Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

Life is not a game, but you can learn from games to make your life more adventurous and fulfilling. Steve Kamb, a gaming enthusiast who turned his attention to physical fitness, used concepts of gamification to change his life. He describes the process in Level Up Your Life.

Throughout much of his childhood and into his early adult years, Kamb spent much of his free time playing video games. It was an escape for a life he didn’t always like. On the down side, these nearly addictive games were not helping him achieve a life he really wanted. He began to look for what made games so satisfying and how that could be adapted to making life more satisfying.

It is surprisingly simple. Our brains enjoy making progress, and it triggers our internal reward centers when we get feedback that lets us know we’ve progressed. Designers build incremental progress and associated rewards into the structures of most video games.

Much of the middle part of the book deals with goal setting. It is not much different from the advice you might find in other self-help or popular psychology books, except for the gamification spin. Imagine your idea life (Kamb calls it your “Level 50” life). Choose some challenging, inspiring, big goals (quests). Break them down into smaller, doable goals (specific timelines help). Create systems of accountability and rewards to encourage yourself to stick to it. Find a group, or groups, of people who can help and encourage you along the way.

In the final chapters, he deals with supporting concepts about overcoming fear, supporting your goals with good health and fitness, stirring up you sense of adventure, travel tips, and making the sacrifices you may need to make to live the life you desire and respond to a higher calling. He takes inspiration from fictional heroes of popular culture: Bruce Wayne (Batman), Jason Bourne, Indiana Jones, and Katniss Everdeen. He also lists several resources, both web sites and other books. If you’re inspired by adventure stories (in games, books, film or other media), you may find in Kamb’s book a framework for building the life you want.

I like that Kamb emphasizes that life, like a game, should be enjoyed. We should enjoy the process as well as the achievement. We should be flexible and open to the adventures we may discover along the way; they can enhance our lives and may prove useful to our quest in surprising ways.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Epic by John Eldredge

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

Wisdom from the Batcave by Cary A. Friedman

Kamb, Steve. Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story. New York: Rodale, 2016.

Scott Pilgrim’s Progress

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Writ. Michael Bacall. Dir. Edgar Wright. With Michael Cera. Universal, 2010.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a cool movie. It has cool music. It has super-cool, video game-inspired special effects. It has nerdy-cool actors like Michael Cera. It’s based on the series of cool graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley.


Scott is on a pilgrimage—his name is even Pilgrim, in case it wasn’t clear. Like Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, Scott is on a journey from childishness to maturity. Bunyan’s work is an allegory for the Christian life. This film is secular with a heavy dose of fantasy.

Scott’s immaturity is signaled at the beginning of the movie by his announcement that he is dating a high-school girl. Though he is 22, he is spending his time with a 17-year-old girl who hasn’t even kissed a boy. He even shows her his childhood home, though none of his family lives there anymore.

Bunyan’s Christian begins his journey when he feels the great burden he is under (his sin). Scott gets started when he sees Ramona Flowers in a dream and falls in love. Christian travels with a series of guides and sometimes-unreliable companions. Ramona becomes Scott’s companion, too, though she is more inspiration than guide.

The sojourning Christian overcomes a number of obstacles on his to the Celestial City. Bunyan’s geography represents thing that can derail seekers and Christians on their way to maturity in Christ. Scott must battle Ramona’s seven evil exes. They seem to represent the worst aspects of his personality such as childishness, pride, jealousy and manipulation. What seems to be his struggle to prove his worthiness to date Ramona becomes is battle to move from overlong boyhood to responsible manhood.

Scott Pilgrim differs from other journey stories in that it borrows structures from video games. This is more than just special effects. When a video game enthusiast sees Scott get an extra life after one of his battles, they expect it to come into play again later in the story. I think it is a very cool way of cool the way it plays out. I might not make immediate sense to a non-gamer. Video games are mastered by repetition, where a player repeats a level until he overcomes it or his avatar dies. In life, we don’t have get to repeat periods of defeat with new insight, though we often face variations on the same problem until we learn to deal with it a better way. The game-style story gives Scott a do-over in the face of his defeat, but like we would like life to be, he plays it differently and becomes a better person because of it.

If you’re interested in this film, you may also be interested in
American Splendor (Film)
Maus by Art Spiegelman

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

O’Malley, Bryan Lee. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life. Portland, OR: Oni, 2004.

Precious Little Life is the first in series of critically-acclaimed graphic novels by writer-artist Bryan Lee O’Malley. This comic, like the others in the series, is a paperback book rather than a magazine.

