Planning

Developing a systematic approach for setting and achieving goals.

Levels are populated with blocks, buttons, and computer terminals, and the player needs to determine the best way to navigate the room without meeting a gruesome end. Should he stand visible in any weapon-protected areas, he will swiftly learn the consequences. Getting through the death traps requires exploration, learning, and careful planning. Consider this scenario: He needs to get to Point A across the room but there is a turret gun in the way. So, he will have to find a way to cast a shadow (like with a block perhaps) that will allow him to pass under the turret undetected. Exploring his world allows is very important to seeing what he has to work with - in terms of threats (lasers, saws, etc) and helpful items like blocks. In the process, he can formulate a plan to accomplish the steps needed to finish the level.

The boss levels are good examples where the Planning skill must be used to have any chance of surviving. The center of the boss rooms hold a rotating gun turret that is ready to fry the poor clone the instant he's visible. Every move he makes must be planned in advance with purpose and care, or else the clone will pay the ultimate sacrifice. Moving at whim, regardless of where lasers are pointed or shadows are cast, is the easiest way to end of the life of yet another clone. Not the mention, that the player won't be able to earn any S ranks or unlock special levels - without using Planning skills, that is.

Focus

Getting started and then maintaining attention and effort to tasks.

While Planning skills help the player and his clone get through a level, Focus skills work on getting achieving else: the target time, target death count, target sightings, and even those elusive Helixes. Trying to achieve the highest rank is not easy with strict limits on completion time, deaths, and sightings. Basically, the player will have to control his clone perfectly to obtain the goals and unlock the special levels in each sector. There's no way he will perfectly execute a level the first time he plays it though. As they say, practice makes perfect, so he can expect to play levels or parts of them over and over again before getting it just right. Essentially: do, learn, redo. Failing is learning, as he begins to understand the way to do (and not do!) things. Focus skills to get him through the monotony of his repeated efforts, but the end results (personal satisfaction, extra levels, and S rank) are way worth it. Of course, the player could choose to disregard any attempt at reaching the targets, but he will only be hindering his gaming experience as special levels will remain unlocked and unexplored.

Working Memory

Recalling and retaining information in our mind while working.

As Planning skills helped get through a level, and Focus skills helped reached targets, Working Memory skills worked to ensure the clone's actions were executed seamlessly. There are a lot of mini steps to perform in each level, so when he replays one it's not that hard to forget something he did the first time. Replaying a level would be a waste of time if the player forgot how he did certain things - it would just eat up time to figure it out again. Swiftly remembering the "solutions" to each step of the level is, naturally, quite helpful in seamlessly zipping through it without being spotted or killed. When he recalls exactly what to do, in what order, and how, he can beat the targets and earn S rank.