We have all been there. You are staring at the screen, eyes dry, patience thinning. You have tried every key combination. You have jumped on every platform. You have talked to that one NPC until they started repeating the same three lines of dialogue that are now burned into your brain.
You are stuck.
There is a weird sense of pride in gaming. We feel like we have to solve everything ourselves. If we look up a walkthrough, we admit defeat. We let the game win. But let’s be real for a second—nobody has time to spend three weeks on a single water temple puzzle.
This isn’t about being bad at games. It’s about knowing the difference between a fun challenge and a waste of your precious time. Let’s talk about when it is okay to swallow your pride and look up the answer.
The Pride Problem: Why We Refuse Help
Gamers are stubborn. It is built into the hobby. We grind for hours to get a slightly better sword. We restart levels to get a perfect score. That stubbornness is usually a good thing. It makes the victory taste sweeter.
But there is a dark side to it. We convince ourselves that looking up a solution is “cheating.” We worry that if we don’t figure it out alone, we didn’t really beat the game.
Here is the truth: game design is not always perfect. Sometimes a puzzle doesn’t make sense because you are missing something, but sometimes it’s because the developer made it obscure for no reason.
The “Stuck” Spectrum
Not all “stuck” is created equal. There are different levels of frustration, and identifying where you are can help you decide if it is time to open a browser tab.
Table 1: The Emotional Stages of Being Stuck
| Stage | Feeling | What’s Happening in Your Brain | Should You Look It Up? |
| The Initial Wall | “Wait, what?” | mild confusion. You missed a cue or a path. | No. Give it 10 minutes. |
| The Determined Grinder | “Okay, I can do this.” | Problem-solving mode. You are testing theories. | No. This is the fun part. |
| The Frustrated Gamer | “Are you kidding me?” | Anger is setting in. You are trying the same thing over and over. | Maybe. Take a break first. |
| The Hollow Shell | “I hate this game.” | You aren’t having fun. You are just doing it out of spite. | Yes. Immediately. |
The Three-Strike Rule
If you need a hard rule to follow, try the Three-Strike Rule. It keeps you honest but prevents you from wasting your entire weekend.
- Strike One: The First Fail. You try your idea, and it doesn’t work. You try again. You look around the room. You check your inventory. This is normal gameplay.
- Strike Two: The “Sleep On It.” You have been stuck for an hour. Turn the game off. Go outside. Eat a sandwich. Sleep. Your brain solves problems in the background. If you come back fresh and still can’t get it, that’s strike two.
- Strike Three: The Rage Quit. You are no longer playing; you are suffering. You are thinking about uninstalling the game. This is the limit.
Once you hit strike three, the game is no longer serving its purpose. Games are supposed to be entertainment, not a second job that you don’t get paid for.
Context Matters: Genre vs. Patience
Different games demand different levels of patience. Getting stuck in a high-speed action game is different from getting stuck in a cryptic point-and-click adventure.
If you are playing a game purely for the story, getting blocked by a bad puzzle ruins the pacing. If you are playing a puzzle game, the whole point is the struggle.
Table 2: Game Genres vs. Patience Thresholds
| Genre | Expected Challenge | When to Fold |
| RPG (e.g., Skyrim, Witcher) | Exploration & Combat | If you can’t find the quest marker after 20 mins, look it up. The world is too big to be lost forever. |
| Puzzle (e.g., Portal, The Witness) | Logic & Observation | Fight the urge. Give it days. looking up the answer here essentially “skips” the gameplay. |
| Souls-like (e.g., Elden Ring) | Skill & Timing | Look up where to go or boss weaknesses, but don’t look up cheese strategies unless you are desperate. |
| Retro/Old School | Unfair difficulty | Look it up immediately. Older games often relied on selling strategy guides, so they were made confusing on purpose. |
How to “Cheat” Responsibly
Okay, you decided to look it up. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. You don’t want to accidentally read the ending of the game just because you couldn’t find a key.
The “Nudge” Method
Don’t just type “How to beat Level 5” into Google. That is a recipe for spoilers. Instead, try to find a nudge.
- Search for the specific room, not the whole level.
- Use “No Spoiler” walkthroughs. Many sites specifically hide spoilers behind tags.
- Ask a friend. If you have a friend who played it, ask them to give you a hint without telling you the answer.
Sometimes, just knowing what you are supposed to be looking for is enough. “You need the blue key” is better than “Walk here, click this, then fight the boss.”
Types of Guides
Not all internet help is the same. Knowing which one to pick can save your experience.
