271 - Gaming for the CV Part 2 - Soft Skills

In part two of their “Skill Boosts from Gaming” series, Alex, Gem, and Matt discuss soft skills developed through games, focusing on resilience, teamwork, communication, empathy, and problem-solving/critical thinking. They use examples like Slay the Spire, Soulsborne games, Hades, Elden Ring, Overcooked, It Takes Two, Split Fiction, Fortnite, World of Warcraft raids, Operation: Tango, Journey, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, God of War/Ragnarök, Cozy Grove, Spiritfarer, Portal 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Hitman, The Witness, Professor Layton, L.A. Noire, and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. The conversation covers learning from failure, process over outcomes, ego in teams, co-op communication tools like pings and shared language, bonding with strangers, and how games model empathy and effective collaboration.

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Transcript

Speaker 4 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 part two of our Exploration of. Skill boosts, um, from gaming, which has been a very exciting topic so far. If you missed it, go back and catch our episode all about hard skills. And this episode today is all about soft skills. The skills that you need, they're more interpersonal. So things like communication, et cetera will come onto the, that one a little later in the episode. But I wanted to kick off with resilience. This is the one that inspired my idea for this whole topic, and that's because I came to this revelation that one of my most recent gaming obsessions slow this buyer has made me more resilient. Because it's very tough game. It's one of those games where if you die, you have to go all the way back to the beginning and try again, and each time you run through. Each of the acts, you have a different set of cards to play with. So each time's gonna be a different experience and you have to cut your losses and say, okay, last time I didn't make it. And this time's gonna be completely different. We'll see where it goes from there. And sometimes you can get all the way to the final bit and have maybe a tiny bit of half left on the, on the final boss, but not make it through. And it can be incredibly difficult and very, very disheartening at times. But you do make it in the end and, uh, I'm pleased to say and I'm very excited to hopefully explore and slay this player. Two with you both as well which is in early access at the moment. So I wanted to talk to you about skills that we learn from gaming and resilience. Can, I think, be applied to a lot of games. Say the Spire is my example. Other ones that come to mind immediately are obviously ones like the souls borne games where you, when you die, you get put back to a certain point. You have to go and collect the whatever it is that you've dropped, where you died, to be able to gain all those skills and experience bits back. Um, so it's quite unforgiving. But are there any other games that you can think of that have helped build your resilience?

Speaker 5 3:17

We talked about, um, resilience building and computer games in relation to death in games and about how dying and then coming back to life and then having to kind of work your way back. It was a real resilience builder. So I think that I. Sort of video games across the board are, are very good at building resilience and building this kind of idea that, you know, you get knocked down and you just get back up again and try again. And, and I think, you know, there's a, there's a sort of phrase, a meme phrase, which is just get good. And it, and I think, you know, that is one of the things that. It sounds a bit unsympathetic, it sounds a bit in, you know, unkind in some ways, and I think to some ears that's how it would come across. But the reality is that, yeah, sometimes you just have to get good. You just have to get better at things. And practice does make, you know, maybe not perfect, but it makes better, you know? And um, when I was thinking about this sort of question, I was, I thought of slay the fire as well, which I've also been playing. And um, and yeah, it is, it is such a good game for teaching resilience because it is so unforgiving. You just suddenly get to a point and that's it. You stopped and you have to go back to the beginning again and there's no, there's no ability to save. Uh, you can't soften that fall. It literally is like bang right back to square one. And, and I had a, a recent run where I'd been. Repeatedly getting sort of through two of the three spires or into the third spire and coming back and starting again. And then I had two bad runs where I didn't even make it to the end of the first spire. And the options that you get at the start, the, the little bonus options are reduced when you haven't got to the first boss. And, and so I was sort of like, oh, it was even more of a slap down, you know, like, you're, you are so bad, you have to go really, really back to square one. So I think yes, definitely those kind of games are humbling and they help you to, I don't know, check yourself. Perhaps just, just take a moment to sort of realize like. Yeah, no, I do have to practice and, and that it's okay because in a game like Slay the Spire and many Rogue likes, so Hades is one, I've not played it, but I've watched people play it and, and I think Hades is a really good example where dying is the way that you gain more things. So, in Slay the Spire, you obviously need to have a good deck of cards to get your way to the end boss, but you earn that, that those cards that go into your deck through gaining points, through playing and you know, so no run is a wasted run. You're still gaining something through, through it, even if you don't get all the way to the end. So I think that's the other thing that I like about, about games that focus on this concept of, you know, yes, it's a setback. You've gained a lot in that process. And a few years ago it became quite fashionable to, to talk about that, about how we don't really learn from our successes. We learn from our failures, we learn from our mistakes. And those are the things that say to us, oh yeah, you need to do it this way, or you need to try, try that, or You need to practice this. And I think there's a reason why our brains tend to fixate on on failure because. That is where we're gonna learn the most useful information. You know, it matters. It doesn't, it doesn't matter that we can eat all this, these hundreds of red berries. It matters that we can't eat those blue ones. You know, that's what, that's the important thing. They're going to poison us and they're gonna make us sick. So we remember that we, we rem hold that information because that is very valuable information. So I think, you know, it's often, we're often focused on how negative things that, you know, our, our mistakes, our failures, negative things that people say to us. All of those things tend to ha hold such high value in our brains. And we talk about that in a negative way. But in some ways I think it's actually quite a positive way. It is a positive thing because it's those things that we learn from and it's those experiences that we gain from. So yeah, I think that. Pretty much every video game can probably teach you a thing or two about resilience. But, um, yeah, the rogue likes and things like slay the spire, do do it mercilessly.

