West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

>

These words, displayed on the screen of an Apple ][e in a small cliffside home in Victoria B.C., are part of one of my earliest memories. I couldn't have been more than 5 at the time, so my father would read the passages to me and ask what we should do next, typing my shrill demands into a chunky, spring-loaded keyboard. More often than not the computer would respond with a demand for clarification but we got far enough to get a few points or die on occaision.

I wish I could say something dramatic like "THAT was when I knew..." but it was kind of a slow burn. There were a few more games on the Apple that got some play, and I wouldn't so much as see a Nintendo for a few years, so it was kind of an isolated experience. Kind of.

My dad is an old school nerd. Slide rules, thick glasses, math, and books. Lots of books. Yellowed copies of Conan, walls of everything from the masters (Heinlein, Tolkein, Asimov) to terrible genre fiction with shiny phallic rockets thrusting into the great unknown on the cover. He was also into games. Not so much computer stuff, it's mostly before his time, but other stuff. Role playing games, wargames. When my brother and I got a little older he ran us through campaigns and taught us a few wargames as well.



Okay, but where's this going aside from the distinct possibility that there were wedgies in my future? From an early age I was pretty much immersed in the idea that narratives and mechanics could go hand in hand. With a few numbers and a story you could be someone else, access a whole world that you'd otherwise never see. On the flip side I learned about competition, how it feels to come out on top or at least learn a little bit than you knew before. Finally, I learned that gaming is a great social activity. Be it crawling through dungeons while your Dad throws goblin hordes at you or screaming obscenities at your friends with their goddamned blue shells, it's a worthwhile way to kill time with the people you like.

I can't play Zork anymore, or most text adventures for that matter. The writing is usually pretty bad and GameFAQs has ruined nearly every puzzle game for me. Yeah, I'm weak. That isn't to say there isn't power in the medium though (if you haven't played 9:05, do it, do it now. It'll take like 15 minutes. ) and it's good to know your roots.

I'm a games are art hippie, a competitive twitch junkie, and will play just about anything if there are one or more people to laugh and scream at the screen with. Thanks Zork, thanks Dad.