What I learned from playing Mario Kart Deluxe 8
Winter break is a strange time for an academic who lives apart with their family. It is the time that you have been waiting to relieve the sense of guilt that you have been accumulating during the academic year to your loved ones but then all the fun cool projects that I wish that I could have done during the busy time have been stacked, hoping that I will finally have time to read or write during the break.
For me, especially because I wanted to spend my time wrestling with my son, the latter does not happen. And after a week or so, I just gave up and tried to have the quality time with my son as much as possible and help my wife to catch up some projects that she couldn’t do during the school year.
Well, my physical stamina to keep up with my son gets exhausted quickly and I bought a bunch of Nintendo Switch games instead. I am not sure if I am the best father of the 21st century and it can be controversial. But hey, I like games too. I think the game is the most advanced interactive media so far. I get inspirations from games in my research (well this blog post is the proof). And my son is going to live a completely different era from mine and people in the future will start to worry about kids not playing iPad games anymore because injecting virtual experience to their brains directly can be much more fun.
Out of all the games that I purchased, playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was so inspiring. One of the game modes is called “Time Trials”. It is basically racing alone in a track to set a record on a particular track. If you race on a track for the first time, however long it took, it will be the NEW RECORD on the track. And then, you can try it again to set a new record. When you play from the 2nd time, you can “Race Against the Ghost”. The ghost is simply a transparent character simply replaying your race in which you had the fastest lapse so far on the particular track. It is a ghost in a sense that it cannot make a contact with the current race car and it cannot influence the game in any way but it is simply a reference that is being replayed along with you again. The beauty of this mode is that I am competing with myself from the past and I am learning from the best version of myself so far.
The idea sounds so simple and it seems that all modern racing games have it. This was new to me and this was tremendously effective. Recall many self-tracking apps for fitness (jogging, calorie consumption), finance, or habit tracking, they do facilitate self-reflection to some extent. For example, it is going to tell me that I spent $100 more on shopping this month compared to the last month (or the same month last year). The problem is that it doesn’t tell me why it is different. It could have been the case, I had my wife’s birthday that month so it was a special occasion for that month. I should be pleased even if I spend $100 less next month. Or it could be that I spent more on a specific account which I don’t know. (Well, I bought four switch games this month so I know what happened this month.) It could have been the same for Mario Kart if it was not “race against with the ghost”. If it was simply comparing timelapse; e.g. let’s say my record on a track is 1 minute and 8.23 seconds and I can beat myself only to get a slightly shorter record — let’s say 1 minute and 7.89 seconds. The problem here is that it is not accountable. I do not know what was different and how I did better. I can only understand somehow it worked this time. It could have been the case where I did really well in the start, I could use the booster item in the right spot, or I could have raced on an optimal path in one of many corners.
The race against with the ghost mode completely helps me understand how I can enhance my record. In a particular trial, I did really well at the start so I can quickly overtake the ghost. I can strategically put my ghost in front as it will keep me motivated to minimize the distance and save my booster items until the final lap so that I can beat it eventually. I can follow the ghost in a particular corner if the past myself did a good job. I can have my multiple objectives with which can contribute to better records here and there on the tracks. When I am stuck not beating my own record for an hour and I cannot beat myself by optimizing track alone anymore, it was the time that I need to acquire new skills — this is how I learn drifting and jump/spin boosters.
Once I am running out of ideas, I can download online ghosts who has the world record and learn from them. I learn secret shortcuts, secret jump stand, and advanced skills. I come back, train myself to acquire those skills completely on a different track (because it is stressful to compete with myself while practicing the skills) and then race against myself again.
And I thought this was an ideal example of an interactive system that I have wanted to create for facilitating self-reflection. A system that informs me how I can do better next time and motivates me to improve. Can we do something equivalent in sports? Can we do something equivalent in finance? Can we do something equivalent in doing research? Can we do something equivalent in public speaking? Can I beat my best version of myself so far?
Self-reflection is an essential process of empathizing with oneself. I can have a new perspective on myself, I can better understand myself, and I can be more honest to myself. Can we scale this to interpersonal communication and use it to foster empathy between people? Will it provide a spiritual experience like this young boy who found a ghost of his father in a racing game? Or is it going to be tragic like The Entire History of You?
Well, I played Mario Kart 8 Deluxe alone until 6 AM in the morning two days in a row — so glad I had purchased this game a few days before I left home. Well, this blog post is not to justify my wrongdoing or to give an excuse to buy another set of Nintendo switch for myself, although I am tempted to do so purely for my research purpose.
How can a person be quickly and effectively addicted to self-improvement, behavioral change, and self-reflection? I wish I have that in my HCI research.