Speaker 4 8:40

What about you, Matt? How have you found exploring this question?

Speaker 6 8:45

I think, yeah. The first thing that came up to me is thinking a, sometimes you do just need to get good.

Speaker 4 8:51

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 6 8:52

But that's a very toxic approach to becoming better. Mm-hmm. And the, I'm trying to unlearn this all the time that think focusing on outcomes rather than non processes. Because if you are, if you're only thinking about, oh, am I at the outcome that I want yet No, then I'm, I'm a failure. And what I'm doing is I'm just wasting time and not making any progress forward when the truth of it is you can only, the way you get to getting to an outcome is a byproduct of doing a process. And you need a phrase about gaming is transgression in safety, gaming is a completely safe place to, to try and learn and fail and try again because it, it's, it's a self-contained, non non-real world thing. A sandbox where you can, you, there's no downside to failing.'cause no game is ever built in mind of you getting it right. Never making any mistakes as you go along. Being perfect as you go along. And then the recognition that if you. You start off, you start a new game, sail and ring, you know nothing, absolutely nothing about it. And then it starts, and then you, it doesn't handhold you at all through it, but you'll move through a first area. You'll see this, the first thing that you see when you open the, the first dungeon door is this, Ooh, the tree, Ooh, the castle. Ooh, this massive, massive cavalry soldier. And the first thing you do is go charge an attack to see what it's like. And then it, it just utterly destroys you because it's such a, a fabulously designed like combat system that if you try and if you try and go and just run into any battle, you're going to lose because it's, that's not the process that you need to take. And you'll play for like 10 hours, and then you'll come back to the areas that you started off with that were so felt, so insurmountable. And then you are able to beat the thing, not because you, you, you are just stronger because you understand the system better. Because when you see, you're not one of the one, one of the best things about Dark Souls games is that the, they know what your default like instinctive reactions to things are. So in, in friendly games it's clear that when someone's about to attack you, you dodge now and you miss, whereas with souls like games, they time the attacks to hit you just after that bit. So your, your only, your only choice is to go, right? I'm gonna, I need, I'm gonna think about this differently. In order to get to the outcome I want, I need to change the process that I'm doing now. And that learning of processes committing to learning, you learn the process, then you get the reward. And that it's like, say sport, like in tennis, you, you, you do all the work. The, the grinding, thankless, unfun work in the gym and on the practice courts. And then when it comes to the match, that's where all the stuff that you've been learning in that, in this place of going, right, you're gonna serve 200 times. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how, how hard you hit them, as long as they all go in or exactly where they go. As long as they all go in. Then you come to the match and then you are in command of, of what you're doing. And yeah, that just, that perseverance my mum was, was playing when she was playing split fiction with Meghan. They were just, they just wanted to give up so much, so many times. And yet they, they stuck together and did it together.'cause that's another team based thing. Mm-hmm. Having resilience, fostering resilience in teams is another extremely hard, hard thing to do.

Speaker 4 13:35

It certainly is. And that brings me very nicely onto the next tough skill. How well do you play with others? That skill we know is teamwork. So teamwork. I think one of the very first games that comes to mind for me is overcooked. Which you definitely need to be good. Teamwork for I think this could sit in at least two of the, the skills that we're gonna talk about today. So perhaps also I'm definitely going to include games like it takes two or split fiction way out there all by the same people, but you basically need to have two of you to be working together to progress through the game. And you definitely need to be at working as a team in overcooked to be able to get those stars, get those meals out on time. But yeah, this is definitely a category for multiplayer games and indeed plenty of other board games as well where there's cooperative play involved for you, which were your kind of standout games in terms of teamwork,

