270 - Gaming for the CV Part 1 - Hard Skills

Alex hosts gem and Matt on Gaming the System to discuss, tongue-in-cheek, how gaming can help build “hard skills” that could translate to a CV. They focus on campaign/project management through clear goals, planning, progress tracking, and decision-making, citing examples like Assassin’s Creed, Sniper Elite, Stardew Valley, and Pandemic Legacy, and referencing a University of Rochester study about faster decision-making. They explore storage and inventory management through resource limits, trading, and organization in games like Tomb Raider, Skyrim, Nioh 3, Unpacking, Animal Crossing, and Enshrouded. Time management is discussed via racing challenges (Spyro), shroud timers (Enshrouded), estimating task effort, and critiques of productivity pressures. They also cover adapting to different control schemes and accessibility, comparing controllers vs keyboard/mouse and learning curves for new gamers. The episode ends by previewing a future soft-skills discussion and inviting comments.

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Transcript

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Alex 0:15

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today, I'm your host, Alex, and I'm joined by my friends, gem and Matt, before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gaming the system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com. Hello and welcome to another episode of Gaming the System Today. We are going to be talking about how gaming can boost your c. Which I think is a really interesting topic when you think about it. What I want to do for this first episode is concentrate on what they call hard skills and how gaming can help base those. In particular. I've got about five different hard skills and kind of gonna. List each of them, and then we'll talk about games that we think would be a real asset to have played, to really boost that particular skill. And bear in mind, it is a more of a tongue in cheek look at, at this. We're not saying that all you should do to boost these skills is play these games, but I think they definitely it's a, it is a good way of building up that skill even subconsciously, you know, while you're having a fun time as well. But yeah, definitely a tongue and cheek look. So, it's something that occurred to me 'cause I recently had a job interview at my own place of work and I thought, well, if I was to. Have a flight of fancy, let's say I could list all the games that I've played in my life as a gamer and attribute each of them to all of their particular skills they've listed in their person specification. And that's how I got the idea for this particular episode. So the first one I'm gonna start off with is a hard skill, which is campaign management. So I'm gonna open up the floor to you, gem and Matt, what sort of games have you played that have boosted your campaign management skills? And you can take this as as sort of literally or as openly as you as you want to, and be really interested to hear what you have to say.

Matt 2:43

A massive, useful thing about. Gaming is, if you think of games like a project, any video game is a project that you have a, there's an a hundred percent point where you've literally done absolutely everything that has to be done. And with any kind of like well-managed project, you need to have an, have an understanding of what your a hundred percent goal is. And then to plan backwards from that, the steps that you need to take along the way and having, understanding that there is a, a finite endpoint and settling that. 'cause you don't have an, you don't have a, an alternative in game, in a actual game because someone else has designed it and. What can go wrong with project management from the manager's perspective is they're not clear with exactly what they want. The the, you have to be very, very specific so that everyone is on the same page working towards a clearly defined goal. And 'cause then that allows you to measure your progress soberly and deliberately. And that that ability to Yeah. Plan out campaign as it were. And, and going, right, we've got to do this bit, this bit, this bit and this bit. You go and work on that. You go and work on that, and then we'll bring it together. And so you do, you go and collect the feathers and Assassin's Creed. You do the, the main campaign, you do the side quest, you do the build, so called building Monte, building that up. You go and explore the other settlements, and then we come together and then that has done, we've, we've done, we've compartmentalized and then bring it together and all of a sudden we're 85% of the way through. And then you go, right, I can't find the last 10 feathers, and it's impossible to find those last 10 feathers. I need to go and collect some more gold so I can finish off. Monte, I'm struggling with the last big battle. And that's from a teamwork point of view, there's, 'cause there we could do an entire hour and a half on just solo benefits, an entire half on team benefits. So yeah, so that's, that's my view on like projects and like campaign management.

Alex 5:40

What about you Jim? Oh, I think you are still muted.

