For decades, gaming has been a male-dominated activity, with the fabled "girl gamer" existing mostly in myth, spoken of quietly in a darkened alley. Times are changing, and these days it's a pretty common occurrence to find a young female who plays video games. This means that the younger generation of males should have little trouble finding a mate who shares his passion.

The older among us had to either be supremely lucky, or had to convert a non-gaming girl into one who plays, or be sad and lonely for the rest of our lives. I am happy to report that I have officially achieved the second choice in that short list. But how?

Well, it all started more than a year ago, before my girlfriend and I were even officially together. What was the gateway game/system I used to lure her into our dingy basement world? It was Clubhouse Games for the DS.



Think about it. It's perfect! While we were snuggled up on my couch in my 54 degree apartment (screw you, upstate New York!), all she had to think about was how insanely attracted she was to me, since she already knew how to play most of the games. And of course, the game is entirely navigated and played through the touch screen, and it actually works intuitively. There is hardly any barrier to entry, and it shows what a fun and social experience one can get from gaming. A few months later, she bought her own DS and a copy of Clubhouse Games.

Of course, I don't know if we could necessarily say she became a gamer at that point. I needed to do more.

So at some point during the summer, I bought her another game I thought she might get a kick out of. I should have known, considering the spell the GameCube version put on me back in the day, but I was not expecting her to play it so religiously. Which game? Why, it was Animal Crossing: Wild World, of course.



We spent that summer apart, so this game was an ideal fit for us. We spent several nights on the phone, meanwhile exploring each others' towns over wi-fi. We shared fruits, helped each other get fossils we were missing (I still remember the joy she showed when I gave her the last fossil she needed to complete her museum exhibit), and pushed each other into Pitfall Seeds.

Over the following year, I slowly lost interest in the game, as I had already done it all before. But to this day, I think my girlfriend has only missed a week or so. She buys turnips on Sundays, shops at Redd's on Wednesdays, and always makes sure to get her song from K.K. Slider on Saturdays. I think I have her hooked.

But you, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, you're sitting there saying, "Clubhouse Games and Animal Crossing? Big deal!" Well, for you, the story goes on.

See, after being apart for a year, we've finally been reunited recently. Now that we're physically together again, I decided maybe I could get her to "graduate" to the big ones. But being seasoned veterans, we sometimes forget how daunting an XBox 360 controller can be to somebody who hadn't owned a game system since the Atari 2600. My strategy for this? XBox Live Arcade.



Much like Clubhouse Games before it, she was already familiar with some of the games I have on XBLA. Namely, Catan, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride are all board games that I also own in real life. I showed her how to navigate the menus, and in no time she was playing on her own while I was off at work. The ease and accessibility of XBLA certainly facilitated the process, and now I'm glad to see that she can find her way around the 360's interface like a pro now.

You're still thinking, "But those are still just casual games!" I know. Shut up.

A little while ago, I started playing Lost Odyssey. "Come check out these dream sequences," I said to her. "Some of them are actually really sad." I invited her to watch me play the game, as it comes from a pedigree known for incredible storytelling. This all brings me to the reason I decided to write this blog. The other day, she told me that she wants to play Lost Odyssey herself. I was thrilled.

I immediately went through my collection looking for other games I want her to experience. Bioshock, Zack & Wiki, Beyond Good & Evil, Psychonauts, Katamari Damacy, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Phoenix Wright, Hotel Dusk... I can't help but get giddy now just imagining her experiencing these games, with me there by her side.

And so, a gamer is born, and I hope to share many more of these experiences with her.