Speaker 6 14:43

I've been playing a ton of Fortnite with

Speaker 4 14:45

Meghan

Speaker 6 14:46

recently and. She's so much better at it than me because she's been playing it, she's played it for hundreds and hundreds of hours, which I'm very proud of. So I'm, I've been playing for longer than her and I've played more shooters than her, but it's a completely different animal to that. So it's, it's, it's an example that you can, everyone has different things to offer a team that there isn't, it's not just a hierarchy of who knows more or who knows who knows best or who's more experienced with things to go. Some, like, some people have, have higher levels of skill or higher levels of experience in certain things and not the other way around. And it is tempting for me to be my ego get in the way and go, I need to be better than her. I need to be, I need to be. Get more kills or any number of metrics that I could apply to it. But I am just very happy to just let her tell me what to do and go, right, what does this do? What does this do? What does this mean? And gaming is just a wonderful way to do something that doesn't matter, but it matters in, it matters, but it doesn't, it doesn't matter in the, the real world. It's not like anything job related or, or health related or, or like politically related. It's just a, it's a, a proactive activity that is transgression and safety and to be able to practice letting go of ego as well. I think that is a massive, massive issue with working in teams because. You can't, I've been saying, I'm repeating this to myself a lot recently, is that you, you can't imagine what someone else is thinking. It's literally impossible to truly comprehend what someone else's internal life is like. And to try and to try and guess that with any degree of certainty is completely unreliable and un robust. So you never know what people's response, what their, how they react to being around other people and working with them. I think that another concept from gaming that I love is the idea of force multipliers that you can, working in a team can be a force multiplier for the, the outcome that you want. But if it's not, if it's not done well or not, or the environment isn't, it's not led well, it's not, it's just not a, a well done environment, then it can, it's a, a, a negative force multiplier because it just, it just, it can't work. And if a, if a team can't work, then the, the project will, the process of doing it will be unpleasant and then the outcome will be less than ideal. But yeah, people, people, man.

Speaker 5 18:17

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the thing. I think role multiplayer games co-op games are so good for people to. Learn about each other and to connect, and a really good quality way of spending time together. And I think, you know, yes, absolutely there are times when it really doesn't work and when combinations of people just cannot, cannot work together. And, but that in itself is a lesson worth learning. I think overcooked is an excellent example because overcooked is so chaotic and it's so easy to get in each other's way. It's so easy to get in your own way, you know, and it's just, it's, it's such a, a, um, a leveler as, as a game, you know, because it, you, you can't really. Bring any skills to it that you are going to, that are going to help you much. Um, and it's, it's, but it can also cause a lot of arguments and a lot of, a lot of fights when people are in each other's way and not doing what they said they do or going and doing somebody else's job or trying to take over. And, and I, I think, you know, like having played pandemic legacy. We'd played the normal game before, um, just pandemic. And when we'd played it with some other people, we, we found that sometimes one person took over the game and they were basically telling everyone else what to do because you, you, because it's a cooperative game. You, you are not competing against each other. You're working together. So the idea is that you do collaborate, you do talk to each other about your next move, and that can result in one person or two people or whatever taking over and, and sort of dictating to everyone else what they do. And then suddenly it's not so collaborative anymore. But then again, you know, isn't that how it works in the real world? And I think having played again like World of Warcraft where we were running. 25 person Dungeons instances in that was really eye-opening for me because firstly, the way that World Warcraft worked then, I dunno if it's, I assume it still works that way, is that there are certain aspects of the game that you cannot do on your own or you cannot do with just you and one friend or whatever. So suddenly you need to start bringing in other people. Now you either can go and ha find yourself, you know, 23 other friends who will come and do this thing with you, or you have to go and find strangers. And so you find yourself working with people and the only thing you know about them is that they are a certain level and they are a certain class with a certain set of skills. And that can. Be an absolute nightmare. And I mean, the funny thing is that Daniel and I met through World of Warcraft and when we, when we first met, it was in one of these games, in one of these instances, and we needed an extra person in our group. And he stepped in and there was another person in the group with us already who we didn't know. So we didn't know him or Daniel. And he, but he had met Daniel beforehand in another instance, and he didn't like him. So he, he made this massive fuss about him and he was like, well, I'm not gonna play if you, if you bring this guy along, you can get rid of him. And, um, and so because he made such a fuss about it, we got rid of the guy that was making the fuss and kept Daniel, best decision F but you know, it just goes to show sometimes you can, you can get on with people and sometimes you, you don't. And then when you're trying to get 25 people together and organized and in the same place at the same time and all on voice so that they can hear the instructions and all following a set of guidelines, you know, uh, all doing their particular job and not getting into each other's spaces and not doing somebody else's job. You know, like there was people who were, who had multiple characters. Somebody would be like, they, they might be a, a healer, but they might also have a DPS character or, or they might want to play DPS. And then it's like, no, you've got to be dpss damage per second. So like the damage that you're doing. So you know, you, you've got to have your role, you've got to work, you've got to play your part. This team. So it really, really taught me a lot about managing a large group of people who are all there because this is how they've chosen to spend their Thursday evening. You know, they're there, they all varying ages. We have people who were sort of as young as 17, right up to people in their fifties, you know, and people who had kids, people who had, you know, elderly parents that they were caring for. You know, there was all sorts of things going on and you had to work around that. And I think the skills that I gained from that experience have served me so well through my life as a result of that. And I, I think. I mention it because I think it is different from when you are playing with your friends from when you're playing with your family. I think there is a difference to having to play with strangers and having to find a way to navigate through that system with strangers I think is really interesting. So yeah, I think it's a very, very useful experience for people. But yeah, it's not always fun.

