This post was created as part of my Nexon PEAK activities.

MapleStory's boss practice mode lets me practice as much as I want without worrying about buff consumables,

and I really like being able to focus on just the phases I struggle with.

Boss practice attempts used to be limited to 5 a day,

and practice mode didn't provide free buffs, so I had to buy and use my own buff items.

Even those buffs would disappear when my character died, so I had to buy Buff Freezers from the Cash Shop...

MapleStory really has come a long way.

After spending time in boss practice mode focusing on phase 3, the one I struggled with,

I finally beat Easy Kaling, a boss I'd wanted to beat for a long time,

and now I'm practicing Easy 벨로나.

Lately, I've been playing Tales Runner on the side,

and when I headed to the Beginner Channel right after finishing the tutorial,

I felt out of my depth—I was the only beginner, and everyone else was so good.

I've been practicing in Solo Run since then, but Tales Runner has been around about as long as MapleStory,

and there are so many maps that are tough for a new player, not to mention all the confusing items, that I've been doing a lot of Googling to figure it all out.

Once I'd gotten the hang of jump dashes while running solo and beaten NPCs on a variety of maps,

I felt more confident, so today I worked up the courage to head to the Beginner Channel and play with other people.

There were so many difficult maps that most of the time I couldn't even reach the finish line, but...

when a map I'd practiced in Solo Run came up, I managed to finish 3rd,

and I even came 1st! So that's what it feels like to be on the podium...

I loved seeing my pretty character up there, nice and bigㅎㅎ

I'd expected even the Beginner Channel to be full of veterans, and thought I'd just get stomped,

but there were actually plenty of Tales Runner newbies like me, so I had fun playing.

Competitive games really are more fun when everyone's around the same skill level!