I am actually happy about this past 7th week of my Game A Week challenge, because I witnessed an improvement of my discipline, commitment, patience, custody and labour. Meanwhile, I have learned something very important. When you reach a decent level of action, then you have to put the same and even more effort/energy to maintain it, improve it and increase it even more. And this is what I am willing to do and I want to try and keep trying.

Furthermore, while on this 7th week, I learned more things, like:

“An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.” - Charles F. Kettering

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” - Mark Twain
What a marvelous and remarkable truth to apply!

I need to focus and concentrate on the present moment. I need to concentrate at the process. The intended result/goal/outcome is only the point of direction, of where I am heading to. But the result belongs to the future. I cannot control the future, consequently I cannot control the result/outcome, therefore if I will concentrate and focus on the future and thus on the outcome/result, then I will feel frustrated, anxious, bored, feared, mild-depressed and all negative emotions, because you feel as such for things you cannot control and are not under your control. On the other hand the present moment is under your control, thus the process is under your control, therefore I must concentrate at the present moment and thus at the process, because that way I will feel self-confident and in control of my self, and in control of those parameters in life that are under my control. Ergo, a process-oriented mindset where the practice of a craft it is the only realistic activity to undergo and that will (may) lead to the intended result.

Practice is the involvement in the deliberate repetition of a process with the intention of reaching a specific goal.

Time and the timing is not under in my control, therefore I do not care about it. I care for the process, the practice, in the present moment. Among all things, practice is the component with which you can accumulate experience though the observation of the feedback you get by your bold acts based on your decisions.

Let us go though 7th week’s Game A Week game now.

Idea

Inspiration comes from anywhere and anything. By watching this video, which in other ways would talk only about the English language, but in our case it also contains a nice lesson concerning how to approach any endeavour in life, about the learning/practicing momentum and discipline, as well wisdom and cleverness. In summary, it is about one of Aesop’s fables, the one which talks about “The Hare and the Tortoise”.

The moral of the story is that quick and precocious ways of acting only lead to poverty and lose. That lose could be about your energy, enthusiasm, interest, of resources et cetera.

On the other hand, being slow but steady, is the way to go for long-term success in life. As the quote said above, “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection”. And as someone said: “We’ve a very unhealthy habit of making the product -our intended result- the goal, instead of the process of getting there”. All this says that for any craft we want to master, for any intended outcome we want to achieve, being steady in practicing it and constantly doing/working on it, is the most important and wisest perspective to maintain and the best approach in all things. You may be slow, but in the end, if you are steady in consistent, then you will cross the line, in the proper time. As said, you cannot control the time when that will happen, but as long you keep working and improving on it, you will be prepared when that time comes, whatever how long that is going to take. Time is irrelevant. The direction you take, and each step by step in a consistent manner you take, that is all that counts from your part and you are capable of. Be more and more wise.

Therefore, I wanted to encapsulate that concept in a game. You have to be absolute steady to win the race.

It is worth noting that this game challenges also your patience. It was not intended to be of any kind of fun, but to challenge you psychologically the most.

Download/Play:http://gamejolt.com/games/other/gotta-go-fast/25482/

What went wright

It pretty came close to how I have envisioned it, and even better I would say. A pretty exciting moment was by manipulating how the camera moves, zoom in and out, and what area of the game world it covers. I managed the camera to show both racers (the supposedly Hare and Tortoise one) at the same time, no matter how far away are they between them. Also, I experiment with how the text appears on screen, especially in the title screen, where I implement some sinusoid movements for both the scale of it and the alpha values. Lastly, the mechanic came out pretty well, for the purposes of this mini-game, as if you are not absolute steady, then it is only logical even a boggle-minded-Hare to win you… Therefore, be steady!

What went wrong

Although improved in discipline and boldness (= the opposite of slothfulness), not in a very high level, yet, and thus some days spent in idleness. Therefore, if I had more time, I was intended to make it so you can select either the Tortoise player or the Hare one, and so experience interactively both situations, of being slow but steady, and of being fast but unsteady. Also, the option to choose a colour for your player. Otherwise, I think there wasn’t anything else to didn’t go the way it was intended to.

Conclusion

It was excited, mostly because of the improvement of myself in areas of discipline et cetera. Indeed, also exciting because I completed a game. It was a very interesting concept to encapsulate in some sort of a game, even in its most basic form. Of course, now this is a thing of the past. The momentum acquired its of the most importance to maintain and build on it. Act boldly and focus on the practicing process of the present moment, slow but steady…

Last but not least, the game features music by the composer Adrian von Ziegler, specifically the beautiful relaxing track by the name “Relaxing World Music - Kojiki”: http://youtu.be/dJtghgxHtt4

P.S.#1: Contact me on Twitter @bigdipperart, for all things about game and self development!

P.S.#2: Sonic the Hedgehog was wrong….