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A beginning in disguise
Time went by. I made it to the final level of Prince of Persia. After dying few times I finally managed to defeat my arch enemy: "The evil Jaffar"! However, I was too excited to meet the princess, made a bad jump, and fell to my death. Princess stayed forever alone in Jaffar's dungeon. End of story.
Just kidding! I did fell into oblivion but replayed it back to get the princess. I remember "The Prince" hugging her awkwardly, but I wasn't complaining because I was so happy as if I have saved a real princess!
However, my joy didn't last long when I realized that the game is actually over and now I have to put up with minesweeper and solitaire. But on the bright side, by this time, I had envisioned my own version of Prince of Persia but didn't have enough technical knowledge to make a game out of it.
A way forward
Flipbook animation! That was my saving grace. Sure, it is not as interactive as a game but I wasn't ready to give up making my own version of Prince of Persia!
If you're wondering what is a flipbook animation, click the link to check out this amazing video by Andymation
It wasn't an easy task given I couldn't even draw a proper circle. But after months of hard work, I finished drawing my own version of the game! It took several flipbooks but It had dragons and all kinds of monstrosities I've seen in my storybooks!
The dragons that I drew actually didn't look like dragons but that's irrelevant to the story.
Lessons for a lifetime
What did I learn from all this? Let's stop for a moment find out.
Prince of Persia was a hard game. It had some insane puzzles, tough enemies and dungeons were full of deadly traps. One mistake and you might be facing a gruesome death before respawning! But the worse enemy in the game was the countdown timer!
Playing with intention
Playing video games is frowned upon by some, saying it is a waste of time. As there might be some truth to it, I'd like to argue that it depends on the intention. In my case, it wasn't purely for pleasure or relaxation, I was learning from my experience. I intended to learn from it so that I can make a game like that on my own someday. The curiosity that it sparked, made me passionately pursue game development throughout my entire life!
Curiosity killed the dormant mind
Curiosity is a powerful emotion when coupled with action. My curiosity about the game made me want to question and learn how its beautiful pixel graphics were made, how I can create such smooth animations, the game mechanics, and why they were there.
For instance, curiously questioning how animations were made led me to draw my own version of the game in a form of a flipbook animation!
Let's try to apply this method to learn a new programming language. If you're curious about it, and if you follow it up with an action such as following a quick-start guide or writing a code snippet, you'll be able to learn something about the language, which is a result.
It may arouse your curiosity further to iterate the same process, which may result in learning more about the language. It may also refine and upgrade your existing knowledge!
Obstacles? More like Opportunities!
I remember when playing Prince of Persia for the first time, I died so many times and was unable to get past the first level. You might ask, where's the fun in that? It wasn't fun at all. So, instead of getting frustrated and giving up what choice did I have?
That says it all! I had to get better at the game! Obstacles in the game surely stopped me from progressing to the next level but they also made me resilient and tenacious. I surely didn't understand any of that when I was a kid but, looking back, now I understand that we humans are actually malleable.
Just like a hot iron, hammered by obstacles, can be forged into a mighty sword, your traits can be forged to gradually become the best version of yourself. So if we think it through, such obstacles are also opportunities for us to become better at what we do!
Finding the silver lining
Let's apply the above concept to software development. Let's say you're trying to build a software in a language that you're not familiar with. Initially, everything you come across might look like an obstacle. There's a major chance that you'll get frustrated and eventually give up, which might lead you to miss an opportunity to learn a new language, let alone building a software with it.
However, if you refuse to give up, if you break those obstacles into small obstacles, now you can wrestle with them easily! By doing so, you will be taking the opportunity to plant the seeds of willpower, tenacity, resilience, and discipline in your mind, which may eventually grow into giant trees, that will shelter and provide you during the storms of life.
That's what I did! I started applying what I've learned from this experience to other areas of my life, including, software development.
Up Next
Such a happy story isn't it? But this story will never be complete without a villain. Although their identity is shrouded at this moment, another scary enemy who kept me awake at night is about to show its face in chapter three...
Until then, no matter what, stay strong, keep learning and keep pushing forward!
Image References
Carter, D. (2020) 14 awe-inspiring flip books, Creativebloq.com. Creative Bloq. Available at: creativebloq.com/illustration/flip-book-ani.. (Accessed: August 10, 2021).
9gag (2017) Just Git Gud, 9Gag.com. Available at: 9gag.com/gag/aL824Og (Accessed: August 10, 2021).
Ubisoft Montreal,. (2008) Prince of Persia. Available at: cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1.. (Accessed: August 10, 2021).