Game mindset: when you're stuck, look up a walkthrough

In games

In games, looking up a walkthrough when you’re stuck is obvious.

Can’t beat the boss? Search for the strategy. Can’t solve the puzzle? See how someone else did it. Can’t find the hidden item? Check the guide. It’s right there.

No player dies to the same boss a hundred times and still refuses to look it up. That’s not grit. That’s wasting time.

And the best walkthroughs usually aren’t written by the developers. They’re written by other players.

Because they got stuck too. They know where you’ll die, which traps are easy to fall into, which moments you need to dodge. They organized everything they learned the hard way so the next person doesn’t have to.

A walkthrough doesn’t kill the boss for you. The boss’s HP doesn’t drop just because you read a guide. You still have to press the buttons yourself. You still have to practice the positioning.

But a walkthrough tells you the direction. And people who know the direction clear things faster.

Looking up a walkthrough isn’t shameful. Staying stuck is.

In reality

In real life, we somehow think looking up walkthroughs is shameful.

Stuck on something but won’t ask anyone. Don’t understand but pretend you do. Spend three hours agonizing over a question someone else could answer in one minute.

Why?

Because asking feels like admitting you’re not good enough.

“I should be able to figure this out on my own.” “They’ll think I’m stupid if I ask.” “Let me try a bit more. I’m almost there.”

Then you’re stuck for another three hours.

That’s not perseverance. That’s fighting a boss someone else has already beaten, using the worst possible strategy.

Books are walkthroughs. Podcasts are walkthroughs. Advice from someone who’s been there is a walkthrough. A friend’s experience is a walkthrough. Even someone else’s failure story is a walkthrough.

The difference is whether you’re willing to look.

Of course, walkthroughs vary in quality. Some are outdated. Some are poorly written. Some are flat-out wrong. So you can’t just copy them blindly. Use your own judgment. But even if a walkthrough only saves you 30% of the wrong turns, that’s 30% of your time freed up for something else.

And here’s something even more important: after you look up a walkthrough, write one yourself.

The boss that stumped you today will stump someone else tomorrow. Organize what you learned, and it becomes a signpost for the next person.

A good walkthrough gets passed along. The more people it helps, the more valuable it becomes.

It doesn’t need to be perfect. Just write down how you solved the problem. Where you got stuck, how you got around it, what to watch out for. What feels like common sense to you now is lifesaving information for someone who hasn’t been through it yet.

The world’s best walkthroughs are written by people who got stuck themselves.

When you’re stuck, look up a walkthrough.

Player notes

As a kid, I had all the time in the world for games. I figured everything out on my own. Wrong turn in the dungeon? Start over. Can’t beat the boss? Grind more levels. A single game could last months. Back then, I thought figuring things out yourself was the right way. Looking up walkthroughs was cheating.

Now I’m older. I have a kid. Time is expensive. If a game isn’t fun, I’m not spending thirty hours warming up to it. Delete. Next. If it’s great but I’m stuck, I’m not banging my head against it either. I’ll check the walkthrough and spend my time on the parts that are actually fun.

My mindset completely flipped. I used to think looking up walkthroughs was cheating. Now I think not looking them up is wasteful.

Same thing at work. When I used to mentor new hires, I’d always tell them: “If you’re stuck for more than thirty minutes, come ask me.”

Not because they were dumb. Because many of their questions took me one minute to answer. Letting them struggle for half an hour was half an hour they could’ve spent learning something else. But there was a condition: take notes after you ask. Don’t ask the same question twice. If a month in you’re still asking the same things, then we have a real problem.

Eventually I realized that instead of answering one-on-one every time, I should just write the common questions down.

So I started writing walkthroughs. New hire shows up, read the walkthrough first. Questions after that, come find me. I didn’t have to repeat myself, and they could learn at their own pace. When something was unclear, they’d give me feedback, and I’d make the walkthrough better.

A good walkthrough improves with use.

Writing this book, I’ve been looking up walkthroughs constantly. How to write a book. How to publish. How to find readers. I had no clue about any of it. If I tried to figure out every step on my own, this book would probably never get finished.

So I read lots of books about writing and publishing, listened to interviews with authors, and asked friends who had publishing experience. Every single one was a walkthrough.

We’re lucky to live in an era with search engines and AI. Any walkthrough you need, you can find almost instantly.

I hope this book itself can be a walkthrough too.

Not the kind that says “follow these steps and you’ll succeed.” More like a fellow player who’s still figuring things out, writing down the pitfalls and lessons learned, hoping to save the next person a little time.

If something in this book is useful to you, then the walkthrough did its job. If you think something’s wrong or could be better, tell me. Help me make this walkthrough better.

Leveling tips

□ If you’ve been stuck for more than thirty minutes, go find a walkthrough. Ask someone, search online, read a book. Grinding it out isn’t persistence. It’s inefficiency
□ Before asking someone, do a round of research yourself. Show up with a specific question. People are more willing to help, and you’ll learn faster
□ Take notes after you ask. Don’t ask the same question twice. That’s the most basic respect for someone who helped you
□ Write down problems you’ve solved, whether as notes, docs, or a blog post. Your hard-won lessons are someone else’s walkthrough
□ When you find a good source of walkthroughs, bookmark it. Great books, great mentors, great communities. These are your walkthrough library