29 - Memories: Games #1 - The Beginning
Another deep dive into the childhood of Vince! This is the first of a slew of posts about the gaming history of my youth - personal stories that hopefully don't bore you. I'll release one every so often so that it's not clogging up your enjoyment of this newsletter - and I completely understand if you zone out - I'm indulging in nostalgia :D
My first gaming console was a Gameboy Pocket. It was the tiniest thing ever - perfect size for my hands. I don't even remember what I played on it, but I do remember when I moved to a Gameboy Colour - Transparent Purple edition - that it was the most wonderful thing in the world.
I played through multiple counterfeit versions of games with cartridges we would get from Hong Kong - pirated, of course, but mostly still fine to play. Each of the cartridges would be either be 1. in Japanese or 2. a 400 games-in-1 for games for the valueeee. The first version of Pokemon I ever got seemed genuine, but was in full Japanese...so I can't confirm. I think I got through a few gyms before I gave up and got an English version. I got really good at recognizing what katakana meant 'Pokeball' since I had to buy them from shops!
It was a bit of an escape for me, a way other than books to retreat inside my own head. I remember bringing my Gameboy with me to big extended family dinners and events, lugging along a whole hoodie-ful of batteries (pretty sure that's a measurement) and a box full of game cartridges. I got to ignore all the grownups and just play Gameboy until all my batteries were done. It was bliss!
Once the batteries were gone though...oof!
I remember when we were on a trip in China somewhere (Guilin I think?), and I stayed in the tour bus while the rest of the group went shopping in the evening...or maybe it was a rest stop...it doesn't matter. I remember it was super dark, with the rain pattering on the window, the lights all off inside the bus, and all I had was this funky looking reading-light type thing attached to my Gameboy to see what was happening on my screen. And there, after what seemed like an eternity of grinding, I was able to finally evolve my Croconaw into a Feraligator - and NO-ONE WAS THERE TO SEE IT! It was a phenomenal achievement for a little boy who was banging away on his Gameboy for literally a week, ignoring as much of the scenery around him as possible, not knowing anything about the actual levels that things evolved at, reluctantly being pulled to go attend tea ceremonies and looking at weird mountains (that looked like a hand. or a horse. or an elephant).
What a time.
And lastly on this group of fond memories I'm having - I had found a great game on one of the many counterfeit cartridges I had - I think it was Dragon Quest (I'm very hazy on the exact game...)? But it was completely in Japanese (noticing a trend here? :D). I had no idea what moves I was doing, whether I was capturing anything, what any of the NPCs were doing or wanting from me, but it was just fun to attack monsters and hopefully defeat them. I didn't progress very quickly HAHA.
HOWEVER, at a holiday program that I used to do over school holidays (called Holiday Magic!!!), I found another young boy who was playing the same game and it was in ENGLISH (what a luxury - he didn't know how good he had it). I had legitimately thought the game was a Japanese exclusive and I had found something super rare (LOL). I latched on to him so that I could leech all of the information off him and, lucky for me, he was super into finding another friend who obsessed about the same thing!
I'm very nostalgic about that overwhelming excess of free time - it was something that I would love to go back to, but obviously know that I can't. These kinds of games are things we're all nostalgic about - and what game companies rely on to get you to buy new games.
I mean, it works. But I don't have the time to actually invest anymore...
Value your time, people! You only get to live it once :D
That's all for now!
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Twitch Plays Pokemon - in 2014, when I was still at uni and recruiting for the Electrical Engineering club, I stumbled upon this magnificent piece of Internet history - where Twitch started a play through of Pokemon Red, controlled entirely by chat. We religiously watched it while at O-week, and kept up with the lore of what was happening (randomly releasing pokemon from the computer, grinding out higher and higher levels of Bird Jesus, naming pokemon AAAAAAAAAAA - the best). Take a look at some highlights!
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The Nine Horses mountain - it's kinda a gimmick but apparently this mountain in Guilin developed in such a way that you can see 9 horses on it's face. The legend was that if you were able to pick out all 9 horses, you would be the Number One Scholar. However, one of the horses can only be seen from space. So that's a bit of a stitch-up isn't it?
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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The rise of Nintendo - An oldie but a goodie - reading the behind-the-scenes of gaming is really interesting. This company of Nintendo has had it's ups and downs, but is currently dominating the gaming world with the Nintendo Switch. It's not competing; it's in its own world. This piece talks about all the developments from its earliest history!
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Game Maker's Toolkit (Youtube) - I found this channel in my recommends after watching a Cuphead speedrun - it talks about a lot of really interesting game design challenges; how to deal with randomness, how to build interesting levels, and breaking down games into their component design decisions. Recommended if you enjoy game design content!
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Water Starters are the best - I just looked for an article that confirms my bias. Sue me.
🌱 The Calathea Corner
I like seeing when Feleafcia pulls her leaves together like this...it looks like a crown!
