Last year during a zero dollar period I wrote this cardboard sign "Rhymes for Dimes". It worked and I had to write a lot of these to back up the performance.
I was out of a house about 3 years and was evolving upon an old pan handling habit (and strangely knowledge from my former marketing major) after I was housed and couldn't make ends meet on part time. I felt like I had to give a little something back so I did the rhyme thing, got a lot of positive feedback for it and kept doing it the whole spring summer and fall. I usually go for long rhyme chains with some sort of message behind them which vents about my situation in a humorous way in exchange for, well basically anything, even if its just a smile or a crooked look.
This year I'm trying to be more money smart and keep the performance to the local coffee shops poetry slam and open mic. I have small entrepreneurial goals and will relegate the paid performance to a suggestion on the tip jar for a while. The going business plan is street and fresh market pretzels :)
Alternitavely my life goes to the shitter again and I have something to lean on thats slightly less soul killing than the depressed approach to panhandling.
Anyways I trailed off there but my point was that its fascinating how different skills can develop together in weird ways.
Its funny you bring up video game mechanics as a thought device for real life. When I think of a longterm challenge I can slowly chip away at, like a savings or payment plan, building skills and experience, or even a long walk, I think about all those times I pulled off a long grind in Runescape haha.
Paper Mario was one of my favorite games as a kid haha. My life transformed for a while but I always held on to the nerd memories. I imagined like I was living in Fallout a lot of the time.