Learn from this- Harvest Moon

There are those that say that there is nothing to learn from video games, that they are a waste of time. There are those that make the ignorant claim that gaming will turn your brain to mush, that the youth is better off without video games. Today's blog is a simple list of lessons gained from a video game franchise: Harvest Moon. This short list alone proves these people wrong, as not only are these lessons applicable to real life, but they are important lessons that every person needs to learn.

Lesson 1: Sometimes a curse is a blessing wrapped in hardships to overcome.

 When you first start the game, you are given a simple, run down farm. There is nothing in it: no animals save for one dog, the fields are chocked with weeds, tree stumps and rocks, and you've got no way at all of making any money. Sounds like someone played a prank on you, right? Nope, quite the opposite in fact. This run down farm? The land is fertile, rich, and can provide for you if you work it. With your hands, and ONLY with your hands, you can turn this barren field into a money maker. The ground is good, and it can provide if you work hard on it. This doesn't happen overnight, however. The field is huge, and your hours are short. Time used on cutting weeds, chopping stumps and moving rocks is time that isn't being spent on growing crops, tending animals and raising your family.

This will one day be a giant field of grass, where your cows can run free and graze to their heart's content. But today, it's a dump, and the only way it can become a field is through your hard work and sacrifice.

This leads us to our second lesson...

Lesson 2: You don't have infinite time, so use it wisely.

  Like in real life, your days on Harvest Moon consist of 24 hours, no more. With those 24 hours, you need to do the following: eat, tend to the crops, till the soil, care for your animals, spend time with your family, socialize with the town folk, purchase seeds for future crops, keep your own health replenished, and finally, sleep. It's intimidating, isn't it? And since most of us gamers tend to sleep in rather late (I used to sleep in until noon!), it sounds like an especially daunting task! How can this be done?

Alright, I'm almost done watering my crops. Lunch is in fifty minutes. During the afternoon, I'll go to town and see what's up, and at sundown I'm having a beer with the guys. 

I know that a lot of us are allergic to routine. We can't stand the idea of doing the same thing, over and over for the rest of our lives. But, this isn't about routine. It's about planning ahead, about knowing that you don't have an infinite amount of time, and about knowing that your responsibilities come first. This leads me to the next lesson...

Lesson 3: The busier your day is, the more important it is for you to wake up early.

A lesson I had to learn the hard way is that 12 PM is not a good time to wake up if you have things that need to be taken care of. Noon is a good time to wake up if you're going to have a lazy afternoon anyway, if it's your day off. But when you have things to take care of, errands to run? Horrible time. Likewise, in Harvest Moon, if you wake up this late, you will not have enough time to do your errands. In Harvest Moon, your day starts at 6 AM. No, you don't wake up at 6, you start working at 6. By 6 AM you already woke up, got dressed, and ate breakfast. You're charged, you're wide awake, you're ready for work. Six in the morning.

Busy, busy, busy! As soon as I'm done milking the cows, I gotta water the crops, collect the eggs, shear the sheep, brush my animals AND feed the chickens! Once that's done, I gotta head to town to pick up that tool I ordered, visit the mayor, head to church, visit the in laws, buy some food for tonight's dinner, and of course I gotta visit my pals! Good thing I woke up early today!

Lesson 4: Plan for tomorrow, today.

When you wake up, you need to know precisely what it is you need to do today. You need to know beforehand what it is that needs doing, and then go out and do it as soon as possible. How? By planning. In Harvest Moon, you are given every tool available to know how your NEXT day is going to be like. The weather report is always 100% accurate, and by 6 AM tells you what kind of weather you're having the next day. I know that this isn't realistic, but then again, we also have the science to predict the weather. Living day by day might be good for a while, but when you have responsibilities, those take priority. You plan ahead and take care of what you need to do. Which leads me to the next lesson...

Lesson 5: It's OK to have free time. Have fun!

Now there's an idea!

If all you do in life is work, you'll find that your days are miserable. Likewise in Harvest Moon, if all you do is plant crops and work, you'll find yourself hating the game. Go out and have fun every once in a while! Play, dance, sing, have fun!

Lesson 6: Patience is a virtue.

You're not going to have a money making farm overnight. You're not going to have a family one week from meeting the girl you fell for. Your crops are not going to grow within minutes of you planting them. Everything takes time. Everything. You need to learn to wait patiently. Speaking of love...

Lesson 7: Love takes time to grow.

