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As a student in graphic communications, my life revolves around one phrase: Command Z. Fellow pre-press students and I are constantly joking about how nice it would be if we had the undo button in real life. Don't you wish you could just press the undo button and make everything go away? Say something that you really shouldn't have, click undo, try again. Simple.
Revert to saved, the ultimate undo, is also something I'd like to see come to life. But in order to revert to saved, we need to have save points now don't we? So that got me thinking, what kind of things out of games would come in handy in everyday life?
Save Points. Wouldn't it be nice if you could save the progress of your life when something good happens? Or save right before you do something that could go very wrong and you want the option to try it again? Save points would come in handy right before big tests in classes you're not sure of. These save points would be similar to the kind you get in games right before boss battles, though, so if you're really unprepared for the task there's not much the save point can help you with. What would the save points look like? Perhaps we can have save rooms like in Final Fantasy IV or big question marks floating around like in Final Fantasy VII. The possibilities are endless.
Reset. The reset button has a place right up there with revert to saved. It has its own possibilities, however. So, assuming life can have both a hard and a soft reset, what can it be used for? Soft reset would be the critical factor in making save points work. So, you saved your life right before a major event. Something goes horribly wrong and it's a complete disaster. What comes next? Soft reset. But what kind of uses would hard reset have? It could take the place of sleeping by giving your life time to completely refresh itself. Seem to be lagging and functioning below normal? Reset everything like you would a computer or game console and start over fresh. Reload your life and you're all set. Okay, so that's a bit of a stretch. Let's chalk that one up to my overactive imagination.
Sleep Heals All Wounds. So if we're not going to use hard reset for sleep, why not give sleep an actual purpose? In so many games, the heroes can just stop at an inn when they're mortally wounded and wake up fine a few minutes later. So let's say you got in a car accident, broke bones in more places than you can count, and all you have to do is take a nap to be fully recovered. Sounds great, doesn't it? You just had a long day at work, your muscles are sore and you have a headache that is pounding so bad you can't even think. Wouldn't it be nice if a quick nap could cure that too, so you can actually get something done that you enjoy doing? Sleep may be overrated now, but give it a chance to become something of itself...
Unlimited Pocket Space. I've always wondered where the heroes put everything they're carrying. Some of them have tiny backpacks that have limited space, but still way more than there should be. How did Ness and his friends fit all those skip sandwiches and bottle rockets in those little packs in Earthbound? In other games, though, there is no visible location for them to stash 99 potions, phoenix downs, elixirs, etc. Not to mention all the unused weapons and armor. Wouldn't it be nice to have such bottomless pocket space and still be able to find everything in a matter of seconds? You'd never be without anything you need ever again. It would come in handy while cleaning my room. Storage space would no longer be an issue.
Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of the undo button, save points, instant regeneration from sleeping or unlimited pocket space. Life likes to throw its own little twists at us that would make having such things nice, but then we would never learn from our mistakes. Undoing everything may even go as far as creating chaos. Can you imagine everyone undoing everything all the time? It would be like time didn't exist at all. However, I see nothing wrong with instant regeneration from sleep or unlimited pocket space. Who knows what I could get done when I'm not constantly searching for the five hundred pens I've misplaced. Maybe I wouldn't have such an overactive imagination...
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