Today’s writing prompt for the annual “Bloganuary” blogging escapade is “Do you play in your daily life? What says ‘playtime’ to you?”.
I do play!
I am of the generation that grew up with the first home video games. I remember my parents coming home with an Atari 2600 back in the early 1980s, and our house becoming the most popular in the street for quite some time. Oh, the thousands of space invaders we shot down, and ghosts we ate that summer.
Video games have never been a focus though - they were just there. They were always there. I suppose, looking back, games were not designed back then to encourage more than a few minutes of fun - they were originally designed for coin-op machines in pubs, bars, and fast-food restaurants to extract money from people at a rate they didn’t complain too much about. A few coins bought a few minutes of entertainment.
We won’t talk about my brother “clocking” pacman that summer - a four hour session sitting in front of the television in the lounge while I probably complained that I wanted to watch Captain Caveman on the single television in the house.
A couple of years later a “proper” computer arrived in the house - my Christmas present - and the beginning of a journey that continues today. I played games with it, learned to program with it, and didn’t go out very much for quite some time. Thankfully I had a pretty fast metabolism, so didn’t end up with a backside the size of Jupiter - although forty years later that situation has changed somewhat.
You know that “running” thing I’ve been doing recently? It’s no accident that I’m doing it.
A succession of computers and video game machines passed through our house over the years - and continue to do so. Just this week I took delivery of a Nintendo Switch (I’m always several years behind the curve), and delighted in the discovery that you can play NES, SNES and Gameboy games on it. Before dinner I tortured my other half with a modern take on Tetris for a few minutes - the famous theme music re-imagined as a dance anthem, pounding from the TV in the lounge.
If I have one failing, it is that I don’t really “play” games like most people. I figure them out. The interest for me is in the mechanics of their gameplay - the decisions and design behind the curtain. Growing up, it was always fascinating that my brother would be immediately good at video games (he still is) - but that if I persevered, I would surpass him. We are wired SO differently - and yet once you realise that I’m not really playing a game as a game, it makes a lot of sense.
Alongside all of the video and computer games, I’ve always been interested in chess too. I’ve never been particularly good at it, and never will be - but it fascinates me endlessly. There’s a famous quote - I’m not sure who said it - that the winner of a game of chess is the person that made the least mistakes - or made one less mistake. Something like that. I sometimes watch the “Grandmasters” play on YouTube, and can’t help but be enthralled by their skill, memory, and foresight.
Of course computers have been able to beat people at chess for years now - which just goes to prove that “man the toolmaker” will always beat “man the artist”, given enough time and resources.
Anyway.
Yes. I play games. Everything from Space invaders, to Manic Miner, Mario, Sonic, Duke Nukem, Halo, Zelda, and more.
Of course at some point along the way I also started tinkering with flight simulators - but that’s another story for another day.