Table 3: Types of Guides and Risk Levels
| Guide Type | Description | Spoiler Risk | Best Used For |
| The Wiki | Encyclopedic data on everything. | High. You will see character deaths and plot twists in the sidebar. | Crafting recipes, drop rates, stats. |
| The “Let’s Play” Video | Watching someone else play. | Medium. You might see too much if you don’t pause fast enough. | Platforming sections where you need to see the timing. |
| Text Walkthrough | Step-by-step instructions. | Low. You can scroll slowly and stop reading once you get the hint. | Puzzles, riddles, and mazes. |
| Reddit/Forums | Discussions by other players. | Variable. Risky comments section. | Glitches, bugs, or very specific obscure problems. |
Troubleshooting Your Brain Before You Google
Before you alt-tab out of the game, do a quick system check on your own brain. Often, we get stuck because of “tunnel vision.” We focus so hard on one solution that we ignore the obvious one.
Here is a checklist to run through before you give up:
- Read the Journal/Log: seriously. Game developers put hints in there. Did you skip the dialogue? The answer was probably in that text box you mashed ‘A’ to get through.
- Check Your Inventory: Do you have a new item? A weird key? A note you picked up three hours ago? Read the item descriptions.
- Backtrack: Go back two rooms. Did you miss a lever? Is there a path you didn’t see because it was dark?
- Talk to Everyone Again: NPCs sometimes change what they say after certain events. Go bug them again.
Table 4: Internal Troubleshooting Checklist
| Tactic | Why It Works | Success Rate |
| Rubber Ducking | Explain the problem out loud to an imaginary duck (or your cat). | Surprisingly High. Speaking forces you to slow down your thinking. |
| The “Brightness” Hack | Turn up the brightness on your screen. | Medium. Sometimes the “puzzle” is just bad lighting. |
| Sound Check | Turn off music, turn up sound effects. | Low. Useful for audio cues like hidden walls or footsteps. |
| Button Mashing | Pressing everything on everything. | Low. It is desperate, but sometimes it finds hidden interactables. |
The “Git Gud” Toxic Mindset
You will hear people say, “You didn’t really beat the game if you used a guide.”
Ignore them.
There is a weird culture in gaming that values suffering. If you aren’t miserable, you aren’t doing it right. This is nonsense. Games are meant to be fun. If you are playing a massive open-world game and you can’t find the one cave entrance you need, wandering aimlessly for four hours isn’t “skill.” It is boredom.
Your time is valuable. You have work, school, family, or other games to play. Spending days stuck on a pixel-hunting puzzle doesn’t make you a better gamer; it just makes you a tired one. If you want to find some truly unique titles where getting stuck is part of the weird fun, you might check out WackyGame for some offbeat suggestions, but generally, respect your own time.
Signs You Are Just Torturing Yourself
- You are angry, not challenged.
- You are scrolling on your phone while playing because you are bored.
- You dread booting up the game.
- You have forgotten the plot because you’ve been in the same dungeon for a week.
If you hit any of these points, look up the solution. Get past the blockage. Enjoy the rest of the game.
The Benefit of The Walkthrough
There is actually a pro-side to using guides that people ignore. You learn things.
When you look up a solution, you often learn how the developer thinks. You realize, “Oh, they want me to use physics here,” or “Oh, breakable walls look like that.”
Once you learn the language of the game, you won’t need the guide as much. It is a learning tool, not a crutch. Plus, guides can show you secrets you would have missed entirely. How many people played Elden Ring or Dark Souls and missed entire huge areas because they were too proud to look at a map?
Don’t let pride make you miss half the content you paid for.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is it technically cheating to look up a guide?
Unless you are in a competitive e-sports tournament with cash prizes, no. In single-player games, you make the rules. If the game is broken or you are stuck, “cheating” to get unstuck is just fixing the pacing.
- Will using a guide ruin the sense of accomplishment?
It can, if you overuse it. If you look up the solution the second you see a puzzle, yes, you will rob yourself of the “Aha!” moment. But if you have been stuck for hours, the relief of moving on feels better than the frustration of staying stuck.
- What if I look up the solution and I still can’t do it?
This is common in skill-based games. Knowing how to beat a boss doesn’t mean you have the reflexes to do it. In this case, the guide didn’t help you cheat; it just gave you a strategy. You still have to execute it. Keep practicing.
- Where is the safest place to find spoiler-free help?
Reddit communities (subreddits dedicated to the game) are usually great. You can post a thread saying, “I am stuck at X, please give me a small hint without spoilers.” Humans are better at giving nuanced hints than static wiki pages.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, gaming is your hobby. It is something you do for joy, for escape, or for a thrill. It is not a test of your moral character.
If you are stuck for days, and that “stuckness” is turning your relaxation time into stress time, look up the answer. Close the tab as soon as you get the info you need, and get back to playing. Don’t let a single bad puzzle ruin a great game.
Be smart about it. Try the “three-strike” rule. troubleshoot your brain first. But when all else fails, use the internet. That is what it is there for. Now, go beat that level.