Scott is 23 going on 17. He is immature, dating a high schooler, unemployed, and mooching off his roommate. He is even in a band, Sex Bob-omb. (When I was young, bands were cool and dangerous. Now they can be full of video game-playing, comics-reading nerds like Scott Pilgrim.) He runs from trouble. He is a jerk to nearly everyone he knows. Fortunately for him, they seem to care about him anyway and stand up to help him.


Scott’s immaturity is epitomized by his dating a high-school girl, Knives Chau, who hasn’t even kissed a boy. His friends and sister confront him, but he justifies himself. He seems satisfied with a simple, no-pressure relationship with a girl whose world of school and conservative, Chinese family is even smaller than his own.

His satisfaction with Knives disappears when he meets and falls in love with Ramona Flowers, a woman his own age who has a lot more going on. This is complicated by the fact that Knives is falling in love with him, or at least the adventure and independence he represents to her. In attempting a retreat to a simpler time (he even takes Knives by his childhood home, though is family moved out), he unwittingly open’s her eyes to a new world where she can try things she never imagined doing before.

That is only the beginning of the complications. To date Ramona, he must defeat her seven evil exes. Fortunately, Scott is a good fighter, having learned from video games (his defeated opponents disappear in a “pop” leaving a little pile of coins behind). In this volume, the first evil ex makes his appearance.

The fight may be the main fantasy element of the book, but fantastic things begin with Ramona, who skates through Scott’s dreams to deliver packages because a subspace highway runs through his head—and there isn’t much traffic there. An opposing band knocks out the crowd with lightning and Kirby crackle. Scott’s Toronto is a little bit magical.

One can probably read this book as a stand-alone story. However, it is definitely the start of a series. If you can’t leave something at “to be continued,” you may want to skim the series to see if you’re willing to commit. Alternatively, the movie adaption presents the main story line for the whole series.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Film)

What's New April 7, 2010

Interesting Stuff April 7, 2010
My juvenile delinquent googleganger breaks loose:
-Escaped teen inmates surrender-Escaped teen inmates turn themselves over to police
-Teens escape from Terrebonne Juvenile Center
-Teens escape from Terrebonne Juvenile Center
My other googleganger makes video games
The Private Investigator’s Handbook by Chuck Chambers
What's New April Fool's Day 2010

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by Bryan Lee O’Malley

O’Malley, Bryan Lee. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Portland, OR: Oni Press, 2005.


Scott Pilgrim is an immature jerk. You might like him, though. He’s in a cool band. Though he’s a coward in ordinary thing, he’s incredibly brave in fantastical fisticuffs.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a continuation of the titular character’s adventure that started in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Precious Little Life. The boiled down version of the six-volume series of graphic novels is that Scott must defeat Ramona Flowers’ seven evil exes to win the right to date her.

In this second book, Scott defeats the second evil ex, a vain movie star who used to be a skate boarder. It’s a funny scene, but other parts of the book are better.

We get to see Scott create his own evil ex when he breaks up with his girlfriend, high-school girl Knives Chau. It’s probably a good thing for him to break up with Knives, but Scott is insensitive, selfish, and untruthful. In this sense, Knives isn’t evil in the grand sense of hating all that is good. She’s a wounded, jealous girl who is acting a little crazy, which is evil enough. It leads to one of the books fight scenes (they have the feel of video games and comics, which is a strange mix of weird and accepted in the fantasy of Toronto), which is longer and cooler than Scott’s fights.

Though Knives seems to be almost dismissed early in the book and could be dismissed as a nut in the middle, her story arc begins to open up in this volume. It’s not strictly a fall, but is a move from seemingly innocent ignorance to knowledge of the scary world of young adulthood and complicated relationships. Scott introduced her to this world, but he a poor guide. He would have been a poor guide even if he hadn’t abandoned her.

O’Malley reveals more about Scott’s other relationships. It looks like he might have a string of wounded exes. This includes band mate Kim and Envy Adams, leader of rival band The Clash at Demonhead.

O’Malley’s art in this and other Scott Pilgrims book is a little like manga with big-eyed characters. It is also simplified, cartoony. It has a rough feel. It’s better than I’ve made it sound. The black and white art is textured. It has varied, sometimes painterly, lines. It is full small touches that convey emotion, especially humor. Whatever one might think of the style, I’d say it is good comic book are because it interestingly conveys the story and reveals (not just depicts) the characters.

Bryan Lee O’Malley also wrote
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life


If your interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Film)