You might not think that gaming – mostly both sedentary and fun – has much in common with the traditional grim January resolutions of exercise and abstinence.
But games do know something about teaching new behaviour. They frequently start with a "tutorial level", practising the skills you'll need to play the game – but unlike new year's resolutions, tutorials are often fun.
Pacing is all important: too slow and you get bored; too fast and you end up randomly mashing buttons trying to get out of "crouch". The parallel with resolutions is obvious: keep it interesting for yourself, but no trying to run before you can walk. Or stop crouching. A good tutorial also teaches one thing at a time. As Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman suggests, the key to following through on resolutions could be to pick just one thing and stick with it till you've mastered it.
The exception is Minecraft – an indie game that has sold almost a million copies. Minecraft has no tutorial level. You arrive in the pixellated world holding a stick. There's no indication of what you can do, or what your goals are. It's only when night comes – and with it the walking dead – that you realise you have to build a shelter, but you still don't know how to do that. I've only got anywhere with Minecraft by getting my friends to explain it.
Which is perhaps the final lesson games can teach us about new year's resolutions: the best tutorial, and the best support, are other people who have done it themselves.