Jem 5:48

So a study from the University of Rochester found that action and strategy gamers make decisions 25% faster than non-gamers. Gamers without sacrificing any accuracy. So, you know, that's obviously a key skill when it comes to campaign management, being able to make decisions but with very little information very quickly that doesn't, you know, blow the whole thing up. And I think gaming, most computer games or most, um, video games have some. Element of campaign management in, in it. When I was thinking about sort of, which specific game would I reference for this, I think Star G Valley is one that came to mind because you've obviously, you, you are planning for a year. Because obviously you can only grow. I say obviously you might not have played St. Starry Valley because you can only grow certain plants at certain times of the year and you need. A certain amount of plants or a certain specific types of plants or whatever for various tasks. So you have to plan out your year and then within each season you have to plan out how you're gonna attend certain events and how you are going to make the most of what the weather's doing. So you have to change your plan. So hardcore star G Valley players will know that. A rainy day is a mining day because you know, on a day when it's raining you don't have to water all your crops so you can use that time to run down and and mine. So there's lots of things that you're having to be aware of, and some of them are very. Clearly defined and long-term goals and long-term strategies and others are reactionary and things that you're just having to do because suddenly something changed and now I'm having to do this thing, or I suddenly remembered so-and-so's birthday or whatever. So I think those kind of games really, really encourage a an understanding at the very least of. Campaign management and how to sort of plan and how to. To progress and I think Matt made a really important point about how it, one of the key points of good campaign management is being able to track progress and see what progress you've made where things need more effort and other things can have less effort. And that's something that we often see in, in computer games and when we're playing. Leveling and things like that or help towards, towards that. So yeah, I think, I think pretty much every game has an element of campaign management in it, but Stodgy Valley was my top choice. Excellent. As we know.

Alex 8:51

Yes, indeed.

Matt 8:52

The awareness of the clear, the, the clear definition of, of goals and elements is. Such a, a, a critical thing to, to decide on whenever you are planning anything, especially with teams, because in, in games, the, the, the, like the goal of the design is to make it feel like it's an infinite world that's really lived in like that everything is really unique. But then there are very, very clear like core elements that are, that are in it. So when you, when you go into any game, you know that, say Saturn Creed two, you can't paint every building in Monte Gioni, it feels like you can, when you're, when you're doing everything, you can't go and become a politician in. In the time you can't, you can't do anything you can literally think of, which is what poor managers often end up doing. They go, oh, I've had this new idea. We could do this and this and this and this, and you go, well, you didn't say that at the start. So we can't do that. And to be able to, yeah, I like the phrase clearly defined. So you go, right, we've got these 10 pillars of things that we're gonna work on.

Jem 10:21

Mm-hmm.

Matt 10:21

And two, we can workshop around those, but to consider expanding onto other things. That's a, that's something that needs to be conducted extremely seriously with everyone here, because going from 10 things to 12 things. Out of nowhere is a terrible way to manage a project.

Alex 10:52

Yeah, for sure. Excellent points from me about, I think. Certainly from a solo perspective, some of the games that's paying to mind are like what those ones would really clearly define missions and objectives under those missions as well. So things like Sniper Elite, sniper elite games, you'll have your main mission, which would obviously overarching mission would be to defeat the Nazis. But your individual missions, you can go and gather information for the resistance. You can plant bombs on things like dams or. Research sites, et cetera. Lots and lots of different connotations in each of those missions. And then you've got games. Like Assassin's Creed, as you mentioned, Matt, where if, but certainly in the earlier ones, you could choose a path to the, to the end goal. Um, but it gave you optional choices as well. So you have to make decisions based on maybe your play style. So in case of jobs, you could say, I've chosen the way to pursue this project because I know that this is my working style and this is how I work best. And how I communicate with others, et cetera. So there's definitely, yeah, those games definitely come to mind for me. And then thinking about board games as well you've got lots of, uh, legacy type board games, which last a very long time, which again, takes a lot of coordination and planning, uh, especially if you're playing with other people. You're gonna have to organize meetups to. To keep going with those regularly. Gem, I know you've played a lot of, um, pandemic Legacy as well, so that certainly slots into that category, I would say. True.

Jem 12:34

Yeah. I can't believe I didn't mention that. It's so funny because as I said, so many games use these skills or draw on these skills and. It's, it's funny that, you know, you don't even necessarily realize that that's what you're doing until, until somebody confronts you with it.

