I have been watching the gaming world as an outsider, all my life. My wide-eyed moment was in 2011 when I saw a Games store in mall and big posters about Gaming awards. I was stunned - so gaming is a parallel world - like cinema, TV and so on !
Now that my kids are full on into it, I was very curious. I mean, my kids played games like their peers. At one point, as any parent, I considered Gaming as a big bad place for kids, so I had rules in place. Then came short videos/reels/shorts, and kids were spending unlimited time there. Heck even I was addicted, spending 6 continuous hours watching non-stops short videos. Upon realization I started coaxing kids to play video games. (See how the cookie crumbles - said my kids looks).
For last years Black Friday, I bought XBox for myself. To step into the world of Video Games. It was almost Valentines day, by when I connected the Xbox and switched it on. By "I", I mean my kids, cause they couldn't stand it anymore ! That a perfectly good equipment was gathering dust..
I also did a round of Gaming Arcade along with my kids & nephews. The Gen Z is the most caring of all generations. They taught me the steps, rules and looped me in their world - no judgements for a noob. Pinballs in arcade were nostalgia overload, though I don't remember if I played the real one in past or only digitals ones on the old keyboard and large box monitors. And Pac-man are so additive - I want one home console now to play Pac-man non-stop.
Arcade is how I learnt the basics of gaming - games get faster with time, more balls etc on next level and the basics of scoring. Some experience in steering and controller functions in driving games coz those are way different from real-world car driving. Anyway, those were the best few hours in spring break.
Tetris book was another nostalgia overload. With the books thriller pace, it made me want to play again. Google search showed a paid version on Xbox. And they have a mobile version too. Quick download, few games & deleted it. The unpaid one had ads ofcourse. Then it was in COLOR ! And the phone screen made it different. The experience was totally different. During the peak years, I used to even dream of those B&W bricks in my sleep. And here these are in color. And that it dawned on me, Candy crush is a version of Tetris - arghhhhh what a let down. Thankfully Amazon still sells the handheld version and I need to get my hands on them soon.
The ads in free games are such a nuisance. Now I feel bad for all the years, kids had borrowed parents phone and waded through ads, to play nonsense games. It doesn't mean I am a convert & will start paying everywhere for games. Just saying, I now know the pain.
Back to X-Box, how I fell in love was when my kids & nephews let me handle the BMX game. That was my initiation to the sensitive controller and how things are not as easy as it looks. In the meantime, I have graduated to car-football game () and floppy-jumping game. I am yet to enter the world of Fortnite or any multiple-player games.
With my past experience being limited to Tetris and Minesweeper, I decided to read up on games before I started. I got hold of many books, but eventually finished these.
Press Start to Play - Short story collection
The Tetris Effect - The Game That Digitized The World - Dan Ackerman
Got to see the Tetris movie released recently. Book was better. I mean, the movie is thriller format with lot of physical action. Same events & situations happen in the book but in a realistic fashion; and yet they were no less thrilling.
Covers a lot on how software business deals happened, atleast in 80s & 90s. Communication might be faster now ofcourse, but people dynamics still are the same. One book about current s/w business world was in the Instagram book. Other insights were about the beliefs and philosophy of the coding world - about the passion for free nature of open code and it becomes a sin when its popular, sharing via floppy disks and 80s & older models of desktops.
Movies
Might I add some movie recommendations as well.
Ready Play One - 2018 movie, based off of 2011 book, I read in 2016, set in dystopian future 2045 but totally living in the 1980s.
1Up - 2022 movie, small budget but well made.
