Me and gaming have had a rocky relationship recently. My childhood friend has grown into a Corpo Fuck™ and, while I still love him when he comes over and we play indies together, every time we’re at a dinner and he starts talking spreadsheets and stocks and investments and layoffs I want to kick him in his stupid fucking shiny teeth.
That all is to say, the love has kind of diminished between us. When I was a kid it was all sunshine and rainbows, not necessarily because gaming never cared about money or investments, but because I was too young and naive to know about it all. As I got older, the seams not only became noticeable, but ripped and spread. Once a buddy simply making good money, now a billionaire fuckface that doesn’t know when to stop and has lost all sense of moral compass.
Ugh, sorry, I just saw some horrible news and it’s making this love letter harder and harder to write. It’s a hard industry to love right now and I don’t need to list all the reasons why – you know why, or you should. No, instead I’m here to reignite my passion and maybe yours as well, dear Reader. While the industry is in an extremely bad way right now, gaming itself is still a magnificent medium where brilliant artists from all walks of life get to express themselves and touch the hearts of people across the world. That’s what gaming is all about - connecting us all, telling stories, sharing experiences, bonding. No shareholder can take that away. No amount of economic downturn is going to stop people from telling their stories. No amount of generated art will ever take away the pencil from an artist hell bent on crafting their own world.
So in that spirit, I’m here to recollect all the major moments in my life that a game has been there, not just with me, but for me. While it may sound a bit melodramatic, there have absolutely been times where a game has taught me, brought new concepts to my attention, made me think about my life, and helped me navigate the world, who I am as a person, and who I want to become.
Let’s start from the beginning.
One of the first games I remember playing was Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, a point-and-click edutainment game for children. While fun, full of bright colors and animals (I’m a big animal lover), the biggest thing Putt-Putt did for me was teach me how to navigate the world on my own. Maybe this isn’t a unique experience, maybe it is, but my parents were never sitting there with me to help me with a game. The game was the parent in that moment and, if I couldn’t figure it out, well then I would never progress. Similar to Matilda in the famous book by Roald Dahl by the same name, I would have to put on my big girl pants and brace the harsh environment myself. Now, was I walking across a busy city to go rent a library book like Matilda? Well, no. But I was navigating a confusing world on my own, just like Matilda. The choice to take the first step may seem obvious to an adult, but as a child learning to not give up and find the answer all on my own was a really important moment for me. Being a kid with parents that weren’t necessarily always as present as they should have been, this was a skill I would need to employ again and again and I learned it playing a video game. Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, to be exact.
To this day Putt-Putt Saves The Zoo has an impeccable UI and overall aesthetic that I can't help but miss.
Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo wasn’t the only edutainment game I played, far from it, but it was the one that sunk its claws into me the most. And once those claws were in they never left. Around the same time, when I was in the 1st grade, one of my neighbors invited me over to play. I was so young I don’t even remember his name or how we met, but I remember spending some of the most fun days I had as a child over at his house. We played many things, bikes, G.I. Joe, marbles; but the thing we played with an almost religious reverence was Pokémon Stadium. The door closed, the lights off, two controllers, a quick harmonica blow into the cartridge before slotting it in the console, then flip the switch. “Pika!” H-e-double-hockey-sticks yeah, baby.
I don’t even know how we made it through most challenges. Did we? I can’t remember. Looking at videos nowadays some of these challenges seem impossible for a child. If I was confused playing Putt-Putt, how in the hell did I ever manage Pokémon Stadium? Honestly though, none of that mattered. That kid and his family became my family and my home away from home. I was there constantly, playing games, dancing to loud music, eating dinner. I barely remember my time at home back then, but I can blink and see my moments in that friend’s house. There was love in that household and I was privy to some of the most beautiful moments simply because I was a little gaming loving dork that bonded with their son. So, while I don’t even remember if we ever even beat the game, Pokémon Stadium holds a special place in my heart for the bond it was able to foster between me and that kid. Sorry I don’t remember your name, I wish I did. Thanks for being a family to me, even though it was such a short period of time. Thank you, also, for further igniting my passion for gaming. By this point in my life I had no gaming system and I’m neigh-positive I only got one because of this experience. Thank you.