Matt 12:55

Another thing is that it's the, the, the understanding that whatever this campaign is, it is a, it is a step-by-step journey. You can't, you can't rush your way to. A hundred percent, or you can try, but there's no guarantees of, of if you'll be able to get there, you can go, oh, I'll just, I'll cheese it, I'll cheese through Eldon ring so I can beat all the, all the bosses as I go along. But then that depends on what your definition of success and completion is, because there are, there are bosses you can, you can skip almost all of the bosses. If you want to and go directly to two or three bosses and then finish the game. You go, go, yes, I've completed this project. And then you go, how much of the map has you explored? How much of the law have you understood? And in games that like that, that can feel infinite, but they are still just exquisitely. Engineered like different elements of all different types and to go like, this is what, this is what success is, this is what our hundred percent is with this. And it might take, again, might take four hours, it might take 40 hours, it might take 250 hours, and. But the, the, this is a problem, like again, with managers that leads to crunch, is if you, if you don't fully comprehend the amount of work that is gonna need to take place to reach the, the goal that you desire, then you're gonna spend too little time doing it because everything would be better if it was. Arrived, finished earlier. That in theory, that always sounds good, but it's, it's to, to start going with the the go, right? We need to do this thing in six months. Then you have to go, okay, we've got six months, we need to shrink our project down. I saw an article recently about I can't remember what game it was dragon age two. 'cause Dragon age two was they had far, far less time to work on it than they thought they did. And so they had to cut half of the quests out of it 'cause they went right. If we, we had our goal of so many quests and. But we, 'cause we had the amount of time to do that and, but now we've got half the time, so we cut half the quests and that's the, that's what that, that trading off between, right. How much time have we got and then how much can we do in that time? And we talked about Mind's Eye recently. And the, the kind of manager that the, the guy in charge of that was just going, well, we're just gonna do it by field. Just really, just really like work with it and just see like where we go. Okay. And that's the absolute worst possible way to manage Yeah. Any kind of project. It's so

Alex 16:14

vague. Yeah. Okay. So another hard skill that I wanted to talk about, this one will be a fun one, I reckon. Storage systems and management. I think one of the earliest games where I was confronted with the problem of storage management. And, and, uh, systems was probably team raid to be honest. Although, to be fair, Lara's backpack is essentially magical and endless. You can store as much as you find in there, so there isn't a limit, per se, on the backpack, but if you have limited resources, you still have to manage them effectively. Uh, which is interesting. So say if Lara's got. A flashing health bar, which means that she's got low health and you've only got one small medi pack, but you've got three quarters of a level left to go. When do you pull the trigger on that medi pack? You've gotta work that out. And then you've got other games where this becomes more sort of, apparent in terms of managing storage, things where you have a limit on how much you can carry, and if you carry too much, you become encumbered and you can't move as quickly. And it affects the way you move in combat, for example, as well. So you've got your games like your, um. BLO games, your sky rims, et cetera. Where you can also do things like trade, buy and sell. That I think, again, is something to do with how you manage your inventory. How do you organize your inventory? Are you organized or is it all a big mess? All dumped in, dumped in the middle, and then you can't effectively trade things properly. However, you guys found, um, that in terms of managing your storage while you're gaming.

Matt 18:03

I love, I love spreadsheets, and that's basically what any kind of storage system is, is a, is a spreadsheet of all the stuff you've got. And the best kind of storage systems are wands where you can, you know exactly what everything is, you know exactly where it is and you know, you know exactly how to find it at all times. And. There's just nothing like as sumptuous as a flawlessly organized uh, storage system and 'cause and the feeling of being in command of, of everything. I've been having a tremendous time with playing NEO three recently, and they're going through. All the equipment and all the weapons, there are like 20 different types of weapons. You've got like 10 Samurai weapons and then 10 ninja weapons, and then you've got a set of ninja armor and a set of samurai armor. And then you've got. Omni sole cause for the enemies that you defeat and you basically have, you spend the entire time, you pick up like five different things from every enemy you kill. And so it can become a bit overwhelming, but I really enjoy going through. Through all the copies of items that I've got and I go, right, okay. They're sorted by type and then sorted by level. So I delete the least powerful one of all of them. So I end up with just one copy of each thing. That's the most powerful one. And going through, 'cause I pick up so much stuff as I go along. Reaching a point where I go, right, I'm struggling with, with the next part, the next boss. And I go, right, okay. I'll go back to my inventory and I'll sort through and I'll find the. The items that suit me best at the moment. And then there's, there's all the, the different modifiers in the items. There's the, the attack damage, there's the, the elemental force. There's the, how much, how much chi does it use less of, and how much more experience points do you get from wearing it? And what are the benefits of each other thing. Taking it just, just the sorting of something I love. And then there's the going through it and picking the right, the right thing that you, that you want to use so that you go, right, what am I, what do I want to do at the moment? How do I find the tools that I've got? Bring them to the front and then use them for the goal at hand. So with. With, uh, the, the resources, the, like, so it's basically a souls born game. So the soles, you can different garments that allow you to increase the percentage of souls that you earn. But those those garments aren't, they're not always gonna be the most like, well, the most defensive ones, so they're not good for. Maximizing your defensive capabilities and Neo has equipment slots where you can set up all your, your gear and all your weapons and all your settings and all your your accessories and your quick action things, and you can. Take a, you can save those into the, into the, the equipment set system. And then, so I've got my, my soul farming one, and then I've got my most powerful one, and then I've got my, the one that looks the coolest and the the, oh, just taking appraisal of all of your tools, laying them out nicely before you and going, right, we've got to do this thing. So I'm gonna take this, this, this, this, and this. Put those together and then attack the thing with the, the, and this comes into campaign management as well. So if you've got like say, sniper assassin or hitman, you know, you've got a mission. The end goal is kill these people. But you go, right, I, I need to, I know, I know what this level is. It's perfect for sniper rifles. Whereas if you're inside a bank, you're not gonna use a sniper rifle. And Oh yeah, just taking resources, picking out the the right ones and then using them effectively. Oh, so satisfying.

