On the day I was born there was only one telephone in the whole village. So imagine my mother’s misfortune, trying to reach my father that she is in labor, while he was at work. Though I lived in a village that had no telephones or internet and computers were rare, you could say games have managed to shape my life in one way or another. No, I don’t often write about games or even think about them now days. But there was a few posts that jogged a road trip along the memory lane. Selecting only a few games can be challenging and I had to think quite hard which four to put on the pedestal.
The first one was easy.
Bomberman aka Dyna Blaster. It was my first encounter with games and we used to play it at my cousins house on NES. You could easily say a new dimension opened up for me. True … I was a child but in contrast to some I was a child who grew up with close to zero technology. So an old TV and a box plugged into it might as well be magic. Lucky for me my father has had a tendency for gaming too and was probably my age back then so we got our own set soon after. The world of gaming opened a tad further, but I will never forget this game and time spent with my father playing it.
When I was a teen I got my first computer (again thanks to my father) and with it the exploration of the era of DOS games.
In Warcraft I really loved the versatile characters. Like ants or bees or even humans, each holding their function to get to the common goal. It was the strategy and well again … the magic. For the same reason I also liked The Vikings and had a hard time deciding which game to put on no. 2. Though The Vikings are to some a much different game and not even closely in the same category. In some aspects I liked it more because of the riddles behind it. But Warcraft was the one that ate my time. It was not a game you hit pause on and went outside and played with your friends. Warcraft was a game that ate a chunk of my teen years I could have been outside and breathe the air with the rest of Homo sapiens.
Grim Fandango. It was so bizarre and enchanting. It was simply weird and pulling. It was also a start of riddle loving era. After that game I only played riddle, puzzle, adventure and escape the room sort of games for the longest time. It clicked. I finally found my purpose. Solving issues and problems. It was satisfactory. It also made sense on a personal level and now looking at my life, my relationships, my profession and who I am as a person. I’m a finisher.
I could easily place 10 more games that had an impact in my life. But the last has got to be Travian. In a way it was a silly game and not much to it. A pizza looking village and a bunch of numbers rolling around. What made the game interesting is the people. I have played that game for years and in different roles. I have met quite a few people from it in real life. The game was … emotional. That is the best way I can describe it. One server lasted for one year. I have actively played 5 of them. I do not know how I finished college. At some points when the war was raging I didn’t sleep for days. I breathed the game and at the very end realized that while I have learned a lot … I have also lost a lot. After my last server I fell of the grid … exhausted and sprinkled with a bit of resentment. It was my biggest lesion I guess.
Gaming for a break is fine. Living for the game is not.
And since I have to nominate two people I'm selecting @holoz0r and @mobbs for this occasion.
You can read more about the chalenge here.