My first milestone here on NG when it comes to games. I'm very happy but this blog is more meant as way to keep track of my development as someone who enjoys games and "bookmark" games I still need to complete or at least get as many medals as possible for the next milestone: 200k medal points.

This blog is also a way to review things in terms of gaming experience and as a way to vent out some frustrating elements I hate on games.

When I first joined the site, gaming was a pretty much casual experience (don't get me wrong I'm still a very casual player), I played games mostly to explore the type of games in the site and the very first game I ever played here was this:

Discovering that some games I used to play when I was younger, are saved in this site, filled my heart with joy and this first game was among them. Then I began to play games to spend free time and relax, at that time I didn't even know some games had medals and knowing that they give points to your account was part of gaining medals. My attitude towards medal-featured games was pretty much indifferent/neutral until I had 53,000 medal points. Then around December, when I first start hoarding points thanks to Tankmas games, something happened: the joy of seeing those little numbers increasing. Thanks to those games and other games, I managed to get +10k medal points in a very short period of time. This made me want to push myself further and overcome the number I reached at that time: 64k-ish points.

During that time I also began to notice some recurring names/avatars (Andrey20, Magnus727, Amereep, Mascetti, Optimos, JimmyCarlos, JME10135 just to cite a few) in the games I played, notably the "bragging rights" medals but not only that. I began to explore their profiles and I discovered tons of games I didn't know existed. I also found some walkthroughs that helped me in more difficult levels of some of the games I played. I want to take opportunity to deeply thank Magnus727 for his walkthroughs that helped me a lot with some medals and/or secrets. His profile is the one I visit the most for walkthrough updates, secrets or simply because I like to visit it for the sake of visiting his profile (plus I like a lot his cat avatar^^).

Eventually his walkthrough list inspired me to make this collection:

Here you can find in the review session my reviews where I give tips about how to get medals (usually all medals but also secrets too) and/or tips on games that might give some problems. You can find games with medals and games without medals alike. My current goal is to reach 100 games in this collection with the aim of helping as many people as possible. Considering my slow nature at reviewing stuff, I know it will take time but I don't rush.

The Nerd Corner

Collecting medals and increasing points became a way to complete a task, a goal to reach and most of all a skill to develop. I am not young like some years ago (I'm younger than many people here but still), so I take advantage of games as way to keep my mind stimulated and push away the relative risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases that scare the shit out of me. For example, if I ever will be active on this site, if this site will continue to exist and if this game is still on the site, I would like to play this exact game when I will be older (+60 years old):

I loved the quick reflexes required to beat the game. And ofc I will always continue to play games even when I'll be 80 years old. Plus videogames can be used as tool to treat and detect cognitive impairment such as dementia:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11593771/

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A 2023 review study by Zhu et al. (1) examines mobile apps for people with dementia, aiming to identify designs and evaluations. The review looked at 20 publications with the overall finding that serious games can improve cognitive skills, help with therapy, and musical apps can help slow memory loss. Another study finding is that personal life apps are effective in improving independent living for people with dementia.

Another important aspect is that videogames show potential in improving key aspects of memory in older adults. Being exposed to an environment filled with novel stimuli can benefit cognition, including memory. Studies have shown that rodents placed in enriched environments, compared to sparse environments, experience increased generation of nerve cells in brain regions that are critical for memory encoding and retrieval. Humans may also experience similar neurological benefits from novel environments. The good news is that novel environments can be delivered, virtually, to the homebound, according to NIA-supported researchers who recently discovered that video games may be used to enhance cognitive health in older adults. These findings were recently published in Behavioural Brain Research. For this study, individuals 60 to 80 years of age were recruited. The researchers hypothesized that the novel and three-dimensional environment of Super Mario™ would confer more cognitive benefits upon individuals than those conferred by a familiar two-dimensional game (i.e., Solitaire). Despite being two-dimensional in nature, Angry Birds™ gameplay was also poised to confer cognitive benefits due to its novelty for this older population. Study participants in each of these three video game conditions played 30 to 45 minutes per day for four weeks. During this time, and four weeks after daily gameplay ended, researchers conducted a series of memory tests.

While memory performance was equivalent across groups prior to engaging in video game play, two weeks of Angry Birds™ or Super Mario™ gameplay resulted in improved recognition memory. Memory continued to improve after an additional two weeks for the Super Mario™ players compared to the Solitaire players and these improvements persisted after daily gameplay ended. No additional memory improvements were found in Angry Birds™ players. These findings suggest that both novel experiences and exposure to rich three-dimensional environments may work together to improve cognition (2).

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To me medals/achievements were always linked to complete a certain task and seeing them filing the empty space of a game I'm trying to complete is linked to a sense of finishing what I started. It's not always easy because some medals' difficulty may be linked to skills or luck and this gets frustrating when you try over and over. Because a game must first relax me and entertain me, I avoid those games whose medals almost make me ragequit. I like completing them but I prioritize my mental health and getting angry at a game it's a waste of time. I wonder how can some people engaging in ragequit-inducing games (I will get to that later). My love for medal hunting actually derives from real life and more specifically a personal motto of mine developed from my personality: either things get done or they don't get done at all. It's linked to a sense of duty to complete a task to its fullest. Even in real life if I don't get done something in the most complete and detailed way effort-wise, I am not satisfied. For example I could remove by hands every single grass that I don't want in my vegetable garden. Or I can study until my mind begs me to stop because I want to achieve my mental schedule of completing a certain task.

Plus I love exploring games in every parts possible and taking my time, this is why I am not a speed-runner and fast time-linked medals are the ones I like the least because they are anxiety inducing. I want my time to experience a game.