Seriously, did any of us ever beat this one? Not to mention the single player battles -- yeesh!
From this point, I must have nagged my parents enough for them to get me a gaming system. Pokémon Stadium, for those that don’t know, is a game for the Nintendo 64 (N64 for short). I’m pretty sure I was asking them for that system over and over again but what I received instead was a Game Boy Advance (GBA for short). Was I disappointed? You bet your ass I wasn’t! Finally, a gaming system just for me! And it was portable? Unreal. It’s hard to even pick one game from this system that was there for me because it was, honestly, the entire system that was there for me. My parents weren’t the happiest couple and, thus, a lot of our excursions out into the world weren’t always the most fun. What was fun, however, was my GBA and I had a whole pack of on-brand and off-brand items to use in conjunction with it so I could play it seemingly anywhere and at seemingly anytime. Too dark at night? That’s okay, there’s a little book light you can use for it. Too loud in the car with your yelling parents? It's all good, there’s a headphone jack and over-the-ear headphones you can use with it. Wish you didn’t have to leave the comfort of your cartoons for a highly negative family dinner? No worries, there are game cartridges that are literally just Nickelodeon episodes. (My favorite was Spongebob and the Pizza Delivery episode, but there were plenty of others to watch.)
I played Donkey Kong Country, Excitebike, Home on the Range, Polly Pocket: Super Splash Island, Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission, Metroid. I remember them all so clearly. That little system was my lifeline. It kept me safe and happy. 10 PM dinners at Applebee’s where I wasn’t allowed to sing to the music playing on the speakers? Who cares? Just jump into the world of gaming. Be a secret agent. Be an armored woman saving the galaxy. Be a big ape getting his bananas back. Be anyone but me. Escapism. It saved me, that little system, the Game Boy Advance, and every single game I had for it.
I even remember finding a game with the label completely missing on my bus ride to school one morning, the strangest thing I had ever seen. The mystery of what the game could be and why someone took the label off and if I should put it in my own system and possibly… infect it? Was that even possible? Do items get sick like people and animals? Thoughts that I had never had before this system. My first foray into the unknown, into ARG, into horror. It ended up being Mortal Kombat, by the way. I hid it so my mom didn’t see the highly violent game I had picked up. It’s still somewhere in my collection. I wonder who lost it. Where is that person now? Do they still love games as much as I do?
A crop of an old photo of mine showing off my handhelds. My childhood purple Game Boy Advance sits next to my childhood teal Nintendo DS (with a Nintendogs decal on it)
Very rapidly did my obsession with gaming take hold of my life. I don’t quite remember the series of events, but suddenly I had a Playstation 2 (slim), a GameCube, and a Nintendo DS and I was spending almost all of my free time playing some sort of game. Chief among my collection of PS2 games was my copies of Guitar Hero 1 and 2. Guitar Hero was my way of combining the two things I loved the most in this world, music and gaming. If gaming saved my life, so did music in a massive way. Did I make it sound like I was glued to my Gameboy? Well what I was really glued to was my CD player. A blue CD player that I would carry around like a waitress with 10 water cups on her tray; flat on my hand and as steady as possible so I didn’t bump the CD and make it skip while we walked through Wal-Mart or Target or some video store to buy our 1,000th DVD. So to say I had a thing for music would, maybe, be a small understatement. Being able to play my favorite rock songs with a “real” guitar made me feel cool. Special. Like I could actually grow up to be someone with a talent for something.
I never went into music, as you can see, but the passion for music never died and for years I lived with the idea that, if I could just grow up and move out of my house, I would become a big rock star with pink hair, wild guitar skills, and a band to back it all up. I remember crying at my friend’s birthday party one year, sitting upstairs alone, listening to music and pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I’m sure that sounds MEGA sad, and it was, but for me those thoughts kept me going and they were only possible because gaming gave a little girl like me a little bit of agency. I hate to imagine that same moment but without Guitar Hero being a positive influence on me. Would I have crumbled with no dreams for the future? Or maybe I would have persevered in a different way? Impossible to say, but what I can say is that having that silly guitar game in my life made me feel like a better person than I was always told I was.