Speaker 4 24:32

No. Yeah, for sure. We should, uh, we should try and make team building away days, just a World of Warcraft session for like teams going through conflict management or something That would be really interesting. Absolutely. Yeah. My next soft skill on the roster is communication, which you might think is quite similar to teamwork, but I think it's, it's more nuanced, definitely. Um, because again, this could be conflict management, it could be how you perceive the way you communicate to others. It might be different to how people feel you are communicating with them. How well can you explain a task, for example, games that came up for me for this one. This was a really interesting one.'cause it really makes you think how is communication a, a sort of skill within, within a particular game, or at least a, something to consider in the way that you navigate through the game. Uh, one that came up for me initially was. I think it was, uh, one of their PS five launch titles called Operation Tango. Um, I think it did come out on Steam as well, but essentially you couldn't play it with someone in the same room. You had to play it with someone online because one of you could see one type of screen and one of you could see the other, and you had to communicate how for that one person to navigate through the room as the person in situ. And then the other person would be the sort of hacker who could see things through the CCTV cameras or like an overview of the room and see when, when traps were going to be triggered and things like that. So you really had to work on. Communicating those differences, and each person would have something to tell the other to be able to make it through a room successfully. So that's definitely one. Another one that's a little more abstract is journey, where to communicate with other players. You come across in the game, uh, your only way of communicating was through pressing the circle button and your little Jenny character would make a noise. The more you held it down, the bigger and louder that noise would be. So if you tapped it, you'd be like making little chappy noises, like, and then if you held it down, you'd kind of build it up and go like that. So you could sort of communicate through those little noises with each other. And if you had like a more experienced player usually denoted by a white robe. Which you won't learn until you unlock the white robe. Later in the game, you're like, ah, so this is what this means. Now you would come across a white robed player and they'd go in the opposite direction you're expecting, and suddenly you'd realize they're telling you about a secret area. And you kind of get into this weird groove communicating with other players. You kind of do a, a call and response sometimes as well, I find. Um, which is really interesting. So you'd do a pattern of, of button presses and the other person would do a pattern of button presses that's the same. And then you'd be like, oh, cool, we are friends now let's go keep going through this together. But you'd never be able to hear the other person's voice. You'd never have any idea where in the world they were or anything. But you ended up forming this bond. You could play through each part of the journey or you could drop off at certain points. So you'd feel really sad if you lost that person, if they decided to quit the game or they were just doing that one level. And I found one of the most moving things right at the end of journey is you could also communicate by drawing shapes in the sand and in the snow. So right at the end, you get to the top of the snow mountain and often what I found was people I was playing with. So there's one other person, normally not more than one. We'd end up drawing a heart shape in the snow right at the very end, which is the most heartwarming thing. And I was like, ah. And then I'd copy it and be like, I love you friend. And then we'd go through the end part together and you'd, you'd get to see their play a name, so you could add them, like their PlayStation handle. You could add them if you wanted. Um, but you know, I mean obviously there's a, there's a, a, a temptation to keep the mystery there. Definitely. And know that you've done this, this game with this person and you've shared an experience and now you're gonna move on and do other things, which is really fun as well. But yeah, those are the two different ways of communication, um, that kind of came up for me when I thought about it. Yeah. I dunno whether you had any other examples to share

