Megaman, Negotiation and the Importance of the Credibility Meter

My son has recently discovered one of Nintendo’s earliest games: Megaman (see picture above). Megaman is a blue robot that runs around shooting evil robots with his plasma blaster. On the top left side of your television screen, there is a “health meter” that starts full with yellow health lines which reduces to black little by little every time Megaman is hurt. He can restore health meter by destroying a robot or finding batteries and returning his health meter back to full. Once there is no further health remaining, Megaman “dies”. As I watch my son play this game (and as I “reluctantly” take over the challenging levels), it occurs to me that this is a great analogy for the importance of credibility in negotiations, specifically conflict resolution.