10 Ways Life on the Road is Like a Video Game

by Ryan Vagabundo

Thanks to Unreality Magazine for this great shot

Before I was a commited vagabundo, I was a young gamer. Well, I still enjoy a nice game here and there ... just not as much time for it these days.

As I travel here and there, I frequently feel a nagging sense of deja vu. A lot of my experiences on the road line up with experiences that I've had in games past ... am I crazy or are there a lot of weird similarities between extended periods on the road and playing a game?

Here are my top 10, let me know what you think ... or feel free to add your own in the comments.

1) Managing Limited Inventory Space

Every time I pack out a backpack or a suitcase, I can't help but think of the fiddly inventory systems of many games past.

In some, it was a simple list - you get X slots on the list to work with and that's it. Travel is more like the "inventory Tetris" systems of games like Resident Evil and Diablo, where you have to consider item shape and get creative in your placement of each.

Of course, you have to consider weight too ... especially if you're carrying a backpack. And if you're in a vehicle, it's essentially the same issue - just with more space to work with, at least until you need to haul stuff out!

You also have to really think ahead along the length of your journey. Will you need an umbrella or poncho at some point? Will you want flipflops for dirty hotel carpets or using a pool? Extra pair of sweatpants or shorts for working out, or wearing while you wash your other clothes?

CHEAT CODE: Rectangular compression sacks are definitely a worthwhile investment if you plan on making regular use of a suitcase. They really help to get all your clothes down to a manageable size and free up a surprising amount of space. Backpacks, I find, not so much ... if you're stuffing one full everything kinda just compresses on its own anyway, and the sacks can cause lumps that stick into your back or cause uneven wear on the bottom. They can be good for tying to the outside of a pack to carry specific things, though, like a sleeping bag or a tent - though you'll probably want the more traditional cylindrical ones for this purpose.

2) Expensive Inns

The classic format of the RPG was to have you go to an "Inn" for a nice sleep to recover your health and magic points. That was often the only way to get a sound sleep and get back to 100%.

In some games, you could camp out in the wilderness ... but at the peril of having your sleep interrupted by beasties.

Real life really isn't much different. The hotels know they have you over a barrel for a safe place to get sound sleep, and they take full advantage. You can camp out, but if you're too close to civilization there's the possibility of being run up on by bandits or loonies ... or more likely, the city guard.

Even if you get out and secure yourself away from human discovery, you may have to do battle with monsters that can do serious damage: Lyme-infested ticks, rattlesnakes, scorpions, fire ants, skunks and trash pandas just to name a few.

CHEAT CODE: AirBnb and similar sites are making some inroads into cheaper places to stay that are still pretty good ... they tend to be focused on popular tourist areas and optimized for longer stays, however.

3) Healing Items and Techniques

No matter what the game and no matter what type of character you're playing, you usually want to end up equipping your main with some kind of healing spells or skills. You'll inevitably need them when you're out in the middle of nowhere.

Not that travelers have to take medical courses to get out there long-term, but basic medical knowledge goes a long way when you're on your own. At the very least, you want to keep some basic supplies on hand to keep common mishaps from turning into a crisis.

CHEAT CODE: Always have some band-aids in various sizes handy at the very least; little cuts that are deep enough to bleed happen all the damn time in ways you won't even be expecting, and you'll also wear cracks (and eventually cuts) around your fingertips if you're handling bags and such a lot. Throw an assortment into a good sealing plastic bag.

4) Mapping

Games these days tend to provide you with a nice detailed in-game map. That wasn't the case in the old days, however. At first you were expected to make your own map with good ol' graph paper. When the first auto-maps started appearing, they were similarly basic affairs that didn't fill in until you physically moved through the related space in the game.

Point is, mapping new places out in the real world has a strong and very similar sense of that "in person" element. There's stuff like Google Maps, but I can't count the number of times that has failed to convey the sense of distance between two points accurately (or even had businesses in the wrong place). It also doesn't show you roads that may be impassable for some reason - for example, no sidewalk and no place to walk safely to avoid traffic.

There's no substitute for actually going through an area in-person to make your own mental map of it; you really won't 100% know how it works and what it's like until you do.

CHEAT CODE: It's usually worth a cruise through Google Street View along a route when available, which doesn't tell you everything but does give you a much better sense of distance and where everything is.

