AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

What the title says. I just finished up Super Meat Boy 100% (to some extent). This was a long time side quest. And by long time I am talking about like 6 years. There were times I never played it and there were times I focused on the game. But finally I did it. Steam claims I played a total of 96 hours. But it is well above 100 since I played a lot when I was offline. To someone unfamilliar with the game this number might not make sense. So let me tell you about the game a bit.

There are 7 zones with around 40 levels each, half light world, half dark world. Each level is a short-ish platforming game level. But the game gets difficult, like REAL difficult. A gameplay video of the most difficult levels. I did not actually get all the achievements of course. But I did all the progress in the game itself.

It was a long journey full of hours spend on a single level (like the kid warp zone), sweating hands and anger management. I can easily say that this was the game that taught me not rage quitting. That instinct to just closing the game dies away after dying in the same level for 30 minutes. Before playing Super Meat Boy, I would stay angry and frustrated for a long time after dying in a permadeath game. Nowadays, all I do is a second of inner screaming followed by a second of sadness over the progress I made. Then I move on with my life. Probably playing again. This cycle of slight anger then playing again really cuts down on the default anger reflexes in real life as well. And in games like Super Meat Boy, Isaac and Caveblazers, there is also the fact that you are the only player. So if you fail, the only person you can blame is yourself. With no exceptions. If you can combine this with the mentioned anger management you end up with a really slight dose of self-loathing. Which in turn causes you to get better in the game. And finally, after playing a game enough, you become a calm player who is ok with failing at any point.

And there is the simple point to make about the satisfaction of succeeding at a difficult thing. But this is not the main reason for playing these games for me. For me it is more about the game being a quest. Or a mission that I feel compelled to complete. And working toward this goal is somewhat relaxing. Success is just a nice plus you get at the end

I guess that is all. See you at another post.