Disheartening

While I enjoyed the first level of the game “nothing you have done deserves such praise” because it felt like an easy-to-win video game, I struggled to appreciate the syrupy movement featured in the second level. It felt like a metaphor for the lack of control I have over the pace at which my life moves, nay my goals. It’s like that high-up level of a tactical Nintendo 64 game, like the Legend of Zelda or something: try as you might, you just can’t seem to reach the end. The solution seems simple but the timing is all wrong, taunting you with notice of your repetitive deaths dwindling number of lives. I did, however, appreciate that at the end of the level there was situated what appeared to be a book of sorts, titled “THE SECRET OF LIFE”. This, too, seemed a metaphor for the way the world taunts happiness, love and success in your face giving you a map to reach these things only to later reveal that the map had been fiddled with meaning you devoted too much time to a lost cause. One exceptional aspect of the game was the way it made me feel even throughout my annoyance with the slow second level. I reveled in the glory of the continuous comments of praise and adoration made by some unknown entity, gifted in such a way that it felt like a great achievement had been made. It’s not often in the world, especially on our wandering and foggy path to success that we receive such direct and immediate praise, and it incentivized me to continue playing. Is this perhaps THE SECRET OF LIFE? Unwarranted praise? ~LCS