Speaker 6 29:22

from Fortnite. Pings and emotes. We need we need more ways to use pings and emotes in life because they, when you are, so when I'm playing with Megan, we ping where enemies are. We ping where resources are. Every time she goes, oh, one of us sees someone, we see footsteps. We go pin in that direction to'cause what communication is, the best communication is having, uh, having something, a bit of information to share with another person in as few words as possible that captures exactly what the thing is and then what they, what they need to do from it. And vagueness and. Leadership bullshit speak. Like we need to get across this, these things that, that have no definition to them. Everything needs to be right. This means this, this means this, this means this. And one thing that is good for that is style guides.'cause I've been looking and researching about naming conventions for Unreal engine projects. And this guy wrote this fantastic like, tutorial on naming conventions and how whenever you work in a team with anyone, you need an agreed style guide of the, the way that you are building the thing. But you also need a style guide for the way that you speak to each other so that the, so like when I've been playing bowlers gate with mom, they've got a ping. That is quite useful. Uh, it can also seem a bit passive aggressive, but as I said to her, I'm just doing it to help.'cause it, it doesn't, it, it disappears really quickly. So it goes ping and then after three seconds it disappears and then I need to press again.'cause she hasn't found a way to where it is yet. And to be, and like, and when she, when I'm saying to, to her what to do with the camera,'cause because I, she's learning how to do the controls and it's another teamwork thing for, to not do it for her to, to have the person who might not be as experienced or know as much as you, to be able to support them on their journey to be able to do it themselves. That's a, that's a really important thing. And one thing that I, I snap, I'm very, very, very patient, but occasionally I'll snap One of them was, I was saying to, to move the camera. And there are a ton of different ways to, when someone says move the camera, that can mean a ton of different things. And so I was trying to, trying to describe, work out a way to describe exactly what I meant.'cause sometimes mom will, she'll walk in the direction she wants to go and then move the camera to face that direction rather than turning to face the direction then moving that way. And so in, in combat. So there'll be a bit that's blocked by a wall and I'll say, move the camera. Then she'll, she'll move it a certain way and I'll go, no, not that way. That way and move. But it's the me just going, just move the camera. Just move the camera. Just move the camera or just do it. Like, this is bad for me. It's bad for her. It's bad for everyone. I, I need to go, okay. When I, when I, instead of me going move the camera like that, I can say, rotate the camera like that. Or zoom in and zoom out. And you can have, you can have, so when I, whenever I, when I say, when I say a certain thing, it means a certain thing. And I don't say, I say something vague and then that leads to some, the person on the other end not going, what I, I don't know what he means, but now I've got to go off and do what I think he means when having this, uh, set common language of boundaries and. Definitions that, again, like gaming gives you the perfect opportunity to go, well, I, I can't go, I can't do this without you. If I do everything for you, then you are not gonna enjoy it. I'm not gonna enjoy it. So the only option is to communicate how do I communicate the things that I want her to do? How do I, and how does she communicate and going, she doesn't know what to do. And again, the, the taking the ego out of it, as with any kind of interacting with people, is you need to take your ego out of it first and go, right, we're all in this together and we, so we need to find a way to work together. And communication is a skill that needs practice. It's not just a, it's not just a, something that na is a natural thing because pe some people are, are natural leaders, some people are natural followers. But you need to, you need to take that out of the situation and, and yeah, it's a skill that needs, you need to train and you need to practice. And I think that is really, that isn't understood enough.

Speaker 5 35:17

Yeah, I did my degree and then 20 years later my master's in communications. I think, you know, communication is so, so important and yet it's something that we, well, I mean it's in the soft skills section here, which so often sort of dismissed as being not as important as, as the hard skills. We could have a whole episode about that. I think we, we played, when we, when we went, we were on holiday and we were traveling by train a lot. So we I, I bought a game called keep talking and nobody dies. And it's basically a bomb disposal game. And you can, you, you actually play it with a physical, physical printed out manual. And one person has the screen in front of them with the, the bomb and what needs to be. And can do what needs to be done. And the other person has the manual. So you have to describe, you have to say, I can see two red blocks and they've got the symbols on them and there's a, a blue cable and a red cable going to this other, you know, you have to basically explain it to the other person so that they can look up in the manual and tell you what you need to do to diffuse the bomb. And it's a very simple game and I would recommend everyone gets it'cause it's such a lot of fun. But yeah, you have to be able to communicate, you have to be able to communicate because you've got limited time. So you have to be able to communicate clearly, quickly, and compassionate actually for the, for the, the other person to understand what you're saying, you also have to be prepared to listen. And I think that's the thing that communication always forgets. It's not just about talking, it's also about hearing, it's about understanding what's being said to you and, and being able to act on that. And so, you know, in that game, you also have to wait and be, it's sometimes it's easier if the person with the manual says to you, okay, I'm on this page. Tell me where can you see this thing? You know, do you have a square one or a circle or whatever. And it, it's a really good game for learning about how, how easy it is to misunderstand and miscommunicate with somebody. I think that's so important these days because, you know, communication is being abused around the world at the moment as a way to control the population. And I think learning. The skills of communicating well and communicating clearly and in a timely fashion is very valuable and something that really happens through gaming together in the co-op setting. I mean, it's interesting'cause Matt and I were talking about this when we were streaming Ani Animal earlier this week, because I am, when I'm focused on a game, I'm really bad at communicating with anyone else and telling anyone else what's going on. So it's really easy for me to just kind of, I mean, I can't, you can't do it in the animal. You have to stay on the same screen. But in other games, it's really easy for me to just wander off and start doing my own thing. And the first thing that anyone will hear was like, oh, I've died. Or, you know, I found the boss. Yeah. And it, it's not because I'm trying, you know, because I'm not. Engaging with the other person. It's, it is just because it, I'm concentrating on what I'm doing in the game and I'm not feeding back. But I think that the best co-op players are the ones who keep a sort of constant flow of, of explanation as to what they're doing and how, how things are going on and what their partner needs to know. So I think it's a, it's a, a real balance between the, yeah, between telling people what they need to know and engaging with the informa, the understanding what the relevant information is and being able to really focus in on that.