NOT MY PHOTO: I was going to just use a generic product image for this one since I don't have pictures of my own Guitar Hero controllers, but I saw this guy's black sweatband and was reminded of the GIR one I'd wear every single day around this time so, thanks Reddit user Impressive_Pepper_56
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was probably my main game on GameCube. I never even got very far and, to this day, still haven’t beaten it; but that story and the introduction island, Outset Island, touched my heart as a child in a way I’m only just now, in my age, starting to recognize. For a bit of gentle context, I’m not an only child but my sister is so much older than me that she was moved out by the time I was conscious. There was a small period where she moved back in, college complications, but it was short-lived and I missed her every single second she wasn’t home with me. It was an ache so deep that I’ve only just begun to recognize how much her absence meant to me growing up. In stark contrast to my life, in Wind Waker you have a younger sister that not only looks out for you, but is extremely present in your life. So present, in fact, that the first thing we see from the game is her searching for you across the entire island, reminding you it’s your birthday, and giving you her most prized possession for the day as a birthday gift. She is then, minor spoilers, the entire impetus for our adventure. As one of Ganon’s creatures steals her away, mistaking her for another blonde-haired powerful lady, your goal becomes getting her back at any cost.
This sense of family, not just from our sister but across the entire island and all its inhabitants, was beyond intoxicating to me as a child with barely any. Then there was the power fantasy of saving your family from an oppressive and evil force? It was like a drug to me. I never even made it through the first dungeon, the Forsaken Fortress, as a child. I would load up a new game, play all the way through to the Forsaken Fortress until I was inevitably stuck again, then quit, make a new save, and do it all over again. I must have made dozens of saves, relived the same moments again and again on that one tiny island and that little pirate ship. But god, it meant so much to me. Tetra was my friend. Grandma and Aryll were my family. Outset Island was my home. They cared about me and I took every single bit of love and care I wanted to give to my real family and gave it to them. Maybe it was just a video game, but to me it was a reminder that people loved their family and would do anything for them, even face certain death.
Outset Island, the starting island of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and where I spent large swaths of my time as a child.
Less dramatically but on the same note the Nintendo DS was my lifeline to friendship. While I had friends in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade I started to feel the distance between me and the “normal kids” very quickly. While gaming wasn’t really the ‘in-thing’ back in my younger days the Nintendo DS was something I remember being beloved by basically everyone. On the school bus you could whip that thing out and start a PictoChat and everyone was suddenly your friend. “Can I try?” “Let’s link up!” “What room are you in?” “What should we draw?” It’s like every kid was so concerned with picking on another kid for being too childish, but when the game system came out we were all just little dorks drawing dogs and the “Cool S” before we reached our destination.
Beyond school the DS was my link to people out in the world. We never stayed put growing up, always moving to new neighborhoods and new houses. With that came house shopping, constantly. I don’t know if these are still as common as they used to be, but there used to be model homes set up for people to go into and look at the different types of floorplans before choosing one for their own home. My parents were dreamers, so we looked at houses for years before actually buying one. The amount of time I spent inside model homes and half built structures should be studied, it was that frequent. But I didn’t mind, as I could pull out my DS at any time and check the social lottery to see if anyone else was around, willing to PictoChat with me and draw silly pictures until I had to go home. It happened more often than you’d maybe imagine; I guess a lot of other kids were in a similar boat. I was happy to not feel so alone.
A photo of someone using PictoChat on their DS. This is about the quality our drawings were on the school bus, too.
And when I was alone? Well I would just load up Nintendogs, my favorite game for many many years. I think I mentioned I was an animal lover, yes? When I was little, even smaller than the me playing this DS, I saved a stray cat. I met him while playing outside one day. He was so skinny, I begged my parents to let me buy him some cat food. They were skeptical I would be willing to get up and feed him everyday, but guess who was the first one awake almost every morning, running down the stairs, cracking the lid on those wet food cans, and standing out in the cold while kitty ate? Me. Every single day for weeks. I even named him: Kit Kat. (I was brilliant.)
Until one day the big dog next door got at Kit Kat so bad he came to me with a bloody, torn-up ear and face. I put my foot down and said enough was enough, Kit Kat would not live outside anymore. We had 4 dogs that all hated cats. My parents wouldn’t budge so I stayed outside with him until the moon hung over us in the sky. They finally gave. He could stay in my bathroom with the door closed until my sister came to get him the next day and adopt him. I saved him. I was so proud. Not near as proud as I am now, looking back on it, but still proud. He lived the rest of his life with my aunt, fat and happy.