Jem 22:57

I think there's a fine line between. Entertaining and game enhancing inventory management and hell, I think it's literally like, you know it It can, it can be, yeah. As you describe it can be a. Part of the game where you, it, it's fun. And I was thinking about like, unpacking is a game all about inventory management. You're just, you, you've got your, you start with your boxes and then it's all about where are you gonna put all your things in your room. But then in, in shout that I'm playing at the moment, it, there are so many items because it has a. Absolutely fantastic crafting system. And so you can make so many things, but that means you have so many things and they all live in chess and they're not easily cat categorizable. So I think that's the other thing is like, yes, it is nice when you can clearly put things into neat little. Boxes. And you know, I need this for this and I need that for that. But in, in shrouded you might need the same thing for three different things. And you know, so it's, it's not clear and it, that stresses me out. And I think also it's, it is a time issue. So some games like animal crossing, there's quite a lot of inventory management in that and resource management. And it, it can be quite fun because you're moving stuff around and it's, it's, um, it, it's part of the sort of tidying up element of, of games, but that can also, it also takes up a lot of time. And if you've only got limited time to play, then you might. You might choose not to do very much inventory management. So I am terrible in ENS shrouded because Daniel and I will be out and we'll have been going somewhere new and we've picked up all this stuff and I come back and I'm just like, dump it all in the first chest though. Bye. And run off. And he, and then he comes in and he's like, why is the coal in here and why are there sticks in the, in this chest? And he's sort of like sorting it all back out again.

Matt 25:22

That

Jem 25:22

would upset

Matt 25:23

me so much

Jem 25:25

and, and rightly so. I think it's reasonable to be upset by that. Um, but I just can't be bothered 'cause I'm like, I haven't got time for any of this. I'll deal with it later. To be fair, it's quite how, how we live in the real world as well. But no, I think it's, I think it can be really fun and I, I think there is definitely an an element of, of that in games like the merge games, which are all about sort of tidying up, aren't they? And pulling everything together. So, yeah, I think there's, it's an interesting thing. I'm not sure if I've learned any. Real world skills from doing it except just an awareness of how,

Alex 26:08

how you operate.

Jem 26:08

Um, messy and erratic. I'm,

Alex 26:12

which is good skills, still self-awareness. There we go. That's one for you. It's

Jem 26:16

just joking. Yeah.

Alex 26:18

Yeah.

Matt 26:18

That's a,

Alex 26:19

yeah, that's a great one. How about time management since you brought up time management? No, I was think the first thing that came to mind when I thought about this one is racing games. Which is a slightly different way of looking at it. But yeah, that's the most pure form of time management for me is can you do this thing before the time runs out? And that can take the form of a race. It could be like a timed door or a lever or something like that. Or a puzzle. Love a good puzzle. But yeah, those are the main things. The time management. For that one, I'm gonna put spiral. All the Spiro Trilogy finally into that one. 'cause they had loads and loads of racing levels. When you go and speak to Sparks. Who's your little dragonfly? And, uh, they are brutally hard. But the sense of achievement on completing them is fantastic and there's definitely a skill to it. You know, you, you get to know the set path, which you must take the shortcuts through the roots, uh, all that sort of thing. And how to be efficient. At completing each of the races as well. Um, so that would be my pick for time management. That is my game. Have you thought about what yours would be?

