8 Bits of Wisdom:
Video Game Lessons for Real Life’s Endbosses
Andy Schindler
Copyright 2011 Andy Schindler
Smashwords Edition
Illustrations by Matt Ibarra
Published 2011
License Notes: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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Table Of Contents
Chapter 2: The Corporate World
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to my ladyfriend and muse, Elisia, who made this book possible with her positivity, support, and love. Double fistbump to editor Michael Schindler who tirelessly sifted through my errors and shortcomings, draft after draft. Props to editors Zach Gredlics and Dominic Parn who were mercifully only subjected to the first draft. Big ups to artist Matt Ibarra, as this project felt naked before he injected his genius. Shout out to Leor Baum for digitally retouching my failed scans of said art. “I’m not worthy” to Susie Ostrowski for transforming my cover from an amateurish mess into something beautiful and respectable. Further, this book wouldn’t exist without the financial and moral support of:
Alejandro Artigas, Jonas Blaettermann, Ashley Davis, Tara Edwards, Andy Ellebrecht, Andrew Fogel, Melissa Fornal, Scott Freeze, Brenden Gardner, Chris George, Connor Heckler, Jeff Horn, Megan Ibarra, Jong Kim, AJ Kinsella, Zach Lysaught, Stella Mao, Tristan Matthews, Mikey Needleman, Anna Neises, Liz Novacek, Dan Ostrowski, Hector Padilla, Dave Phillips, Emily Piper, Miles Piper, Nick Piper, Brigi Schindler, Mary Schindler, Rick Schindler, Jenny Schranz, Marc Sendra, Jeff Sterner, Nat Thompson, Chris Turner, Jayme Wiley, and Colleen Wittman.
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Foreword
by Michael Schindler
For two young brothers, a seven year age difference is damn near an eternity. Common interests and the bonds that come with them have almost no way of taking hold across such a Grand Canyon-esque chasm of time. At least not until adulthood.
Luckily for the Schindler Bros., a device capable of magically bridging that gap arrived much earlier. On Christmas morning, 1985, it sat in a wrapped rectangular box under the tree, its unassuming shape masking its awesome power. The name of this generational bridge builder? The Nintendo Entertainment System.
I was eight at the time; my brother Andy was not yet even two. While he was too young to be caught up in Nintendo Mania, I was not. I was instantly and totally hooked.
Like any true addict, my addiction soon became the center of my life. Allowances and any spare birthday cash were essentially signed over to the Nintendo Corporation. I took personal responsibility for solving Mario’s missing girlfriend problem and tediously leveled up the Dragon Warrior so he wouldn’t embarrass himself on the road to glory. Link may have “saved” Hyrule, but I was the guy behind the guy.
I was the self-appointed, happy-to-oblige, unifying force behind the betterment of Nintendo’s 8-bit universe.
My grade school friends, nearly to a man (okay, boy), were caught up in the same NES-addled world. We swapped war stories and Nintendo Power issues and took turns hosting video game marathons. Yes, we did other things. Played baseball, built forts, rode bikes. But video games ruled the roost.
Not too long after the NES Christmas of 1985, I began sharing a room with Andy. And looking back on it now, I left the poor kid no chance of avoiding the video game tractor beam. In fact, I shoved him right into it. He was pummeled by the images on our walls, on our shelves, and on our small television screen.
My female siblings didn’t completely escape the Nintendo bug, either. My older sister Jenny, battle hardened from earlier Atari experiences, would sneak in her Tetris or Spelunker rounds, mostly on her own. My younger sister Susie played too, with a special affinity for Bubble Bobble.
Susie and Andy would often provide a live audience for my video game exploits. And in time, they evolved into active partners: checking maps, offering verbal support, warning me of dangers around the corner. It was a tenuous and one-sided partnership, of course, with the younger siblings likely to take the blame if things went to shit. They could be banished at any moment, on a whim. But it was a partnership nonetheless. We had found our common interest.
In the spirit of this benevolent NES partnership (dictatorship?), I once granted Andy the right to start and save his own Legend of Zelda game. And why not? I only needed to use one of the three save-game slots, and the kid had earned his stripes. Let him tool around a bit and knock himself out.
Within hours of granting him these Zelda privileges, however, Andy managed not to save his own game, but to save over my game. All those weeks of tracking down heart containers, rafts, candles, and swords – gone. Righteous rage ensued. Privileges were put on lockdown. I worked tirelessly to re-trace my steps, compressing weeks worth of work into a matter of days so that I could keep up with my friends’ progress in the game.