Rest in peace Kit Kat.
All of that as context to say that I never owned my own animal growing up. I mean, I had a goldfish I won at a school fair one time that my parents were pissed about, but that was where it started and ended forever, until I moved out and got my own pets. I was too “irresponsible”, they would say. After I had proven myself with Kit Kat? I was sad when I was young but I’m more annoyed now that I’m older. I was responsible and I had shown them that. Yet Nintendogs would be as close as I ever got until I was grown. That was fine, I loved that game. I took care of every dog like it was real. I would check on them every day. I called their names into the crappy microphone until they learned it and responded to it. I took them for walks and always picked up their poop. I gave them baths and took them to training competitions. Nintendogs, while not real, gave me the responsibility I craved and the companionship I wanted. That passion never left either and, while I no longer work in that industry, led to me working with animals for quite a few years in the shelter environment. Without that part of me nurtured and given room to grow, who knows if I would have ever worked for a shelter? The shelter is where I met my dog Bucci, who has himself saved my life multiple times and is a big reason I’m still here today. Funny how things work out. Is it reasonable to assume Nintendogs saved my life, in a roundabout way? I couldn’t say, but it sure feels that way sometimes.
Speaking of saving my life: Jess this next one is for you. Those kids in 5th and 6th grade were not kind to us, and we never deserved any of what they put us through, but you were a ray of sunshine in those days and you saved my fucking life. Two weirdo girls too angsty and passionate to hang with the “cool kids”, we found solace in one another, My Chemical Romance, and Trickster. Trickster Online, a game that once again reminded me I wasn’t alone. Everything I ever played, with PictoChat being the one exception, was a single-player story-driven experience. But Trickster was an online MMORPG, a truly massive game with multiple servers filled to the absolute brim with other, like-minded weirdo gamers. It was like I was a fish in a fancy tank at a doctor’s office for years and suddenly someone showed me the ocean. To say I became obsessed may be an understatement. I played that game every single moment I had the ability to do so. I made friends, I joined guilds, I even got married to someone! In stark contrast to my real life, where I was bullied constantly, my main group of “friends” literally only invited me over to make fun of me later, and the one guy I liked dated me for a week so he could kiss me in front of everyone and then dump me and make fun of me to all his friends. Trickster felt like a fucking dream compared to my real life. Every day was hell until I could either get to Jess’s place or the family computer room and escape into that MMO. It made me feel like a person, not some disgusting burden or joke everyone had to put up with.
Trickster Online in its final moments before it shut down. While no longer official, fans keep the game alive with projects like LifeTO. I've actually recently started playing again and it feels just as welcoming and alive as I remember back in the day.
As I got older I found more and more like-minded individuals to surround myself with. Not only did the internet get more “social” with things like Myspace, Facebook, and Tumblr coming out but I also started high school; a massive picking ground of people where at least some small percentage was bound to share my interests. And they did share my interests! So much so that I was quickly falling behind. An Xbox 360? Never heard of one, nor any game on it; minus Halo that is, but I was not allowed to play that to such a degree that my mom told my neighbor’s parents that they were not to play it if I came over.
What I’m getting at is, it was time for me to grow up! New friends, new gaming systems, and new games for those systems. I had to catch up, not because I needed friends, but because my hobby was getting away from me. Sophomore year Christmas I received a repurposed Xbox 360 from my extended family. It previously was infected with the Red Ring of Death and was being used as a paperweight by my cousin, but with it fixed, wrapped in layers of newspaper, and subsequently duck-taped to high hell it was now my one Christmas present from my Aunt, Uncle, and both sets of married cousins. The brand new games came from my parents. Fable 2 was one of them. Phenomenal. I played it for months on end. Multiple playthroughs. No one at school really knew that one, but it was nice to play a modern game. No, the one that really left its mark on me was Assassin’s Creed II. I also received Assassin’s Creed I for Christmas, but where this game started to take over my life was the storyline of AC2, the storyline of Ezio Auditore da Firenze.
