Today I’ve turned one side of my room into a gaming dojo. I’m going to attempt to teach my girlfriend how to play Guitar Hero. She has dyslexia which is going to make the task even harder. Her hand to eye co-ordination is rusty and she’s never played this type of game before.
I’m an optimist…
I don’t know it yet, but I’m in for one hell of a day!
I start by showing her how to grip the guitar controller before even turning the console on. I explain how the strum bar works and the easy way of playing the notes. I don’t even bother with the whammy bar or advanced techniques yet. I’m sticking to the basics for now.
One hour later.
Okay so I’ve made some progress teaching her how to play the first 3 notes, green, red and yellow. The only problem is that she is using the lefty flip which means instead of playing the notes with her left hand and strumming with her right, she is doing the opposite. This also means that the buttons have been mirrored as well. I am not familiar with this layout so it makes it harder for me to teach her.
I pick an easy song for her in the practice mode and select the slowest speed. I tell her to only focus on 2 colours at a time before attempting to play all 3. Her problem is her timing. She’s not too slow, she’s too fast. She keeps playing the notes before she is supposed to. I try to explain to her that she needs to listen to the music and ‘feel’ the beat. This would help her with the timing and get her to nail those notes on time.
She doesn’t listen.
She attempts all 3 notes and keeps missing them. Now I’m not a patient person at the best of times so this ordeal is frustrating me to the point that I just want to turn the console off. I promised myself that I wouldn’t lose my cool. Not this time. I had already made that mistake with Little Big Planet but that’s another story for another time. She keeps looking at her fingers and again missing the notes. She is butchering the song. I start chewing my inner lip to restrain myself from saying something stupid. I make a point that she is only using 3 notes/colours, so how can she keep forgetting which finger goes with which colour?
I start to sound very condescending and patronising which isn’t helping things. It’s easy to forget that non-gamers don’t think the way gamers do. They’re not used to the timing or ‘feel’ of a particular game. She now tells me to leave her and let her do it her way. I explain that her way isn’t working out well but she insists. She is very stubborn. I wave a dismissive hand and end up walking out the room with my book and leave her to it.
3 hours later…
I can actually hear music, good music. I step into the room to find her playing perfectly to Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. She is nailing those notes. I am in total shock. She finishes the song and gets 98% and a note streak of 102 and looks at me with a smug look on her face.
WOW!
I turn on the 2nd guitar controller and select to play bass for the next song. I turn the amp volume and bass right up. She chooses to play Mr Brightside by The Killers. We both stand up and start rocking out.
By the end of the song I wonder to myself how much of this is down to me and how much of it is her. It doesn’t really matter. This is another trial that we have both overcome individually and as a couple. I now look forward to playing Guitar Hero with her more often.
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