👋🏻

Splatoon 3 campaign = beaten. A fun game that captures the essence of hakoniwa—tiny box gardens of fresh splatitude. It did commit a cardinal sin of introducing a new, barely explained mechanic for the final phase of the final boss fight. Nothing sucks the hype out of a showdown than multiple game overs because of wonky mechanics.

This past week I pushed hard to beat the game. Part of me even wondered if I’d beat it in time to make the video. This is where the power of deadlines shows its strength. My essay wasn’t the only external force pushing me to beat the campaign.

Splatoon 3 was one of my goal games for 2023. I didn’t complete the list, but I sure wanted to beat this one, especially so close to the end of both it and the year. Sure, there are three weeks left in the year, but impending travel and the holidays cuts that down to checks calendar three-ish days. If I was gonna beat this, it had to be last week.

I was also racing to finish a book I borrowed from the library, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. This was a sweet murder mystery book that was basically if Christopher Nolan did his version of Clue. The return date is in the middle of my trip next week, so I needed to wrap it up before I headed out of town.

This external deadline put my butt in gear. I can’t change the trip. I can only change my approach to free time. I splatted and read whenever I had a spare moment to myself. And, I finished em both on the same day.

External deadlines feel like they have more power over me. I can’t change them, only myself. This push was a good reminder to embrace the deadline. Lean into it. I surprised myself with how swiftly I finished both of them.

I am hopping on a plane tomorrow. My laptop is charing now. I plan on using the flight as another forcing function to write. I also plan on using my regularly scheduled 5:00 AM coffee-fueled writing sessions. I am coming home with a script. Let's do this.