Jem 27:41

I think that's really interesting that you went for racing, racing games and those kind of games, but I think that's probably. Right. I think time management for me would, well, along those lines, I would say ens shrouded again, because in Enshrouded you, when you go into certain areas, you get a timer. And you die if you reach zero on that time of, and you are still in the area. So if you go into an area that is shrouded, then you get this enshrouded duff basically, which counts down. You can do various things to increase that and you can find things around, uh, the world that will. Sort of top it up while you are in the shroud, but if you're still in the shroud, when that timer reaches zero, you die. There's no, there's, there's, that's, that's it. And certainly that's. Added quite a nice sison to the, to the gaming experience, especially at the moment because we're playing in a, a very deep shroud. And so last night Daniel and me were running around going like, I'm going the east, I'm gonna gonna try up this. And it was literally like a calm down before one of us died. We did manage to get it out, get get out, but um, we were at opposite ends. From math by that point. So, but that definitely adds a sort of, you know, time you have to think about it, can I do this? And um, I got a duff, which meant that my time was half of what it was, and that influenced what we chose to do in the game. So it had quite a big impact. But I suppose the other thing about time management is about actual. How much time can you game? What choice, what choices of games do you, what games do you choose to play with the time that you've got and, and how much time do you set aside for gaming in general, or gaming with specific games? So for me, that's, that's probably the biggest impact. That that I can link the sort of time management and gaming is, is all around my own real world time management and how much time, uh, in my day I choose to devote to, to gaming. And, and I think that's interesting because it brings up a whole set of issues around. Self-care around what we do to decompress what we do to give ourselves time out from all of the busy things that we're doing in our lives. And, and also I think being, having conversations with some friends recently about the concept of productivity and self care and somebody was saying that, um. Oh, I'm not being productive. I need to find a, a, a way to be. Productive and I said, well, I think self care is kind of the art of not being productive. I think there is definitely an element that is about it. I'm doing this because I enjoy it, not because I am achieving something, not because something is necessarily happening. It doesn't mean that something can't be achieved at the same time, but that isn't the aim. The goal is not to achieve. It is simply to do to, to enjoy and. I think for me that's, that's one of the key things when I'm choosing my, how to spend my time and my time management around games. So yeah, it's a little bit a step back from the games and more about playing for me,

Alex 31:30

and I think that's an excellent point as well. That's another thing that came to mind definitely is just about. Especially as we get older, I think as well, is how much time we've got to game and how we choose our games to reflect that as well. What about you, Matt?

Matt 31:47

There's also the, the productivity is a, a narrative inflicted on us by both capitalism and page for 'cause for women. It's going absolutely you should be, shouldn't you? If you don't have kids, shouldn't you have kids by now? Shouldn't you be doing more things for your family? Shouldn't you doing more things for the community? Shouldn't you be helping caring for other people? Capitalism is going well. You're not doing it. If it doesn't make money, then it doesn't matter, does it? And you're not being a productive member of society 'cause you're not making enough money. You need to be working harder and rather than going right, you, you, you should be working, resting, and playing. And. For adults who don't game. There's very, very little play in the lives of, of adults. Whereas with gaming, it's because if you are you game as game as part of your life, you are guaranteed playing, playing time. When I'm thinking of time management, I'm thinking more of. Appraising the amount of time a certain activity in a game will take, 'cause not all, not all activities in a single game are gonna take the same amount of time or energy or attention. So you can go right, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go and collect the. The different, if you go right again, back to Assassin's Creed too, I'm just gonna go and collect all the feathers. That's different to collecting all the say the, it's probably the worst like form of collectibles because there's a hundred of them and there's no map of where they are and where you've picked them up and how many and where you've got left to pick them up. So you know that that's gonna take a very, very, very, very, very long time and it's gonna be arduous. So you might go, I'm just gonna not do it. With Neo I've been, a lot of it is I can just breeze through because I've, I've leveled up so much, some bits, so I go, right, I, I need to get a, a few more souls. So I'll just put on my sole farming gear and go and do that quickly. But then a couple of times I'll reach a boss where I am massively unprepared for it. And I'll try. I'll try. Brute forcing it a few times and then I go, right, I'm, I'm not gonna be able to quickly do this. This is going to take more time than just banging your head against one thing over and over again. I need to go, right. Okay. In order to do that, I'm gonna spend, need to spend a couple more hours going and farming more souls and then coming back and trying again and to be able to. Sometimes you, you can, you can complete an activity. You don't need to be a hundred percent switched on to do it. And gaming's really good for practicing that because you go, right, this bit's gonna be simple. I just need to go to a place, find a thing. I know that these kinds of enemies aren't gonna be very difficult, but then you hit something. Like one of these really good bosses and you go, right, the only way I'm gonna do this, I can, I can brute force it until I do it. Or I can learn, I can just, the goal be, I'm not gonna try and win these boss fights for a while. I'm just gonna learn the move sets and. Expedition 33 has completely changed the way I approach fighting in really difficult games. Mm-hmm. Because it's the only way to, to, to play that game. 'cause it's turn base. You can't run around and dodge and try and give yourself space. It's a very Right. It's their turn. You need to, I, I remember this one has three attacks and it goes one, two. Oh, ah, ah, three. And to be able to, to go, right, I've got this, I've got this, this activity to do in this period of time, and I need to focus a specific skillset for that period of time. And then. Perform that 'cause to, to try and be like with, with, with jobs in general, the pressure is to be going a hundred percent, 110% the entire time you're there and then be thinking about work outside of work and what it should be rather than it being right. You need to, you are doing 40 hours in the office. You are going to be doing something every second of that. You go, right? We, we know exactly what we've got to do. We've got these enemies to beat and we'll work, we'll work based on what we need to do to beat that enemy. And then once we've beaten those enemies, we're done working and we can, we can rest and do something else rather than going, right. You need to, you need to just work. Just work and work and work and work and work. And yeah, just, just being able to, yeah, just be in command of how you, what actions you're taking and how you're taking them.