The legend himself: Ezio. Great design, fun and emotional story - just a great series of games.
See, it was also around my Sophomore year of high school that I also met the love of my life, Nick. If that name sounds familiar it’s because it is: he is not only my lifelong partner but also the ick of Br(ick) Throw, (me being the Bri part). Was AC2 the only reason we fell in love? Of course not, but I can’t deny it had a big impact on us and our relationship early on. I remember having a shitty touch screen phone that I would use to take photos and videos of me playing AC2, Brotherhood, and Revelations to then send to Nick. I would spend hours running around the towns of Italy, documenting everything I did so I could talk to Nick about my experience, what mission I did, or what glitch I discovered. I remember him getting a second monitor for the first time and showing me the game spread across both screens like magic. I remember crying like a baby at every ending as Desmond and Lucy’s story became more and more precarious. I remember hand sewing my top just hours before Comic Con so I could be the Lucy to Nick’s Desmond. My first couple’s costume, ever. A tradition we’ve kept up for years and years. Assassin’s Creed 2 didn’t make us a couple, and I would love Nick just as much without it, but those early moments of bonding are irreplaceable and are memories I cherish more dearly than I can express.
Nick and myself cosplaying as Desmond and Lucy from the Assassin's Creed series. We loved it quite a bit.
Moving into adulthood, gaming hasn’t gotten any less important to me. As a young adult Nick and I separated for a time. It was probably the hardest time in my entire adult life. We were young and still broken from when we were children and it took some time to realize who we wanted to be and that those new versions of us still fit together like they used to. While we were separated, though, I had a massive crisis of character. I didn’t know who I was anymore, away from Nick. I didn’t want to be anyone. I didn’t want anything. I ran away from the state I called home and fell into a good bit of drinking. Nothing where I needed to go cold or to AA or anything, but more than I would have liked. In those days the game that gave me hope was Transistor; a truly hopeless romance story.
I’m sure you’ve noticed I have a trend of projecting myself onto characters, living through them, and so on. Well, Transistor was no different. A woman without a voice when her voice was all she ever cared about. A man there for her, being her voice when she no longer had one, standing up for her, literally being her weapon, her protection, her salvation. But he was not the machinations for her safety alone, she still had to wield that sword. She had to save herself. They had to work together, as a team. If one started to falter it meant the other had to pick up the slack, be the shoulder to cry on, the rock to lean on. I learned a lot from that game. Not only how to be a better partner, but also how to be a better woman and a better me. Not a day goes by that I don't think of that game.
Fast forward a few years. Covid has happened. My father’s father has passed away, which forces a reconnection with a family I never knew. My parents get to the rockiest point they’ve ever had with one another. Relations with my mom, my dad, and my sister explode and I go no contact with all of them.
Then cue 1000xResist. Released in 2024, 1000xResist is a linear plot-heavy experience about trauma, both childhood and political, oppression, resistance, family, and how our parents shape who we are whether we like it or not. There’s so much within 1000xResist to praise, to take in, to learn from, to think about; but the thing that always comes back to me is Iris’s unwillingness and inability to understand her parents until it was too late. Her parents are imperfect, her mother teetering on plain ol’ abusive while her father sits by too frequently and lets it happen. Iris lashes out, it makes things worse, it strains the whole family, her mother pushes back, her father tries to keep the peace and it never works. Iris leaves. No contact. FUCK them.
But… then she grows up. She becomes more like them, slips into the same mistakes, makes the same wrong turns, gets the same illnesses. She isn’t exactly like them, but there’s enough similarities for her to begin to understand them. It doesn’t make what they did right. It doesn’t make what Iris did right. But, there was a reason for all of it. Understanding washes over, not her, but her clone. Too far gone to even understand what she’s learned, Iris was never able to make amends, with her parents or even herself. It’s my reminder that no one is perfect. If I’m allowed to make mistakes then why can’t they? Sure, they're my parents and their mistakes did immeasurable damage to me, but am I doing anyone a service by never understanding and making an attempt to reconcile, grow, and move on? 1000xResist would probably say “no”.
I tend to agree.
Iris holding a bloody kitchen knife saying "Did I not give you life?" So easy to fall into bad habits.
