Misspent Youth

“Why do we play games?” is a question bandied around in circles both grand and common. I know that I play for many reasons; but perhaps some of them are tied-up in the misty past of misspent youth, and time and talent wasted.

YarsRevenge_CartI was introduced to games early on. I remember ancient Space Invader and Bubble Bobble machines in shops selling chips. I remember randomly being dumped on a friend of my dad’s one day, because they needed someone to look after me. And…, being a pain in the ass, they set me in front of an aging BBC Micro and loaded up Elite (instant silence and an end to questions was their just reward for this masterstroke). I remember my oldest friend and an Atari set up in his living room. There was Pong, and something called Yar’s Revenge (by odd coincidence, out now as part of Games Room), and Pac-Man ofcourse; but it was my beloved Joust that I remember most fondly. I remember finding friends in the children of a local schoolteacher, and their introducing me to the joys of Repton and Imogen; strange characters in stranger worlds, who were part of a living, breathing puzzle. But all of these were just stolen moments. Chances grabbed by an opportunist kid somehow drawn to the flashing lights of vector-drawn graphics and 2d-sprites on out-of-date hardware (even then) and out-of-place games. No, it wasn’t until later that I was really to get the chance to play.

arcade

Seaside towns, with seafront businesses; candy cane and candy floss; yellow man and dulce (don’t ask; they’re local things – one sweet, one salt); sunny days and castles made of sand…, this is where I grew up. Amid an era when tourism stayed to the island on which you were born. Where tiny baggage allowances and low-cost flights were still but a dream in Michael O’Leary’s fevered brain. I was lucky to be a child when the arcades were still to be found. Palaces of entertainments, monuments to man’s ever-demanding search for joy; I lived in a Golden Age. Smoke-filled and saccharine, they were places as exotic and noise-filled as a Moroccan bazaar, populated by strange tribes with their own language and rules of social etiquette. And although children, and adults both, made their pilgrimage to these temples throughout the Summer months, I was that rare thing; a local child. A child who could play all year round, who could face row upon row of gleaming cabinets on wet Winter days, sharing these enormous spaces with just a handful of souls. No queuing, no distractions, no fuss. Heaven, in a town with little else to occupy in the cold Winter months.

Super_SprintIt was here that I would cut my teeth and earn my spurs as a gamer, peering up at JAMMA cabinets twice as tall as I was. For an hour or so a day, I’d strive to make loose change last forever, and hometime never come. At first it was just the thrill of doing well; of learning to fly where once I stumbled. But very quickly it was more than that. I’d found a refuge in a place filled with puzzles, where the difficulties of the day were cast aside as carelessly as the schoolbag I abandoned on the floor. I’d drop a coin in the slot, find my hands unconsciously in position to play, and instantly feel better about my day. Dropped into a land with unique rules, where action and consequence could be first understood, then predicted, even mastered. Why the blocks fall this way; how a specific enemy behaves.

When I look at the way I play now, I see reminders of the child I was. The unconscious manner in which I hold a joypad – I’d have to stop and think to tell you what any of the buttons do, yet moves and sequences flow effortlessly from my hands. The world still falls away to a forgotten shadow as I get to grips with a new game, and new rules. Whatever the time, whichever the game, a part of me is always that little kid, lost in world’s not of his making. Delighted at each new twist and turn of discovery, and in each new skill acquired. And just as easily shedding the troubles of reality as I strive to make one life last forever, and hometime never come. Well, not until I’ve left my worries behind, anyway.


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2 responses to “Misspent Youth”

  1. noozles avatar
    noozles

    Smiled all the way through this blog. We must be pretty much the same age….

  2. Michael avatar

    Ah, this brings back memories of summer trips to Bundoran and Portrush! 😀

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