Mental milestone

A personal achievement (no pun intended XD) of mine that I will forever remember is the 1,500 points medal from the game Windowz98 NetTown Edition:

This achievement will be forever remember as one of the hardest I ever met in my gaming experience (others are in my Steam experience, notably the hellish Flappy Goat achievement from Goat Simulator). After two weeks I got the achievement still no one managed to get it. I wish you all luck, I root for you! This was a wild experience that:

1) made me want to make a walkthrough in the hope to help others or increase the chance of getting better at least:

AOL Jump Windowz 98 Walkthrough

2) I discovered many aspects of my personality and mind thanks to this hellish experience.

This experience changed me a little in terms of some mental and physical skills, and my way of approaching medals.

I am usually very casual in approaching games, but ultimately because I like to complete tasks in games, I am becoming more competitive even though I don't want to become a hardcore player. And this leads to the vent part of this blog.

The frustration, the rage, the Venetian

Games can be a great tool to spend time with a carefree attitude, they are also a nice way to escape the horrors of reality and as I mentioned above they can help our cognitive skills, BUT at the same time, when attachment grows strong, they can be a fertile ground for rage, frustration and few patience. I don't know if it's because I'm getting old, the sense of time management is kicking in, but ultimately I lose patience easily when playing certain games that have certain features. And I'm referring to games that rely too much on luck, wonky controls

Don't get me wrong, games like this one are perfectly fine as they are intended on purpose to be the way they are:

(yes, I want that "Oh shit!" medal where you have to play 10,000 times because while I can have little patience for some games especially when luck is a major player, sorry for bad pun XD, I can also be an extremely patient person when it comes to perform tasks I can have full control. I can literally remove every single weed with my bare hand to clean my garden)

I've met many games that make me rage quite easily and sometimes it's not linked to the bad coding or bad graphic, I don't care if the overall experience is fun and the achievements are satisfying to get, for example this game was totally ok to me, I love it:

(still struggling to find secret #2, I've found other secrets and beat the game 7 times for now XD)

This is an example of a very challenging game that allow you to study a fixed pattern and acquire a nice mental and physical skill made of finger, eye, and brain coordination, timing and correct space. After 40 minutes of game I could finally manage most of platform (now I can manage them all). This is what I tend to like the most in a challenging game that fits well with my nature: the ability to develop a skill after trials and errors and a careful study of the pattern. AOL Jump is similar but I personally find it more hellish because of the random element that characterizes the run. On the contrary I hate games that rely too much on luck and randomness, not giving me enough time to study properly the game mechanics and see patterns.

Not to mention those game developers who seem to sub-consciously enjoy making player suffer by making ridiculously hard games for the sake of being hard. Fuck them all tbh. I don't have time to waste in things that even in the case I manage to achieve, don't give me a sense of satisfaction. Like rightly Magnus727 said in an interview with Aalasteir, achievements that are too easy to get are forgettable and those that are too hard are plain annoying (if I am under the effects of some mysterious drug I can even try to see, but if I immediately get enraged and I see there is no hope with my current skills, fuck you!).

I love those hard achievements that give you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment after gaining new skills (both cognitive and physical), but because I don't want to stress out too much I always try to counterbalance with more easily obtainable achievements to calm me down such as selfdefiant's games which are also perfect as starting point for beginner medal hunters. In my medal hunting I always try to counterbalance between extremely easy obtainable medals, medium-obtainable and hard medals in a circular-like scheme. I also try to get those 100% easy medals (click credits, visit author's page, first kill, first death, etc.) as way to bookmark games I want to complete in future.

I can assure you I cursed a lot in many rage-inducing games, but this allowed me to see I am still a less patient person when it comes to specific elements of life: achieving a goal. Those hard games are a nice way to see myself under a different perspective. I also use those games to increase my patience but for now I have a lot to learn in terms of controlling my anger when it wants to burst out. Outside games I am very patient as I said, especially when I interact with people or I have to do a repetitive task.

A second account? Yes, why not

Then at the beginning of this month I read this comment Newgrounds Medals - Games and Tips by Andrey20 on a game I gave up because I didn't understand how to get other medals. That comment inspired me to make a secondary account only focused on games:

https://xianshang.newgrounds.com/

This account has many purposes:

• keep track of games I am 100% sure I can fully complete
• showcase 100% medal-completed games
• have links to two of my gaming-themed collection you can find in this account, this and this
• make walkthroughs about games I manage to solve (some walkthrough are from games that have a walkthrough but I like to give my two cents about it under my perspective)
• game-related fanarts (don't expect too many draws there though)

It will be a much more relaxed account under some aspect (B/P bonus, experience points, reviews, posts) but more focused on others (game completion, walkthrough). I also felt necessity to set some boundaries because I don't want people start asking me to make a walkthrough to a game that I might not be able to complete or master in terms of skills, so no requests. Plus my walkthrough blogs take time, I usually spend an average of 3 hours when I make them because I need to prepare visual material, think about what to say and replay the game to verify some hypothesis as I don't like giving false or incorrect info (every correction is more than welcome btw).

I won't always be active there because I focus my attention here but I visit my second account to keep an eye on things I made or I plan to make.

100k and now?

Well, I've reached my goal, I am very happy mainly because I feel to have developed some skills in terms of mental and physical coordination. My next goal is ofc 200k, but what I really want and hope to achieve is a new set of skills developed through games or mastering the ones I already have. Well, that's all folks. Have great day and sorry for this long ass blog but this is how I am^^

References and footnotes:

(1) Zhu K., Lin R., Li H. Study of virtual reality for mild cognitive impairment: A bibliometric analysis using CiteSpace. Int. J. Nurs. Sci. 2022;9:129–136. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2021.12.007. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

(2) Clemenson G, et al. Enriching hippocampal memory function in older adults through video games. Behavioural Brain Research. 2020;390:112667. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112667