In a very similar vein, Wax Heads posed some questions to me: What would happen if you and your sister didn’t reconcile until you were both old? Was the fight worth it? Don’t you miss each other? Isn’t this whole thing fucking stupid in the grand scheme of life with one another?
Well yes, yes it is.
I’m still working on all of this, but our journeys aren’t linear like games, are they? It kind of sucks that they aren’t. I keep living in the moment of Wax Heads where everything goes great and there's a happy ending. The thought of my sister and I's relationship not ending in similar happiness paralyzes me. I’m younger by 17 years. Will she listen to me? Will she forgive me? Will she apologize for what she’s done? Can she change? It’s all so uncertain to me. It scares me so badly. Maybe that’s why the women in Wax Heads waited so long. Stupid, unfounded fears because they were both unwilling to just talk to one another. I'm still learning from it, but it's teaching me not to make the same mistake: hopefully.
Refusing to talk. Trauma. Desktop Explorer addresses these issues too. Another one that has helped me grow and has deepened my thoughts on the two previously mentioned games, especially 1000xResist.
It’s really easy to see how someone wronged you. It’s super easy, for me, to see all the negative in the mother and father in 1000xResist and blame them for everything because they are to blame for raising Iris poorly. But they went through their own trauma. They’ve had their own awful, negative experiences that shaped who they are and why they acted the way they did. Though not easier, wouldn’t it be wise to consider what someone has been through and attempt to work it out with them? This isn’t to say every single abuser deserves to have a nice sit-down chat with their victims, but when it comes to close family and friends, isn’t it a good idea to at least consider where they’re coming from? No one does anything without reason, so what is their reason? As an abused child but also an extremely out-spoken woman this isn’t always something I’ve considered. I couldn’t. If, when I was being abused as a kid, I was sitting there thinking of anyone but myself I wouldn’t have made it. When you’re drowning you don’t really have the luxury of worrying about someone else, you just have to make it ashore. But, now that I’m ashore, experiences like Desktop Explorer have allowed me to see the world through a more empathetic lens, so to speak, one that I think is extremely important.
Max desperately trying to get through to her father. Also a reminder that, despite our best efforts, some things don't end happily or perfectly.
Without developers putting these experiences into the world I really don’t know who I would be today. Would I be as caring? As artistic? Would I nurture animals the same way I do now? Would I think about another person’s world view before judging? Would I be willing to patch up things with my family? Would I be with the love of my life still? Would I have the family I currently do? I can’t answer those questions, but what I can say is that without all that art inspiring me I certainly wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing right now, which is typing this article and pouring my heart out to all of you. And you know what? I quite like doing that. So thank you Video Games; you’ve been a constant in my life that always made me feel like I belonged and, in a world that doesn’t always foster that feeling, I couldn’t possibly ask for more.
While this industry is hurting right now with a myriad of disgusting headlines coming out, I will continue to champion this art form and this medium until something changes. Gaming never gave up on me so I will never give up on it.
Thank you for reading.
As I was writing this I had a phone call with my mother that didn't go the best. It's made the writing of this article much more difficult and much more important than it was when I started it. My parents aren't really around to discuss my professional life much, and when they are it always feels like there's some caveat to my success. Frankly, fuck that!
I've been working on my career in this industry since I was fresh out of high school, paving my own way with no connections the entire time. Not only am I exceedingly proud of this website and the connections I have made in creating it and sharing it, but I'm also beyond proud of my voice work in Mashina and my upcoming voice work in ABIDE. I don't know if I'll ever voice in another project again, as much as I would love to, but even if these are it I'm beyond proud of the work I've done. I'm beyond proud of the connection I've made with the games' developers, Jack and Talha. I have myself and the truly stunning game Judero to thank; as well as the lovely Jack and Talha for reaching out and talking with me about the game's themes. I wasn't sure where to add this to the emotional roller coaster that was the ending of that article, but Judero has been a major guiding force in my life and I'm not only so thankful to be where I am, but finally pretty proud of it too. So, as a small final thank you to gaming, thank you Judero.
And thank you me, for never giving up, for putting yourself out there more than maybe you even should, and making authentic connections in this world. I'm happy for you and proud of you, even if Mom and Dad aren't.