Speaker 6 39:52

Fortnight's been amazing for that with me and Megan because we, she said, she said the other day, the phrase we'd, I'd, I'd communicated something. Because you, you learn the, the bits of information that are most relevant. And we've learned the bits, the, the things that, so at, at various points, one of us will panic and the other person knows what need, what messages, simple messages to say that when they're panicking,'cause they go don't, because you can tell when someone's panicking, first thing you say is don't panic.'cause people don't often don't always know that they're panicking. So you just go, right, you're panicking. And they go, yep, I'm panicking. They're going, okay if I'm, if I'm dead, I'm going right, I'll look at, right. These are, these are the number of people left. This is the, where the storm is at this point. And when, when Megan's died, then I'm having to find a way to survive and then survive her. I am, I am. I'm not as experienced as her. So I'll say, right Megan, what do you suggest? And she'll go, okay, just get out of the storm. I go, okay, out the storm. And a massive thing that she, she was able to communicate to me was that I panicked every time we were inside the storm. And whenever you're inside the storm, it does damage to your health. And so I would panic every time we were in the storm. But she explained to me that at the start, it does damage one, one hit point per second. And if you've got full health, then you've got a hundred seconds in the storm. And that immediately made me go, oh yeah, that means I can, that can relax when I'm in the storm. And so now,'cause of that communication she gave me and explaining it that way, I don't panic whenever I'm in the storm. So that is, that has made my ability for both of us better. And she said the phrase, good comms. Good comms.'cause I'd explained something really well. Yeah. And you go, that is a phrase that. People need to practice with each other going once they go. Right. This is the thing. This is the thing. Is that the thing? Nope. Is that the thing? Yes. Okay. This, that, and this. Okay. Good comms. Good comms. And then we both know we're on the same page and we go off, go off and do a certain thing. And you can trust that people are gonna do the role that they, they need to do because you've, you've communicated so well. And communication is an, it's, it's an always evolving thing. Mm. It constantly should be going, what's, what's, what can we do differently with this thing? Mm-hmm. What is the problem that one of us faces? And how can the other person help come up with a solution that the person on their own doesn't have to do it alone? Um, and that helps with people with more experience in certain ways. Her experience. Helps her know the things that I'm, I'm missing or the things that I need to know. And then as time goes on, as my, my my confidence with it grows, her experiences improves'cause I'm better player and we, we get further in matches. And just that, that constant, the constant of constant communication is so useful and rewarding and fun.'cause you're at all times going, okay, oh, I've got this gun, I've got this gun. I love, she knows that I love stealth bushes and stealth splashes.'cause there's one where you can, you can basically put on a bush suit and then I like things where you just need that split second of them going, is that bush moving? And. To, to work out what our different play styles are and the things that,'cause everyone has like an affinity for certain, for playing things a certain way. Mm-hmm. And the way that you perform best is when you go right. Meghan likes shockwave bombs. Mm-hmm. So when we've got, you've got guns and you've got movement and you've got health movement is something like a bounce pad where you can bounce in it and it lets you move really far. Anything you can do to move from where you are to somewhere else really quickly. She prefers a shockwave bomb, which she throws on the ground when she's running, poofs her off into the distance. And I prefer a jet pack. And we've been trying out her carrying health and me carrying shields and she knows that I, so whenever she sees a jet pack, she goes, oh, jet pack here. I go get the jet pack. If I see her favorite thing. We go, right? That, that, that, that, that, that, that'cause 90% of stuff, of like information is irrelevant to whatever, like your particular best way of doing something is. And communication is the way that you nail down exactly what those things are. So Megan sees a, an enforcer rifle. She immediately goes, oh, that's Matt's favorite gun. This one's here. If it's a shotgun, she won't mention it to me. And a critical thing that we've been practicing is our, our last handful of people. And the first thing we say is like, when one of us dies, it goes right. There are three people left, there are three people left. And this one, the one who killed Meghan, Meghan did a lot of damage to him before he killed her. So sometimes it's better for me to stay back and try and revive her. Sometimes it's better for me to swoop in and kill them before they can heal. Mm-hmm. And. That, that system of Right this, in this situation, we do this. In this situation, we do this. So for whatever situation comes up, you've got an established communication pattern. That's the, that's the best way to do things. And I can't, I can't believe how much I, I love playing Fortnite with her and, uh, how far I've come.

Speaker 4 46:00

Yeah. Strange thinking months back. I, I, I wouldn't have thought it of you, Matt. I remember. But, uh, I'm loving this conversation. Honestly, we have got two more skills to discuss and thinking about good, helpful, and compassionate communication. Which we've touched on in, in this section that leads me, you're setting me up be beautifully for these both of you onto empathy. So this soft skill of empathy. And in this one I wanna talk about games where perhaps you've been shown different perspectives. You've come to change the way you're thinking about something through empathy. Or you've experienced games that put empathy at center stage or tell stories that rely on empathy for those protagonists to be able to succeed in what they're doing. For this one I think one that springs to mind is God of war and God of war Ragnarok and the empathy that is built between Kratos and his allies and his antagonists as well potentially. And it really explores. The, the themes of empathy and sympathy, and it's one for exploring your emotional management. Definitely, because I think within that game you learn a lot about things like anger management as well. So empathy, obviously it's to do with understanding the emotions and feelings and situations of others. But from that you can also learn a lot of, um, things about how you are feeling and try and think about how to be empathetic with yourself as well. And I think the story of that game and the way that the characters are portrayed really hits home and, uh, really showcases the good that empathy and empathetic thinking can do.