Alex 37:40

Yeah, definitely a considered approach for sure. That's pretty, it's really interesting to hear about how you've, had to change your approach with the types of games like Expedition 33. It's, it's, um, I'd love to talk about that more. I do mean to play it eventually 'cause it's doing so well in awards. You must, you must And I'm like, shit, this must mean it's good. I mean, I know from you guys it's good. So Yeah. I, it is on the list to play. Definitely. We've got a bit of time left in this episode and I've got a couple more skills I wanted to chat about. One of them is a little bit of a strange one, but I was thinking of this one in terms of control schemes. So machine operation. Are there any games where you've really struggled to pick up the controls or you've had to adapt to a different way of, of controlling a character in a game or, or progressing through a game that you weren't expecting necessarily? I do feel like as gamers, we are pretty good at picking up new controls and new ways of playing. It can take a little bit of time if we've been zoned into one particular game, one way of playing, usually you get that muscle memory. And you're thinking, well, why isn't R two shoe in this one? Uh, or whatever. And it takes a bit of adjustment. But I think machine operation as a, as a sort of broad coverall for that sort of thing is definitely a skill that gamers are very good at. What would you say?

Matt 39:12

Yeah, I was thinking recently that my mum's got four games on the go at the moment. She's got Alan Wake. Mm-hmm. Which she's playing. Solo. She's got Boulder's Gate three, which she's playing with me. She's got Ani Animal, she's playing with Meghan, and then she's got Ghost of Oshima that she's playing with Meghan. Wow. That's

Alex 39:29

an impressive list. And all different,

Matt 39:31

I know.

Alex 39:31

Yeah.

Matt 39:32

Completely Couldn't be more different kinds of games. And so with each one, the col the control scheme, it, that is such a a really just powerful way of. Like focusing on something of mindfully approaching the present thing that you're doing. Because I, I find if I'm playing, if I go from playing one, like fighting game to a slightly different fighting game, if I try and just, right, I'm just doing the thing that I'm doing, I'll press the wrong buttons constantly. So you need to properly sit and go, okay, this button is dodge for this. This button is blocked for this. And, and just the, the, the mental, like the, the actual like brain chemistry neural pathways that you are practicing constantly of going, okay, Dodge is circling this one, it's X on this one I'm playing this game, so it's X, x, x. Now I'm playing this one, which is circle, circle, circle. So that. Being able to like, it's like playing two different instruments and, but it's alway, it's still your brain controlling your body and practicing the fine motor skills of, of, of controlling something like this, but also having your brain looking at a screen and going, okay, move that and this and that and this and that. So it's so, so good for Yeah, like the, the skill of doing anything with your hands, but also for the, the, the brain health of constantly, it's, the control is always the same, but your brain is interacting with it differently and that kind of, especially, especially as you get older, that kind, any kind of practice of doing like. That kind of thinking and learning it, it just, it gets more and more powerful. We could do an episode about why older people should game and how good it is for We totally should.

