How Did I Get Here?
or a history of the games i played ages ago
The first blog post is always the hardest. The weirdest. The one that has the most pressure put on it, and also the least. As it stands, I’m confident no one will see this except for maybe my partner if I send it to him, and yet, I’m hopeful it’ll find its way onto the screen of at least one other like minded individual who’ll click subscribe and somewhere down the line become my BFF. Making friends as an adult is for a whole other blog so let’s start with what this is really about.
I’m sure you guessed from the title and perhaps the “about” page if you navigated there, that this blog is about video games, but what about them? I’m mostly going to write about my experiences playing them on casual mode in video games. I almost always play games on casual/easy/story mode. The “almost” is for the times it isn’t an option (I’m looking at you, Ocarina of Time!)
The thing is, I’m pretty new to video games. Sure, I had a GameBoy in the 90’s with exactly four games - Tetris (of course), Super Mario Land (a classic), Barbie: Game Girl (incredible), and Dr Franken (Okay, I have a whole post in my head about this game, fyi)
I have wonderful memories of playing on friends’ Nintendo 64s - the epic Mario Kart races and freaking ourselves out playing multiplayer on Goldeneye. Christmas 1998 saw my younger sister get a Playstation 1 loaded with some demos including MediEvil (which we both played to death) and the fun, but frustratingly difficult Spice Girls game Spice World.
After that, as far as I can recall, I didn’t play a video game for another 20 years.
Two whole decades!
I know, it’s wild.
For a long time, I couldn’t figure out what happened, or why. I could say life got in the way, and it probably did to some extent. My partner, whom I’ve known almost that long, loves video games and has always played them around me. He’s owned various consoles over the years, eventually getting a fancy gaming PC. Later on, we realised that the games he’s into (mostly things to do with logistics and errr… FIFA although that period of his life is over now lololol) weren’t my kinda thing. So what was my gateway back into the world of video games?
It was 2018, an artist I followed on social media posted some fanart of a character from a visual novel they’d played. I liked the look of it, searched for it, played it, loved it, immediately opened an ao3 account….
I WAS BACK!
It was as simple as that. I was hooked on the story driven narrative, stunning artwork and ease of access due to a lot of VN’s being readily available on mobile phones for free (to a degree.) As someone who was starting to take writing more seriously (my background was mostly in poetry and both nonfiction and fandom zine making, but I was slowly working towards a degree in Creative Writing in the hope it would help me gain more confidence to write fiction) this way of storytelling was a revelation!
What does this have to do with casual mode? Well, visual novels are essentially what they say they are - a novel with pictures or artwork. They’re by no means “difficult” to play. I know there’s plenty of discourse around over whether VN’s are considered games and I don't want to go too deep into that, but I will say that I personally wouldn't question something that has such intricate and sometimes beautifully written, branching storylines that rely on the “player’s” choices to decide the outcome of the story. To me, that’s a game, and that's where my journey into becoming a fully fledged gamer began and where this first post comes to an end.
What were your first games, and did you ever take a big break from them?
Oh, and the visual novel that I mention above is The Arcana. I’d love to say “you’re welcome!” but apparently its monetised system has reached new levels of daylight robbery. If you have a favourite VN, I’d love to hear about it. Especially if it’s one you can purchase outright.
Omg this is too cute! I'm so excited for your blog!