It took me about a dozens plays to understand Anna Anthropy's "Queers in Love at the End of the World". 10 seconds is so little time to read, let alone process, a slide. Eventually, I developed a strategy: Click to make several decisions very fast, and see where I ended up.
The end, death, was always the same, but for a brief two seconds I always had a moment to see where my choices took me. Despite this being categorized as a game of failure, in every last moment I found triumph. There was a complete reciprocation, and a tender moment at the end of each path. "Gorgeous". "You're home now. And you are. This is the place". "The punchline is that it's just the two of you". And, finally, "Everything is wiped away". It's a shockingly good simulation of life and death in 10 seconds.
The only action that leads to true failure in Anthropy's game is indecision. Indecision deprives you of an ending. Analysis paralysis brings you to the end without resolution. In this way, Anthropy's game is a call-to-action to the living to spend less time on reversible, low-impact decisionmaking, and more on living - action. This is certainly a simplistic view of life, but it is a powerful one.
In "Games to Fail With", Aubrey Anabel discusses the consequences of "I want...but" thinking, in which humans fail to take bold steps (learn a new skill, start a new business, initiate a new relationship), because they are concerned with the social cost of failing. Remembering that in the end all will be "wiped away" is the best way to remember that in most cases, the opportunity cost of inaction is higher than the social cost of failure.
This game is an analogue for a legendary 2005 commencement address at Stanford University by Steve Jobs. In his lifetime, Jobs made a lot of enemies. He dropped out of college, failed in his first stint as Apple CEO, antagonized lovers, family members, and business partners. He also built two incredible companies, reconciled with his family, and left the world as a hero to millions.
Jobs accomplished the latter, because he understood the limited consequences of the former, and the finite nature of life. As he said on that day, "Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart".
Not all of us need to take the radical path that jobs did, but following the lessons of Jobs and Anthropy and remembering our own impending mortality is a great way to act more boldly, and enjoy life more in the limited time we have.