After about a week, my brother had somehow charmed and convinced his way into a second shot at Zelda. I was confident he had learned his lesson, and wouldn’t repeat his egregious offense. Of course, by the end of the day, my saved game was once again replaced by the idiot-level ramblings of an eager but over-matched four year-old.
As the thoughtful George W. Bush once said, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me [twice] – can’t get fooled again.” So, over the next few years, Andy would remain my partner in a number of other missions, from the Zelda sequels to Sega’s Phantasy Star series. But never again was he allowed to save his own game while I was in the middle of mine.
Over the next few years, the quest for girls began to enter my consciousness, but video games continued to remain a focal point. My friends and I still loved the NES, but we were eventually forced to consider the relative merits of the Sega Master System, the TurboGrafx16, the Sega Genesis, the Super Nintendo, and handhelds like the Game Gear and the Atari Lynx. Though preferences differed, we essentially approved of them all, and teamed up to get access to as many of them as possible.
By the time I hit high school, my interest in video games had all but been depleted. The quests for princesses and swords were now almost completely replaced by the (mostly unsuccessful) chase of real, live girls and various other forms of trouble. Still, though, those old games held a special, sentimental place in my heart, and deep down I was glad to see my little brother carrying on the tradition.
Soon he was beating me when we’d play a game of the latest Madden (which I blamed on the new systems having “too many damn buttons”), and annihilating adventure games in a fraction of the time it had taken me. The obsession that had taken me over had done the same to him, only even more so. We had differing philosophies on these games, from the “morality” of using cheat codes to the best techniques for approaching adventure games, but we shared the same underlying appreciation for them. That bond was never broken.
As I entered my twenties, the urge to bestow my hard-fought, “real-life” lessons upon my brother grew exponentially. Whereas in our earlier days, we bonded mostly over games, I wanted to build a more well-rounded relationship. I would play the role of battle-hardened warrior, while Andy would be the young, aspiring hero in need of ass-saving pointers. But by this time, he was in his teenage years, and just as stubborn as me. He’d listen politely to my advice, then proceed to ignore it in its entirety. To his credit, that may have been the right move.
Thankfully, as you’ll see in this book, that which bonded the Schindler Bros. in our early years also helped impart Andy with a number of life lessons just as good, or even better, than what I had aimed to teach him. Even if he was ignoring my advice, he was forming philosophies that were rooted in many of the same video games I had played, loved, and learned from.
Today, I like to think that my brother and I have a lot more in common than a deep-seeded desire to kick Mother Brain’s ass, or to put a hit on Donkey Kong. But we owe a lot to those classic characters. They laid some of the crucial early foundation for our strong relationship today.
That said, I still won’t let Andy around any of my saved games. No fucking way.
Michael Schindler
July 19, 2011
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Chapter 1: Friendships
Lesson 1: Contra & Best Friendship
Nintendo Entertainment System
1987 – Age 3
At face value, Contra is a pretty straightforward game. One guy has Blue Pants. This is you. The other has Red Pants. This is your partner. You are to be friends and allies in a quest to save the world from alien domination.
Neither of you wears a shirt. Got a problem with that? You start off in the middle of a swelteringly hot jungle, damn it, and you look great shirtless. What better way to intimidate the hostile and invading alien life forms than to strap on your assault rifle and show off your romance novel cover physique? This is what being human is all about: sex and violence, baby.
I guess there is one other thing, too. A basic drive that exists in every person on this lonely planet: the desire to find and maintain a quality friendship in life. Not just any friend, mind you. This person will always have your back. No matter what, he will be there to help you maintain your sanity in the face of life’s endless barrage of antagonists. This is someone you might call your best friend forever (BFF), but who fits a more specific label in Manland: platonic man partner (PMP). The trick is figuring out a way to turn your standard issue buddy into a PMP. As luck would have it, Contra teaches you exactly how to cultivate this rare and lasting brand of hetero lifemate love.
From the outset, when you and Red Pants start your journey, Contra shows you that life is not going to be easy. In fact, it’s going to totally kick your ass. It’s going to feel like you’re fighting an entire alien army with an infinite number of murderous extraterrestrial zealots. Sure, you can try to take on this soul-crushing gauntlet of ordeals all by yourself, but you shouldn’t want to or need to. This is why you have your PMP, clad in his fantastically Red Pants.