5) Time Management

There is an entire genre of "time management" games where you are given some sort of overall goal, but only limited time to perform actions and raise levels to be capable of doing it. So you have to plan out your actions strategically, also accounting for the possibility of random unplanned events messing things up.

I guess a lot of people's lives can feel like this, but the feeling is especially spot-on when you're on the road working and/or running a business from your computer. Travel time often cuts into your ability to use your computer or devices, so you have limited time slots throughout the day in which you have to prioritize tasks.

There's also the notion of "opportunity cost" to consider. While you're in certain places for a certain time, there are limited windows of opportunity to do things you won't otherwise be able to. Perhaps a special event, or a business opportunity, or just something personally enriching ... maybe all of these things exist at once, so you have to keep track of what's happening around you and choose which to go for!

Honestly my time on the road often feels like playing Persona or Stardew Valley.

6) Avoiding Aggro NPCs in New Maps

We touched on this when discussing camping, but even if you're not sleeping out you have to consider the "zones" of areas you travel to and what kind of aggro NPCs might be roaming them.

The simplest example would be the "bad neighborhoods" of many cities that you don't want to wander around in after dark. You might also have to consider the possibility of racial attacks or issues, however. Lots of hard drug use can also equal crazy aggressive homebums, even in well-off areas usually considered "nice" and "safe."

The real world has the added complication of penalizing YOU if you fight back to some degree or another, and rules about equippable weapons and items vary greatly from territory to territory.

CHEAT CODE: Pretty much every tool designed specifically for self-defense, even basic pepper spray (limited in Michigan to the weakest stuff) or a kubotan (in California) is illegal somewhere or another and can get you in serious jail time trouble if you happen to get stopped by police for something and searched. At the very least, you will probably have to dump them when getting on a plane. One idea to consider - and I Am Not A Lawyer so this is not legal advice - is to consider workarounds by using a similar everyday object not specifically named by the law for the same purpose. For example, a flashlight body instead of a kubotan. Or, ghost pepper powder instead of pepper spray. Of course, the absolute best thing to do is just plan ahead and use common sense to avoid problem areas - especially if you have no combat training.

7) Map Restrictions

We like to think that travel has advanced so much that we can go anywhere at any time on a whim. But unless you want to pay the high cost for an Epic Flying Mount ... err, airplane ticket ... that isn't the case. You're still restricted by geography and at the whims of the weather. If you don't have some kind of mount, you're stuck with whatever fixed portals happen to be available from your current location.

In the winter, mountain passes get closed due to snow all the time, sometimes for days. Ports get closed due to storms. Buses can even get shut down if the wind is too strong along their route (due to danger of tipping over).

On foot, you're limited to whatever services are available to teleport you from one town to another. It's possible to upgrade to getting your own boat, caravan or even flying device to explore the map more freely with ... but that's gonna take some significant grinding and loot accumulation if you're starting from level 1.

8) Transit Stations = Loading Screens

Many games have interstitial "loading screens" that you look at while the next area is being fed into the system's memory ... if you think about it, plane / train / bus stations are really kinda the real world's loading screens.

CHEAT CODE: Either sleep or get some work done

9) Deteriorating Equipment

You have to equip all sorts of travel gear, and most of it wears out as you go. Suitcase wheels getting ground down, bags and clothes developing friction holes, inopportune bursts of weather ruining stuff, so on and so on.

It's pretty much the same as one of the most hated of video game concepts - equipment that wears down with use. Though at least real life gear wear tends to follow more sensible rules - buy cheap stuff made from cheap material and it will degrade faster, invest in quality stuff and it will last much longer. No less frustrating when it happens at an inopportune time, though, and certainly more real cash out of your pocket!

10) NPCs Love to Block Walkways and Stand in the Dumbest Places

Even at the best of times people tend to be a little dense about spatial awareness, but something about travel seems to make them lose all sense of how to move and walk with other people around. The more "touristy" an area is, the worse it gets - try walking down the Vegas Strip in even a moderate crowd to see the ultimate example.

This includes classics such as:

• The sudden stop right in the middle of a tight traffic flow to play on a phone or look at something

• Deciding to cluster up in a chatty mob right in the middle of a chokepoint for traffic

• Blocking doorways while looking inside a business

• Forming a wall of three to five across to take up every inch of available space, then waddling slowly so no one can get by and a huge traffic jam piles up behind

All behaviors that players of any number of classic games will no doubt find familiar!