Jem 41:48

Yeah. Um, I think for me, I've, I've never really. I've used controllers all my life, but I've not consistently used them. So I've, I've, I've used them because I'm basically a PC Gamer controllers are something that I've used for the odd game here and there, so it's. I've never really become friends with them and, and I just always find it slightly, there isn't muscle memory there for me. So it is often a challenge for me to A, remember what buttons to press. And then, you know, as you're talking about switching between games again is very confusing. Just even remembering where. The actual bits are on the controller is really hard for me. Whereas give me a keyboard and I'll, I'll be, you know, I'll be absolutely fine. I can, I can

Alex 42:52

complete opposite for me, I really struggle with a keyboard and mouse 'cause I feel like I can't. Tell where my fingers are, I have to look down and therefore I, I can't see the screen. So I find it a real challenge.

Jem 43:02

Yeah,

Alex 43:03

yeah.

Jem 43:04

Yeah. And I think it's just because of what you, what you are used to, what you've been, what you've spent the majority of the time using. And I think that just goes to show, doesn't it really, that these things are all about practice. And the more we practice 'em, the better we get at them. And I do think that there is a. Sort of optimal. Age perhaps to be getting into these things. And we've talked in the past about how sometimes age can be a bit of a barrier to getting into gaming because of the assumptions that you can, that you know certain things and you can do certain things that that. There's not space given to learning those skills in many games. But I do also think that, as Matt said, it, it's so good for your brain elasticity, this like having to think about it. And we know that, that it's really good for us when we're thinking and physically acting as well. That's a really good thing for us, for the way that our. Brains work and the way that we learn things and stuff. It's so, I remember when my daughter was at primary school and we were sort of looking for suggestions on how to help her learn the Times tables and her, the head teacher at the school said, well, she really likes going on the trampoline, doesn't she? And she said to get her to do the Times tables while she's on the trampoline because the physical act of jumping at the same time as. Thinking helps you to embed that information, that knowledge in your body more. And so I think that's the same thing that's happening when you're gaming. I mean, I don't know. I'm not a scientist. I am just surmising this from the various bits of information that I've got. But yeah, so I think for me, using a controller has always been a challenge and it adds that additional layer of. Complexity to a game. So sometimes I find it frustrating because I feel like if I had a better grasp on how to grasp, if I had a better grasp of how to use a controller, then the, then I would be able to enjoy the game more. But because I'm so, and I think that is actually a really important thing regarding gaming and machine operation, is that what I want when I game? Is, I just want to be in the game. I just want to feel like I'm flowing into the game. The game is flowing into me. It's a sort of two-way thing. Process. If you are spending all of your time trying to work out what button to press or how to jump, or the exact second, and I know we've talked about this with regards to, um, expedition 33 because they have this really crazy dodge tactic that can really make or break the game for you. And they, it's so hard to get the timing right. And I think, Matt, you used a, a, um, an add-on for a. For that, didn't you? And, and I know that, um, Daniel was saying that he had the music turned right down so that he could hear the sounds in the game because apparently there are some audio cues, whereas I just flick constantly between easy and sort of like normal mode because I just cannot get that timing right. And it's not fun. It's, it's. It would be nice if they'd allowed you to specifically tweak that one aspect of the game. So I think that's the thing. It's like, I think game mechanics, we've talked about that a lot, but in this sort of, at this sort of machine operation level, I think it's really important that it, it's not a barrier between you and enjoying the game. And I think that's something that. Is so important when we're looking at accessible gaming as well. And we've talked a lot about how important it is for games to have, you know, to provide lots of options for people so that they can access the game in a way that works for them. And I think that, you know it, it's very key when we're talking about machine operation.

Alex 47:26

That's such a good

Matt 47:27

point too. I've said to my mom a lot about that gaming is like. Gaming is like driving a car. You can't, you, you need to learn to drive before you can play all the games that you want to play and playing. You might have spent your entire life driving a, driving, a riding on a moped. And then some games are like, you need to be able to drive a car. Mm-hmm. You need to be able to drive a lorry. Any kind of Any kind of thing. Yeah. And the, the one of the biggest. Failures of all kind of all game developers is not having a, not building their games in a way where there's an option for someone who has never played a game before to play an awesome game like Expedition 33. Have that be their first game because they've, they've created a system in it that is that train. You could use this awesome game as a training system. Whereas what trips up a ton of most people getting into games the first time, especially the older they are, is in order to play all the good games are complex compared to the games that you can play when you've never used a controller before. You've never tried anything before. And that can be boring, especially if you're trying to do it on your own. If you've got, you've got. People around you who are, who are invested in you gaming. Even then it's you. It's, my mom's been gaming for two years now and she has had to work very, very hard and be incredibly persistent to, to learn that skill.

