I was playing the video game "Haven: Call of the King" last night, and I
was stuck on the "Clearwater Bay" level. As is often the case in a
video game, I needed to collect a certain number of objects to proceed, five
feathers, to be exact. I had four. The level is a small village
by the ocean, and the feathers I had already acquired were on a hill, in
a breakable pot on a roof, in another pot that had to be broken with a special
magical creature, and yet another pot defended by five laser-blasting guards.
I spent an hour looking for that last #@!# feather, but to no avail.
I kept looking in the same places and trying the same actions over and over
again, which made me think that the Debugging Rules could be applied.
I thought about the first rule, "Understand the System". Of course
I could just go find the solution on the web, but I wanted to solve the problem
myself. Well, I thought, maybe I need to learn the layout of the level
more, understand more about what is where. Within five minutes, I found
a ledge that I had never reached, in another five, I got to it, and what
do you know, in a breakable pot up there, I found my fifth feather.