Speaker 5 48:05

I think we have that, we have this fear, this theory. Hold on. I think we have the idea that we should travel a mile in someone else's shoes to get the real feel for what life is like for them. And I think that's what games give us the opportunity to do. They give us the opportunity to travel in somebody else's shoes, to experience life from a different perspective, from a different person, in the same, in a similar way to how we do with movies and TV shows and, and reading. But. The thing about gaming, and we've talked about this many times before, is that you are, it's interactive. So you are controlling the characters, you are having the conversations and making the choices. So I think that it's, there's another, as an additional layer of empathy at work there for those kind of games. And I did think about a game like cozy Grove, which is where you are a Little Scout, girl scout kind of character, but your job is to help ghost bears. Mo finds out why they're haunting and help them with little. Projects and get them to understand and remember their lives as living bears on this little island. And so you run around and you do funny little quest for them, but you also go and find things that they, me, memories and things that link to their life before and learn about each of their little stories. And I think that's really nice way of learning about other people and listening to other people and yeah, gaining that empathy. And I think, um, spirit Theoh is another one that's also sort of down that same route that you, you meet these little characters on your boat and your job is to understand them and support them, and then help them move on to wherever they're going to next. So I think it's nice that we're seeing an increasing number of games that really kind of, mirror this sort of, this sort of way of being and, and model it for people. So yeah, I like that. I like when games encourage empathy. I like. I like it because it en encourages you to properly engage with the games in a, in a sort of deeper way as well. Because in order to be empathic or empathetic, I never know what, which, which one it is. But in order to be one of those, you have to be emotionally involved in some way. And that, so a, for a game to trigger that empathy. It, it's also, it's got really under your skin and it's got into your psyche. And I think that's usually quite a good thing.

Speaker 6 51:23

Yeah. In order to be impacted by a story you've got, it's got to make you feel something. And the characters that make you feel that, that's practicing empathy and empathy is something that I believe needs to be practiced proactively because it is so. Like drummed out of us or trained to be conditional. Whereas it should be, it should just be your natural position on everything for everyone rather than being, you can be a sociopath towards some people and, uh, incredibly empathetic towards other people. And that is, that is something that still blows my mind. So in the, the storytelling of games is one thing. So like exhibition 33, the richness of that to have really tragic, tragic characters that aren't simple, complex, tragic characters that. The more you are able to empathize with them, the more, the more impressive it is. And the more, the more you get out of it, the more that you can feel because the, the further away the thing is from your experience of life and it's able to, it's able to make you feel like you're in their shoes. The more it breaks open your ability to experience life and on the, in the the teamwork bracket of things, again, to, to be able to communicate with people without, without it being negative or nasty or cruel or anything other than supportive. How would you say you move the camera in. Move the camera out, rotate the camera. How do you say that? In a way that communicates it. But it is, it is, it is, it is a neutral, positive thing of going, it's better for her, it's better for me. How do we work on, on getting that?'cause people who go just do this or just do that, or Why can't you do this? Or why can't you do that? Anything that is shame based or antagonism based is, is bad for everyone. And it is a thing that a lot of people don't realize they do.'cause this is interacting with other people is something that we learn and internalize as we grow up. And it, it is something that needs to be like, uh, Alex you mentioned earlier self-awareness. It's a another skill that gaming can foster. Of going, oh yeah, I didn't realize that, that thing about me. And once you've realized the thing, you can either choose to accept it or you can choose to try and change it. And again, that, that's the transgression in safety thing. It's a safe place for you to go. Oh, okay. I've said before about I've, I've only recently been able to wrench myself away from being kind in role playing games to always be nice and polite and not want to upset anyone. To actually just go, okay, I realize that's how I've, that's what I've internalized and it's actually better for me to, to go Right. I'm not gonna do that. What do I feel like doing once I take that off the table? And to be able to explore different parts of yourself.'cause it's the human condition. That's what art is all about. To, to be trying to cram yourself into a certain thing just doesn't help anyone.

Speaker 4 55:30

Indeed. Yes. I have one last skill left to cover and that is problem solving and critical thinking. And this might be a relatively basic take, but for me, the games that I think of are things like the Professor Aton puzzle games, um, games like the Witness, which has got really challenging puzzles in it. Um, there's also your mystery games, so your LA Noir, your Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments where there could be. Lots of different paths to go down in terms of solving the mystery or closing the case, but is it the right path? So you've gotta really exercise those problem solving muscles and that critical thinking part of your brain to get what is deemed the right outcome by the writers in many cases. But, uh, yeah, it was an interesting one to explore. I don't know if you had any topics in terms of your best problem solving games.