Fortunately, the Konami gods and creators of this classic bestowed one miraculous act of mercy upon the two of you: a cheat code to greatly increase your pathetic collection of lives. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Select (for two player action), Start. Boom. You have now each been granted 30 lives. And guess what? You will need them all. It’ll take 60 lives, collectively, to get through Contra with even a shred of dignity left over.
So, now that you and your buddy are maxed out on lives, armed to the teeth, and oiled up… you’re ready to gun down some bad guys. You start your adventure with a simplistic and ineffective single-shooter. Not much time passes before you realize you are going to need to procure some more effective firepower, which floats down with angelic wings along the way. Your survival instincts will plead with you to pick up any and all such power-ups that are even remotely within reach. After all, doing so will enable you to carry the equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary man-cannon on your arm. However, this approach will leave your buddy limping around the screen trying to establish his dominance with a pool-shrunken wayner dragging in the grass.
Contra allows you to bask in the immediate benefit of embracing that me-first attitude, but in the end, it will certainly spell doom for both of you. To experience even minimal success, you must find a way to not just coexist, but to work together so that you become greater than the sum of your parts. This means the same guy doesn’t always get the power-up, which allows you to unleash a wide-ranging hailstorm of bullets – the vaunted Spread Shot. Instead, you should aspire to become a team of two guys blasting the Spread Shot. This combination is nearly unbeatable, as it literally floods the screen with red balls of death.
The game uses this 8-bit metaphor to teach a valuable lesson about the strength in numbers and about not overestimating your value as a single entity. Be there for your PMP when assistance is required, because you’re only as strong as the weakest member of your twosome.
Along the way, while trying to achieve the Double Spread Shot Ideal, some things will break down. There will come a time when your buddy will be losing lives at a dizzying rate. When your amigo starts freefalling, he will get more frustrated than a Kindergarten soccer coach. You can equate this to an unsuccessful trip to the local watering hole. Your buddy is hitting on anything and everything, but no one is interested. You’re getting phone numbers left and right, though. What are you supposed to do?
The answer to this quandary lies within the confines of Contra’s sturdy plastic cartridge. Let your PMP get his mojo going again by first “accidentally” running past a simple enemy and power-up box (with a Spread Shot). Allow him to pick up the goodies and easy kills. Once his glowing red orbs flood the screen and douse hordes of alien forces, he’ll be confidently back in the saddle.
Out at a bar, you can recall this lesson and put it to good use. That girl seems interested in you? Forget it. Without being obvious, set your friend up instead of hogging all the glory for yourself. You must fight all of your competitive instincts and swallow your pride while your score remains stagnant and his rises ever higher. Think back. He’s done this for you countless times, right? There’s a good chance that he’s actually bailed you out more often than you’ve saved him.
Regardless of who has to be the savior most often, it’s inevitable that your roles will be switched multiple times throughout the course of the game. The important thing here is not to beat your PMP down when he is in the dumps, even when you are kicking ass.
His TV exploded? Offer your DVR services to him. His dog oozed vomitous deuce all over his one pair of jeans right before you hit the town? Toss him your last clean pair and squeeze into your 8th grade khakis. He got the crabs? Make the one mandatory joke, and then Google homemade remedies for him so that he doesn’t have to face the doctor. If you can’t take care of him in these tough times, then you will suffer when you are the one that life is defecating on. Failure to always have your PMP’s back will result in a rift that even the Konami Code cannot save. Remember, if one of you fails, you both fail.
Along with a healthy dose of selflessness, cooperation with your PMP is key in order for you to succeed in Contra. For example, take the fantastically frustrating feature known as the locking side-scroller, embraced wholly by this game, whereby you must climb endlessly upward to complete the level, with zero ability to double back. If you jump up to the next cliff for the Holy Grail of weapons just to swipe it before your buddy does, then you could be dooming him to an even swifter death than burdening him with a shitty weapon will provide. In taking your man to the next level, you have made the ground beneath your partner’s feet completely disappear. As you jumped up to claim your treasure, your buddy’s platform has left the screen, costing him one of his invaluable lives as he plummets into nothingness. Way to go, dipshit! He has nowhere to go but down… and he will never forget how you sold him out.