In every Harvest Moon game, you can marry someone of the opposite sex. (How heteronormative, but hey.) When you meet them, you'll be a stranger to them, always. They don't know you, you don't know them YET. But hey, a goal in these games is to find a spouse and raise a family. To make the candidate fall in love with you, you need to shower that person with gifts, talk to him/her on a regular basis, and wait for his/her love level to be in a good enough level. For example, in Harvest Moon Back to Nature, the love level is measured by heart colors. Black means total stranger, purple means new acquaintance, blue means friend, green means she/he has a little crush on you, yellow means he/she has a crush, orange means he/she really likes you, and red means he/she loves you 100%. When can you ask that person to marry you? At the red level, no earlier. To get to that level takes time, lots of it. In fact, I spent a year and a half of in game time before I was ready to marry the girl I had been romancing that entire time! But, it was worth it. Love takes time and effort. (And money)

"I don't want, anybody else. When I think about you I touch myself!"

Lesson 8: Love needs to be maintained, or it will be gone.

It does not do for you to ignore your new spouse after you marry him/her. Oh what, you think that just because you got married, that's it? Nope. Your spouse is still an individual with needs, and one of those needs is love. YOUR love. He/she married you because he/she loved you. Marriage isn't an achievement to unlock, it's a commitment. And you need to commit to make it work. Otherwise, you'll lose your spouse, and it's going to hurt.

"You don't care about me anymore. You never tell me good morning, you just scarf down what I cook for you without so much as a thank you, you forget our anniversary, my birthday, and you're seldom home. You rarely look at me anymore, and sometimes I feel more lonely in your company than I do by myself. I can't do it anymore. I'm leaving, and I'm taking our son."

Player Character Point of View- Romancing Karen in Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

 My name? Well, people call me Pete. When I was much younger, my folks took me on vacation to this quiet little place called Mineral Town. One day, I got separated from my parents, and ended up on this old man's farm. I stayed there until my parents found me, playing with the animals, enjoying the fresh air. The old man and I struck up a friendship, and we kept exchanging letters. I had no way of knowing that on that day, my future was sealed...

The old man simply stopped writing one day. I grew worried about him when he wouldn't respond my letters, so I went to visit him. I had run into the mayor, who gave me the two biggest shockers of my life. First, the old man died. I nearly fell on the floor when I heard that. My friend died. The mayor then told me that the old man left me the farm.

The old man had no family. He left his farm to a kid that exchanged letters with him for years. I wanted to cry for him.

I had no time to waste. The farm was mine now, and frankly, it was in dire need of repairs. My 'house' was little more than a dusty shack. The barn was empty, just like the chicken coop. The fields were chocked with weeds, stones, and dried up stumps and branches. Impossible to clean up by myself. So, I cleaned up a bit, had myself a small lot for farming, and went to the market to get some seeds. That is when I met...her.

I had never seen a more beautiful girl in my life. When I entered the market, she walked up to me, greeted me and gave me a free bag of grass seeds. I smiled like such a goof! I walked up to the counter, bought a bag of turnip seeds, and walked out of the market, telling her goodbye. My heart was racing that day!

After that, I ran into her every now and again. Sometimes, when I'd take a break from my farm, I'd find her by the waterfall close to Mother's Hill, on the edge of Mineral Town. Whenever I went shopping for supplies, I'd see her working in the store, and I'd tell her hello. She and I would always talk, always happy to see each other. I really liked her. Barley, the man who worked the cow farm, told me that the key to showing how much I liked a girl was to give her something she liked. I eventually learned that Karen really liked wine.

I bought her wine every chance I had. Wine was expensive, and I wouldn't always have the money for it, but I bought it anyway, for her. I still sometimes chuckle at the memory of the time she beat Duke, the local winemaker, in a drinking contest! That was amazing.

She isn't the best cook in the world. She'd always enter the yearly cooking contest, even though she always came dead last. She always tried cooking some weird recipes. One time, she mixed chocolate into a fish stew! I still laugh about how it was so bad it sent me to the clinic, even if at the time I didn't find it so amusing.

I would often walk with her on the beach after sundown. Yeah, most of the time I'd be bone tired, with my body aching quite a bit after farm work. And sometimes I'd do things that were just silly, like walking under the rain for over an hour just so I could visit her at the market, and give her a bottle of wine, or something I had cooked for her in my kitchen. Yeah, I'd often catch colds because of that, miss a few days or work. But you know what? It was always worth it to me, to see her smile.

When my farm became more successful, I had my old shack expanded into a real house, with a few more rooms and a few more amenities. Sure it wasn't a mansion, but it was a good house. Good enough for the family of a farm man.

A family. I had long decided that I loved Karen. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to marry her. I bought the Blue Feather, which is the custom in Mineral Town, to ask her to marry me. She said yes!

We're married now, expecting a child. My life is amazing, and it's all thanks to that one time I got lost. Thank you, old man. I'll name my son after you.