievements are good, you can stretch a little longer. A cheat code for renewal does not exist.

At the beginning of the game, you did not have control over who you are and what is around you. By the end of the game, this again becomes true. Your foregoing decisions determine where you will end, and whether you will be happy, healthy, realized (or not) - in the last days you can do little about it.

That is why your strategy is important.

Now let's play.

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