In life, there is no exception to this rule: your buddy will, at some point or another, throw you under the bus (maybe even unwittingly) in order to achieve his own goals. He will forever know that, without a doubt, you would do the same to him. However, you must learn to overlook those few times when your otherwise top-notch Red Pants has prioritized your life and goals somewhere between “resealing the bread with the twisty tie” and “putting the seat down.” These lapses will occur, but you must not hold a grudge. More than likely, your buddy will immediately (or in situations that involve the opposite sex, not-so-immediately) make things right. Just hang in there and show him your patience and loyalty. He will remember this when you drink his last beer, sleep with his ex-girlfriend, or temporarily replace him with a new beer pong teammate.
In short, Contra teaches you, above all else, to be good to your PMP. You need him.
As for the finale of the game? I’m not sure what the all-encompassing lesson is, as my Red Pants and I have never witnessed those fine ending credits roll.
I imagine we will reach the end of the game when we, appropriately, reach the end of our real lives. We will stand there, shirtless, basking in the glory of an exploding enemy… coolly recalling all the hardships we endured and laughing about all the times we fucked each other over for a second straight Spread Shot.
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Lesson 2: Ice Hockey & Ally Selection
Nintendo Entertainment System
1988 – Age 4
To avoid any confusion, Nintendo decided to name this winter sports game after the sport itself. Ice Hockey doesn’t make any attempts at pretention. Slap a puck around the ice with some sticks and, most of all, make sure you get into an inappropriate amount of fights. However, if we look at the game carefully enough, we can see a world of meaning buried just beneath this simple slab of ice.
From our days in the schoolyard, we are all familiar with the concept of picking teams. The athletes are picked first, then the everymen, and then the turds. Ice Hockey turns this idea on its head completely. It is revelatory in its approach, and it teaches us an important lesson: those turds aren’t turds at all. Your friends and allies in this world cannot all be cut from the same mold as your PMP.
This feel-good approach to the game makes itself evident the first time you load up your team with four average sized players. They are pretty decent at everything, but they don’t really excel at anything in this virtual world. Turns out you’ll need a healthy mix of different types of people around you in order to succeed. The bigger player type provides much needed strength for defense, while the smaller player type offers crucial speed for offense.
You may not think you need the fat dudes out there with you on the tricky, high-speed ice, but they’re the ones who will always go to war for you. They win all the fights in the game, and they punish any of the lightweights that make an attempt at your goal.
Back in the real world, these guys are your bulky defenders, whether they are emotional fatties or physical meatheads. They are a buffer zone between you and the world, and you need them to get through life’s difficult battles and to defend your goals when you break down. They aren’t going to be very instrumental if you’re looking for a spark. However, these fellas absorb a lot of punishment meant for you, as well as dish it out on your behalf.
As for the weaklings in the game, they are initially overlooked. Who in the hell wants someone on their team that can’t fend for themselves? The second anyone grazes a skinny player, he immediately skids across the ice on his hindquarters. This obviously fails to inspire great expectations.
Underestimate all you want, but you find out soon enough that their speed is unmatched. These speedy little freaks will open you up on the fast break and facilitate most of your goals if you’re smart enough to put them on your team.
These are the guys in your everyday life that think a few steps ahead of everybody else. They’re probably kind of goofy and dorky, but you need their help. With blinding speed, they can take you out of difficult situations. They have the quick excuse that gets you out of a broken curfew. They can quote the amendment to a law that keeps you from spending a night in county lockup. Not that you need it, hopefully, but you can also rely on one of these unassuming studs when you need help with corpse relocation.
In the game, the mid-sized players do still fill an important role, however: they keep everything balanced. The chance of success for a team loaded with guys that can actually fit into those freebie t-shirts you get from crappy corporate promotions? Not great. The chance of success for a team loaded with guys that could use those same oversized t-shirts as cloaks for their renaissance festival character? Even worse. The balance provided by the average players allows the chunky dudes and thinmen to showcase their unique talents.
Like with Ice Hockey’s midsized player, the average guy is decent with most things, though definitely not special in any noteworthy regard. He’s the glue with no defining characteristics.
Is this game trying to tell you that being buddies with an average guy is a waste of time? Not exactly. These gentlemen are undoubtedly an asset to you, as well. They may not have any useful or special ability to offer you, but they will always keep you in the game. Without them, you have a realistic chance of falling through the cracks of social recognition, as the specialized gifts of the “eccentric” often go unappreciated in the mainstream. A good group of everymen keeps your crew from morphing into a somewhat frightening collection of outcasts.
It’s important to recall that we should all be working together to achieve our goals. Ice Hockey may have overreached in trying to create this Zen society within a sports game, but at least they gave it a whack. You can change your team makeup as you please, and it is important to remember that you and your friends might be shifting into different categories throughout your lives.