Speaker 5 56:35

I'm really bad at problem solving, so I tend to try and avoid, avoid it. But so games that are specifically aimed at that sort of. Target. So, but my daughter's just recently started playing portal too, and, um, that has a co-op version which she's playing with somebody else. But I think it, that's problem solving because you are put in a room and you have to work out how you're gonna get from A to B and you have to communicate that and work with somebody else to, to do that. So I think that's a really good, way to approach sort of developing your problem solving and your critical thinking. I think, you know that most games, I would say, have some element of problem solving and critical thinking going on in them. I think bolder Gate three is one that like springs to mind because that has, I think they reckon it's got like 17,000 different endings, which means that there are many, many ways that you can approach the various problems that happen in that game. And, you know, I think that's really nice that they've given you so many different options and so many ways that you can tackle the situations that your characters find themselves in. And I think, you know, that's, for me, that's really fun. I did use to like the mystery games I'm trying to remember the name of, there was. Can't remember any of them now, but, um, but yeah, I like the little sort of point and click mysteries. But for me, they often felt a little bit linear, a bit too linear, which is why I, I'm sort of drawn to the bolder Skate three style of play. And I think I we were talking about. Resident Evil the other day and resident evil. The older, the older games used to have these ridiculous puzzles to open a door. Like it, it was like oh, to open this door, you need a red gem and a blue gem, and you get the red gem from the lion on in the dining room and you get the blue gem from another statue somewhere else in the building and you have to find some keys to get through, some doors to get to these rooms. And, and the whole thing was just ridiculous because then you would open a door that would take you into, you know, the main science room or something like that and it'd be like, nobody lives in a house like this. Nobody exists in that sort of setting. So I used to get quite frustrated by games where. The puzzles and the problem solving and the critical thinking is very contrived. And I think it's, it's nice if a game can create those kind of situations for you in a way that makes sense. That you feel like, yeah, this, this, this does fit together. This would be part of the, the, the world in within which the game is, is set. And I think, so it's, so for me it's sort of, and again, I think I was saying earlier about the importance of. It still has to be fun. Whatever you're doing still has to be fun. So I think puzzles are important because we don't want games that are just, well, some people do, but generally, I don't want a game that is just about the combat. I don't want a game that is just about you know, finding the right armor and the right weapons and the combat. So I want a game that has got a little bit of thinking in it. And so puzzles and problem solving has to be a part of that. And it's just about getting that balance right I think, for me. And, and yeah, I think Boulders Gate three did it really well. I think that older resident evils didn't do it so well. Not to say they weren't lots of fun, but I just felt like those kind of puzzles just felt very contrived.

Speaker 6 1:00:46

Yeah. Contrived is such a, an immersion breaking and frustrating thing where you go, this is, this is the way it is, because they're trying to pad it out or they're just putting it here for, for the sake of it. And Yeah. I've forgotten what the, the No, that's all right. It was, um, problem solving, critical thinking, problem solving, and critical thinking. Yeah. So like every, every aspect of a game is basically a puzzle, whether it's a literal puzzle or it's a, a boss fight or within hitman, every level is a, a puzzle that can be approached different ways. And so when I'm playing the, the freelancer mode, which is the, the Roguelike version, I know pretty much every area of every map. So when I, when I get to the, I do my prep, I bring the, the specific tools, and then I start in a certain area of the level that is random and I go check the map, right? There are five of them. There's one here, here, here, here, and here. I can snipe these two. I can, this one I can poison. And those two I need, I have a, a modifier where I need to use a, a catana to kill one of them or a shotgun. And so I need to find a way to do that and not be seen, not be shot, not be killed. And with Eldon ring and souls like games, every boss is a puzzle that the, the goal of puzzles is to go right there as a. There is a way to do this. The puzzle has been built with a specific way to do it rather than it feeling like cheap. So in, in the best combat games, the, there's a way to do it without ever being hit to get good enough at it, to do it without being hit. And that's really satisfying, but it's only satisfying if the system is, is built well enough to, to encourage that. Most games, the difficulty setting is literally just the, the amount of damage you do and the amount of damage your enemies do, and then those values change. And that is so unsatisfying because I, I want, I want that feeling of understanding how a puzzle works and then testing it and then it working. Then doing it like that. And then that taps into resilience again as well, because you need to test and experiment and then retry and not give up. And yeah,

Speaker 4 1:03:52

what a wonderful circle back to the, uh, top of, top of the hour there. Wonderful. Thank you so much both for covering this topic. I have had a delightful time. Talking through both the hard skills and the soft skills, um, that you can gain from gaming for your cv. I hope that everyone listening and watching has enjoyed the topic as well. And, uh, we'll have a new episode for you every Thursday as well. If you've thought of any extra skills that we haven't listed here, please let us know in the comments. We'd love to hear, especially your favorite games for skilling up, um, getting that experience as well. But, uh, that leaves me just to wish you a happy Thursday evening. You'll listen on Thursday and, uh, look forward to our next episode Again, Sid. Thank you.

Speaker 5 1:04:44

Bye bye.