By Kristin Backert

I’m two years late to the party, but recently, I’ve been playing Marvel Rivals. The urge just struck me one day, and I figured, why not? Everyone talks about it, so it’s probably worth checking out.

I’ve mentioned before that my gaming experience is fairly limited, and I tend to stick with the same format of games. For better or for worse (for worse, let’s be real), Rivals was absolutely nothing like what I had played before. Every button on my controller seemed to do…something? Numbers ticked down on the bottom of my screen to illustrate…something? I was supposed to defend…something? What? What? What? And to top it all off, there were a dozen characters on screen fighting, and somehow I was supposed to pitch in and be a good team member and not constantly die and jeopardize victory.

It was all pretty overwhelming, and I debated just closing out the game and pretending that I had never even heard of it. I hadn’t told anyone I was going to try Rivals, so the knowledge of this failure could just die with me.

But something kept nagging at me. As easy as it would be to give up, the idea bothered me. So I texted a friend about my struggles with this dang game, and he took pity on me and showed me the ropes. He walked me through how to generally play as different characters and what the basic premise of the game is. And then, perhaps most importantly, he assigned me homework. He tasked me with choosing one character that I would like to play from each category and to watch guide videos to better understand their specific abilities.

Reader, those videos changed everything. Here was someone very slowly and painstakingly explaining how my chosen character best functioned. These videos explained what the best combos were and how to achieve them (complete with slow-mo examples), what role I should play on a team and how I could be effective in that role, and more. I sat there taking notes so that I could think about everything I’d learned and try to apply it when the time came. And then, after all of this research, I practiced. And then I practiced some more. And then, even when I thought the tedious nature of practicing the same moves dozens of times in a row would drown me, I kept practicing. I’m still nowhere near amazing, but I’m leagues ahead of where I was.

Playing Rivals reminds me of why it’s so important to not give up. When I’m working with my students, sometimes they’ll want to give up on something if they don’t see instant results or changes. They forgot to use their planner for a week? Might as well stop trying for the rest of the school year. Made flashcards for a test but didn’t ace it? Might as well go back to passively re-reading notes to study. Procrastinated and ended up cranking out an essay in one night? Might as well never make homework plans again. It’s easy to give up on trying something new when things don’t automatically go our way, so I like to remind my students that when they were learning something of high interest, like a sport or a videogame, they probably weren’t magically perfect the first time that they tried. Instead, they probably made a ton of mistakes, got frustrated, thought about quitting, and then persevered because they wanted to get better. Even if using a planner or making flashcards aren’t as fun as gaming, they require the same type of practice and repetition. You don’t get better at something after only trying it once; you improve when you keep at it, in spite of the difficulties and frustrations that you might encounter.

So the next time that you’re trying something new and not immediately perfect at it, relax! That’s totally fine. You’re bound to make mistakes at first, but things will get easier with more practice. The important thing is to not give up and to keep moving forward.