I played Fortnite for the first time in my life yesterday.

For those who don’t know, Fortnite is a popular, battle royale-style video game where you compete against 100 other players (or, in my case, 100 other teams) to be the last player standing.

My kids have played a lot of Fortnite, to the point where they became burned out on it. But with my wife out of town for a few days, my daughter wanted some daddy-daughter time. She asked if she could teach me how to play Fortnite.

Against my better judgment, I said, “sure.”

I won’t lie–I enjoyed the game more than I thought I would and I especially enjoyed the time with my daughter.

Here are a few things I want to share about my experience.

It’s good to embrace a learning curve.

I downloaded the game and made my account. But when it came time to choose the event we’d play and put it together so we could play as a “duo,” I was clueless.

It got worse. In the first game, I had a huge learning curve just with movement, on top of learning how the controls worked.

I was tempted to get frustrated, but I leaned back on the couch and just enjoyed the time with my daughter. The learning curve was good, and I saw improvement from the hours (yes, hours) that I played the game with my daughter.

black sony ps 4 game controller — Photo by Igor Karimov 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

You have to be willing to rely on others, even younger people.

When we started playing, I could not figure out the controls. My daughter showed me what to do, but when we got into the game, I was still at a loss.

I had to learn from her, and rely on her to teach me and show me what to do.

We tend to keep ourselves when we need to be more open to relying on and learning from others. This is especially true with people who are younger than us. We need to be open to learning from anyone we can.

It’s always good to spend time with your kids.

By the time we were done, we had spent hours playing the game together. We had some success in the game (finishing top 5 twice with another top 10 thrown in), but more importantly, my daughter enjoyed the time we spent together.

I haven’t always spent this kind of time doing what my kids wanted to do. When they were younger, I struggled with taking the time away from my own interests to be with them. I regret that and am now willing to spend a big chunk of my day with them, doing what they want.

Fortnite is not my favourite game, nor is it a game I will likely play on my own, but it was a valuable time and experience with my daughter. I’m thankful that we shared that time together.

Simple Spirituality

What I Learned From Playing Fortnite With My…