I’m here to tell you a story. Not one story but many. It is a story both of conquests and of doubt, of revelation and of struggle. It is a personal tale, and has no real meaning.
It is summer. We leave for the blasted hills of Arizona on some fool’s errand. The hills are red, and classic rock of some kind or another is blaring over the radio. But the ride back will be a bitter one, with regret showering over the flower-capped peaks and ruddy rivers as we meander back to the source. The journey brings to mind an old song, too, one which might lay in the gulf of history for a while:
“In the long, long trip of growing,
There are stops along the way
For thoughts of all the soft things
And a look at yesterday.”
The hotel is wide, old people cheerful or pathetic are milling about. The technology is above all weak. I felt sad, then. Sad for so many things, and a little belligerent too. So I cast my mind in the direction of games.
It is 12:00 at night. I am playing Actraiser, for the first time. My mother and sister have settled down to sleep, in the creaking, cramped bed of a miserable resort room. Hell’s vacation.
I am playing Actraiser, and I am the lord striking vengeance upon the legions of damned souls. I bring light to cities, build a simple civilization toward greatness. The people love me when I rid them of gorgons. I attack dread naga, volcano demons and desert birds. The desert in the game is barren, a blasted asphalt ruin for me to run, a crusading antelope in the garden of wicked spite.
It runs late into the night.
And There Was Light
After awhile I began to dread. Some beast. The pools were painted with murals, warped storybook effigies in purple and pink. They were demon woozles, gnashing jagtoothed. But then I turned my attention to Gods, and conquests and other things.
The next day, milling about the lobby, an endless line of people envision screens, all too real. I check Penny-Arcade.
The first and greatest gaming webcomic.
And Tycho wrote something that I will not soon forget, concerning games chiefly, of many kinds:
“I can remember when it started, truly started. Chits were no longer sufficient to really encompass the hitpoints of his most powerful Pokémon cards, so he began using a d10 for the first digit.
After that, it was only a matter of time.
Perhaps the dice themselves evoke something, that their shape refracts the structures of life into their numerical girders. At two o’clock in the morning, he began to argue (with much heat and light) about the possible interpretations of a particular card and its grave implications. I saw the rules lawyer well up in him, a hunger for the bright, certain shapes of clean systems and the dark shadows they cast.
Eventually, even these wide realms will no longer contain him. He’ll want to do something those iconic mechanisms could never describe. When that happens, I will unfold my DM’s screen, fix my clasp, and tell him that he can feel the wind from the northeast.”
There is so much wisdom in those lines. So much knowledge, escapism. That is what games evoke, most of all.
A wise man once said this:
“Only the skilled may live. The rest will die.”
There is truth in this too, so much truth. Too much, in fact. What I want are lies. Glorious lies, crafted like glazed confections in the diamond sun of a candy shop. I want to dream, at least a little. Sometimes, Power beckons. But all too often, Power is too much. Earning power is daunting. Tycho said it right. We don’t crave the good, the powerful, so much as we crave the interesting. As long as I’m interested in a game, I’ll play it without much chagrin. But after aeons of wear, tatters and scars on this old frame, I want simplicity.
Games are my calling, then. Games so interesting, but not so challenging. Games both complex and accessible. Civilization, Metal Slug, Zork. These are the games that will be with me forever. Those which allow power, but allow freedom. Those which encourage mastery, but do not demand it. Games that look nice, control fluidly, sound fresh.
Tycho narrated it, then. He’s lain down the hallowed tabletop, stretched maps and numbers across it. He’s called the armies, and the warrior vagrants, and the wizards to their prime. And in that moment, I see it all.
“The Wind From The Northeast”
Some of us were made to be kings, and live alone, in the empty towers, without women, without friends, above reality. Some of us were made to be deadbeats, and live below, with the earth and the men who know nothing.
I know whose side I’m on.
