Idea or execution? My game and the wheel of life balance

When I came up with the free game “The Pentacle of Happiness”, I didn’t check whether I had competitors. I was solving my own inner problem: figuring out how to become happy while keeping the different areas of life in balance. Because I stopped believing long ago that hyperfocus can bring anything but burnout. I’ve had, you know, some experience…

It was only after the release that I learned there are similar concepts, games and trainings. The best known is the “Wheel of Life” by Paul J. Meyer. In his framework, life is likewise divided into several areas (six, eight), and you’re supposed to give each one a score on a ten-point scale. It’s not exactly my concept — and besides, it relies too much on self-diagnosis, while a person is by definition an extremely unreliable witness of their own life. There are also all sorts of trainings and so on. I won’t argue about who came closer to reaching happiness: it’s a fundamentally meaningless question, since that state is unknowable to an outside observer. I’m talking about something else.

My friends and family have great ideas in all kinds of fields, from art to business. And those ideas often come bundled with the fear that someone has already done it all. And if it’s been done, there’s no point in doing it yourself.

I categorically disagree. Quite the opposite — you should do it! The idea is secondary; execution is the most important part of creation. Because when we build something we invented ourselves, we change. Even before we show our creation to the world, it is already shaping us. I have written and published two dozen short stories. Another hundred texts stayed in the drawer. But every one of them changed me. I doubt all of those texts were original — the number of plots in human culture is limited in principle, as Borges wrote.

Original or not, “The Pentacle of Happiness” changed me too: it made me a deeper person, more attentive to my own needs. And a little calmer — which means a little happier.

If I had known that several psychologists had written several books, concepts and tests about keeping life in balance — including the above-mentioned wheel of life — it wouldn’t have affected my resolve to make MY OWN game in the slightest. Because other people’s books, other people’s thoughts and other people’s experience are no substitute for what you live through yourself.

That’s exactly why I chose the immersive format of a computer game: so that players get their own experience of interaction, rather than just reading stories about how a hitherto unknown Denis banged his head against the walls of his own limitations — and then saw a ray of light breaking through a fresh crack in the brickwork.

Play, enjoy it in your own way and build your own happiness!

I sincerely wish you that!