Another idea I had, that sort of led to the previous one, was what about external influence on a game players performance? I (sometimes) play better in an FPS if I’m angry. Back in high school and before, when I played Wolfenstein 3D, I can remember being quite angry and all I wanted to do was shoot nazis, many times this enhanced my stats.

What about other emotions? How do they effect the gamer? What about recursive game-emotion interaction, for lack of a better term? For example how does frustration effect proformance? What if the game causes it? Might we find ourselves in a circular situation?

Just my 2 cents.

For example: most geeks who pick up go with any kind of fervor dream about it regularly, especially when they don’t get a chance to play, for the first few weeks or months. After that, even if they continue playing, they generally don’t dream about it much.

As Darren said, you probably would have had the same results if you had only stopped for a few days. It happens to me all the time.

Four years back, when I played a lot of Counter-Strike with fellow WPI’ers, I noticed that my skill level was a step function.

I’d play for several weeks and not get much better. Then, one day, I’d log in and suddenly I was noticably better. And I mean *very* noticably. Better anticipation, stronger wits, more accurate, etc.

Perhaps every now and then I play in my dreams and my mind is able to really “grok” the activity in a new way.

Or maybe not.

I was beaten sorely the first time or two at those races, and then it was an easy victory. You just have to figure out the very simply mechanic that gets you to win, and then you win.

I pretty much agree with you about the requirement thing, though. The ending of the game is cool, too.