Jem 49:13

Mm-hmm.

Matt 49:14

And that's another, that's another thing. 'cause this, this episode is all about skills. Gaming teaches you skills as well as, as well as practicing them.

Alex 49:25

Certainly, yes. Thank you Matt. That was really, really good. One last skill to end the episode. This one, I think interestingly, I was coming at it from a more sort of cozy game perspective. And that's the skill of design and planning. I was thinking in terms of how you build a house in the Sims, for example, how are you gonna design your house? How are you gonna decorate it? Where are you gonna put the bathrooms in relation to the bedrooms or the kitchen? Is it gonna be next to the lounge or somewhere else? Entirely? Your game's, like where you've got a lot of cosmetics. That doesn't necessarily do anything in terms of gameplay. Some outfits do, of course. Maybe that's part of design and planning, but, uh, it's more, I, I think for me, design is definitely more of a sort of creative outlet. How do you find your creative outlet in games as well?

Jem 50:27

Oh, that's interesting. I think. Yeah, I think it is definitely an element of design in, uh, yeah, like you say in games like the Sims and animal Crossing and not so much Stagy, well, I suppose Starry Valley and, you know, and then in the, in the builder games or the Survival games, like, um. And Val, we've, we do spend quite a lot of time just I don't know, enjoying the, the building experience and like making up like nice little areas for your characters to hang out in and or just making a nice house to come back to and stuff like that. So I think that's one of the places where the sort of creative aspect comes out for me and. I think I quite enjoy that side of things. I quite enjoy the that at that element. I think also there's something about being able to. Sort out your inventory. We talked about inventory management earlier, but being able to sort out your inventory in, into neat categorized boxes or, uh, sections and, and groups. And that's one of the things in, in Tred that they have a thing where you can sort your inventory. Um, press t and it sorts your, your bag for you. And it never sorts it in the way that I would've sorted it. And it really annoys me because then I think, well, I can go through and I can re-sort everything, but then next time I hit t it's going to sort it. Or in its own weird order and I dunno. What kind of devilish creature came up with the order that they, that, that they've decided it should sort it into. But, um, I find that frustrating. And then you've got games like Minecraft and things where people have built such amazing. Structures and worlds and, you know, they've completely re you know, created real world places inside the game and things like that. So I think there's like quite a lot of elements for tapping into your creativity in your design within games.

Matt 53:02

I tend to, I don't play many builder games. I, I like to spend my, like creativity around what I. Like how I, the kinds of like the visual aspects of things. So I often say like, we've got a war Ragnar Rock. In the Valhalla mode. You can have any like visual, any, any skin type around your. Weapons and equipment. And so if you have to, like with, with games like with Neo, you create the, the way you want to play the game, you, so my, my favorite weapons are the, the ninja sword and fer and a big ax. And I love, I love doing, I love. Like approaching the things from, from that angle, but then you could approach it from a completely different angle. And I think it's just, it's a way, another way to creatively express yourself the way you, you approach doing that.

Alex 54:26

Definitely. Yeah. I completely agree. I really like the ability now in games to have. Lots of different choices for outfits or the way that weapons look and things. But you can kind of, what it's called, it's called trance smoke or something where you have the boosts and stats from one type of weapon, but you can make it look like another type of weapon, which, or another type of outfit, which I really like as well. So then you can get exactly how you want to look, but you have all of the different booths and buffs from other outfits instead, which I really enjoy. But yes. So I wanna thank you both for what has been a really interesting deep dive into the hard skills of gaming to boost your cv. But hard skills are not the only skills that you need for a job. So if you want to find out more about those soft skills, then you can tune in for our next episode. And we have episodes every Thursday. So thank you for watching and listening and feedback. What skills have you gained from gaming? What skills have you do you think you've really improved through your, your gaming life? Let us know in the comments, and thank you so much. We'll see you again soon. Bye

Jem 55:43

bye.