Building Patience and Discipline through Turn-Based Play

Sometimes, playing games entails more than just fun and excitement. There can be instances where a fun game will teach you something valuable, which will be useful for you in your life. One such gaming category is turn-based games. These games help build your patience and improve discipline, things that have become extremely important in today’s fast-paced world, as everyone wants instant results.

Through this blog, we will shed light on how turn-based games like Poker or Chess help in stress reduction and make you more patient. This will help you understand the basics of these slow yet rich in strategy games. We aim to help you understand how the benefits of these games go way beyond just the game screens.

What Is Turn-Based Play?

In contrast to the gameplay of most games that you play on a gaming app, turn-based games follow a slow pace. These make you slow down and take strategic decisions over adrenaline-pumping moments that most games offer.

The word “turn” refers to the process that you are required to perform only when it is your time to do it or your turn. During other times, when your opponents are making their turns, you are simply required to take notes of their actions or create strategies of your own.

So, it involves you staying patient, which is further proved in the popular research work named “Turn-Based Puzzle Video Game Design for Promoting Well Being and Reducing Stress” by Zhengze Pei, presented to Ryerson University. The work shows that there is an emphasis on time to think, plan, and execute decisions during turn-based games.

The Role of Patience in Turn-Based Games

Patience plays a big role when playing turn-based games on a Poker app. So, going too fast during these games isn’t the right route to success. Impulsive thinking is a common part of games like Valorant and Fortnite, where every second counts and contributes to your winning.

However, the same isn’t true when playing turn-based games. Turn-based games reward long-term thinking over quick reflexes. You are always advised to wait for your turn before you move on to many moves without staying inactive during others’ turns. If you take Poker, for instance, you will have to work on strategizing your card formations while your opponent makes their moves.

Other than that, the game will also require you to constantly keep an eye on your opponents and make mental notes regarding their gameplay. This further proves how having some patience during these games simplifies your success.

Most important of all, this patience-building isn’t just restricted to achieving success on a Poker app and brings in other benefits. Time-based games help you improve emotional regulation, necessary for all ages. It also reduces impulsivity, which is also quite harmful to one’s health. These two benefits are more important for young adults who tend to become overly aggressive due to playing fast-action games.

Learning Through Failure and Feedback Loops

Similar to all other games, turn-based games like Poker don’t always involve you winning. There can also be instances when you will lose during the game. Well, instead of looking at this as a failure, you should consider this as a learning opportunity. Failing in turn-based games like Poker or Chess offers you feedback regarding your performance, some of which are:

Consequences of poor planning

As discussed before, turn-based games are about taking your time and indulging in proper planning. Choosing to make the right choices makes all the difference during these games, and that is what rewards you in the end. So, naturally, when you fail when playing games like Poker, it says a lot about where you lack in making the right choices. You should take the points from this and work on improving your planning skills.

Role of slower loop feedback in a slower loop

When playing turn-based games like Poker, you will notice that players experience feedback loops at a rate much slower than faster-paced loops. This is done intentionally as it creates a more strategic or challenging gameplay experience. Slower feedback loops give you more time to reflect on your actions, helping you understand where you went wrong. This is why this pattern is implemented in games where players need to carefully plan actions or build up resources before seeing the consequences of those actions.

Embracing failure as part of mastery

Becoming an expert in a game isn’t something that can be done in a day. Rather, this is a process that involves you growing skills over a long time. Apart from regularly playing Poker to master skills, you can also use your failure as a learning tool. Treat it as a learning experience, and you will automatically learn how to avoid the same mistakes next time.

Applications beyond Gaming

The patience learnt from turn-based games isn’t just restricted to the world of Chess or Poker. Rather, this can also be implemented in real life to experience success. The real-life benefits of patience and discipline are:

Academic and professional success

Much like games, the real world also works against impulsive actions. Taking impulsive decisions or seeking instant results are common expectation that tends to ruin one’s academic, professional, and even personal life. So, it is better to stay patient to gain success in these sectors.

Emotional intelligence and conflict resolution

Turn-based games involve using strategies over emotions. One who successfully masters this automatically becomes better at making choices by analyzing the situation at hand. Well, this same logic also works in real life. Using your logical mind improves your emotional intelligence, helping you resolve conflicts in your personal and professional life.

Tips for Cultivating Patience and Discipline through Games

As a beginner in playing turn-based games like Chess or Poker, you might face challenges in staying patient during the game. There’s a chance that you might still end up taking stress, which can be tackled with the following tips.

● Choose games with deep but fair mechanics like Poker.

● Set goals for improvement and look beyond winning.

● Sit and analyze after each game, understand what worked and what didn’t.

● Play with other players on a Poker app to take notes from their playing style.

To Reiterate…

Playing turn-based games on a Chess or Poker app is great for building patience and discipline. This makes you more capable of dealing with the challenges in the game, all while improving real-world skills. So, it is safe to say that you must play these games if you want to experience benefits beyond the game.

(The views, opinions, and claims in this article are solely those of the author’s and do not represent the editorial stance of The Assam Tribune)