As someone who began his journey as an average, joined the ranks of the geeks, and am now on a fast track to emotional (and physical) chunkiness… I can promise you that things will definitely change with your team of pals over time. Thankfully, this game teaches you self-worth. No matter how you’ve been classified, you are a valuable person. So if your confidence is failing or you think nobody likes you, you’re an idiot.
A truly complete human being has probably dabbled in all three of Ice Hockey’s categories, and has surrounded themselves with warriors of all shapes, sizes, strengths, and weaknesses. Some theorize that this line of thinking is false, that you can manage “wholeness” without spending some time in the humbled ranks of the maligned classes. These are typically the people who are born with the ability to fit in anywhere, with talents to help them excel across the board. If this sounds like you, then you’re probably an asshole. If not, everyone thinks you’re fake and probably hates you anyway. I suggest that you put on some pounds or take some computer classes at your local community college.
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Lesson 3: Blaster Master & The Wingman
Nintendo Entertainment System
1988 – Age 4
One of the most loyal characters in video game history is Jason from Blaster Master. When his pet frog runs off and falls down a hole, Jason asks no questions and follows right after him. Jason quickly finds out that his frog is lost in a puzzling underground labyrinth filled with mutated enemies. Does he immediately make an escape and head to the pet store for a new frog? Hell, no! He suits up and gets ready for war.
This kind of loyalty is a coveted asset, the kind that you should aspire to provide as a Wingman for a deserving friend. No questions asked, no hesitations, just jumping straight into battle.
Blaster Master illuminates what it means to be a true Wingman. Unlike your PMP, who is there to hold your hand through everything good and bad, your Wingmen are there only for solid support when you need it the most. A guy can never be considered as a candidate to join your inner circle of friends if he can’t perform these basic functions in an efficient manner when his number is called. To understand the importance of having a Wingman, we must experience for ourselves what it is like to be there for our friends in this role.
Sometimes our buddies will disappear into their own version of the hellish underworld we experience in Blaster Master. When they do, we can’t just abandon them and leave them to fend for themselves. In this state, they’re as emotionally frail as the child that accidentally tugged too hard on the mall Santa’s fake beard.
It’s time to gear up and prepare for battle. So when your buddy commits a forgivable crime, takes a beating at work, or has a woman rip his heart out… it’s time for you to meet him with a case of beer and/or a wad of one dollar bills.
As you progress through Blaster Master, it seems like a nearly impossible task to complete the game. The common decency of providing save points, continues, and passwords is completely disregarded. You’re going to have to pull this off in one extremely dedicated attempt.
If your pal is in a difficult situation and down the path to possible destruction, then you must be completely driven to pull him back out of the hole of despair. You can’t simply text him every once in a while with, “dude r u ok? ur status updates r gettin really weird. dislike buttonz.”
As you navigate through the underground treachery, you absorb severe pain. It’s hard to stay healthy, and sometimes it seems there is no hope. The only course of action is to keep on pushing and pray that you can maintain long enough to save your prized frog. Even after you discover that your beloved pet has become a mutated monster in Blaster Master, you must still commit to rescuing him.
Similarly, this will not be a piece of cake search-and-rescue mission for you as the Wingman. There is no doubt that you will absorb a lot of damage from being in this unfortunate situation. In fact, your friend may have morphed into an unbearable asshole during this hardship… but you must still try to bring him back, even as he foolishly resists.
Helping your buddy cover up his little legal misdeed puts your (possibly) clean record on the line. Getting your friend hired at your company most certainly puts your (hopefully) decent reputation at stake. Confronting the heartbreaking wench that kidney-punched your bro’s self-confidence can eliminate your (already low) potential of ever hooking up with even the most distant of her acquaintances. Buck up, dude. Your number has been called, Wingman, and this is your fate.
As you lead Jason on this apparently dead-end mission, you find yourself entering vastly different worlds. You have to become familiar with three points of view. One angle gives you a wide, sidescrolling view. In another, you’re presented with a top-down view of your environment. As for the last perspective, you find yourself in a zoomed-in area.
When you’re trying to save your friend from the clutches of darkness, it’s clear that you will be tasked with taking things on from new angles. So try to ignore the fact that you recently pretended not to cry on his shoulder over your own misfortunes. You completely identify with where he is now, but you need to falsely play the situation like it’s not a big deal. You have to forget everything you know about being in his position and look at things from a new dimension.