Abstract
Difficult games have become a popular avenue for players who enjoy a test of skill. Gamers often like to seek challenges, break constraints within the rules of a game, and create new levels of difficulty to create a new play experience. Often though, when we find difficulty in games, the instinct is to quit playing. However, if we are persistent and change up our strategies, we are able to not only beat a boss, but also grow psychologically. The goal of this chapter is to recognize how gamers can overcome cognitive dissonance within a hard game, beat the challenge in front of them, and how that accomplishment can transfer to other activities in life.
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- 1.
Gamers whose goal is to beat a game as quickly as possible.
- 2.
Gamers who take achievements that are listed by the game and try to complete them.
- 3.
Gamers who consistently play on the toughest difficulty settings.
- 4.
A 3 × 3 or 9 × 9 box puzzle game where boxes in every row and every column must include all numbers 1–9.
- 5.
Which are rare, highly expensive, and should ideally be saved for very specific situations.
- 6.
Which, admittedly, was how the author fought most Lynels when he didn’t want to put in the time or the resources to beat the creature in the traditional manner.
- 7.
If you shoot the Lynel with the ancient arrow, you eliminate the beast, but you also do not receive any rewards for doing so. It’s a tradeoff for those who are akin to adding a new cognition.
- 8.
A slow motion, frame perfect dodge, that narrowly escapes an attack and allows the player several hits in without interference from the enemy.
- 9.
Personal favorite example of competitiveness and community is Md_Neo vs. KVD in the Super Mario Kart Race https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7JTayEh4SY.
- 10.
With varying degrees of experience and involvement.
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Daniel, E.S. (2020). Follow the Trail of Enemies. In: Kowert, R. (eds) Video Games and Well-being. Palgrave Studies in Cyberpsychology. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32770-5_8
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