Confessions of a girl gamer... Part 1

So, I have a confession to make.

I am a girl. And I play video games.

I have played them for years, and listened to the blah-da-blah-blah experts that say playing video games makes you dumb, or violent, or antisocial square-pants.  I don't think I'm dumb (although I do still have issues spelling "awesome" because I'm never sure if I should leave out the middle "e"), and so far I'm not violent (haven't killed a single, solitary person in my whole life!) and as for an antisocial square-pants... didn't Huey Lewis tell me it was Hip to be Square?

Anyway, I grew up with games. The first one I remember was Zork... have you ever played Zork? Guess what... there weren't any pictures! It was all... reading.  Here's a stunning screenshot:

Are you impressed?  Yes, that's it... and it was awesome (with an e in the middle). You type in commands like
> Open mailbox 


> Kill thief 
With what? 
>Kill thief with knife


> Open grate. 
The grate is locked.

I spent *hours* on this game, figuring out puzzles, and avoiding being eaten by a gru (horrid underground creatures that ate you if you got caught in this underground labyrinth without your lamp on).  I corrupted my sister in the efforts to also make her a dumb, violent square-pants, and we sat up in the computer room figuring out puzzles for a bunch of games for hours at a time, and hand-drawing maps of the imaginary worlds.

Maze in Zork. These were the "graphics" back then.

She eventually stopped playing with me because "the baby was crying" or some such nonsense... but I'll get her back into it, I vow.

There were other games, like "Deadline" where you had to solve a murder mystery, but had a time limit to do it, so you only had a certain number of moves before something pivotal happened (a phone call) and you had to do your part to get a clue (pick up the handset and eavesdrop on the conversation.)  That was my first taste of not loving time-pressure games... I enjoy the wandering around and being able to pause and think before acting.

Our family got our first video game console when I was about 8 or so? We didn't have the ColecoVision or Atari that the "cool kids" had.  We had... Intellivision.  Some of my favorite memories from there:

Snafu!

Auto racing

My favorite (I think) was Pitfall.  At some point, someone told me that if you went far enough in one direction, you meet the "Princess" and save her and get a treasure chest.  I remember sitting in front of that screen for hours, swinging on hundreds of vines, stepping on hundreds of alligator heads... and never reached the end. (Turns out there wasn't one.)

Pitfall

My love affair with games continues, although now I'm a PC gamer (with an occasional foray into Playstation games) and I'm also a graphics geek... I love anything that looks amazing. I'll post more about my favorite games through the years in future posts, I'm sure.

I tried to revisit Zork a while ago and just didn't have the patience for it.  But if you want to give it some effort, most of the Infocom games (including Zork) are online...and free... (including Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is just about as much fun as the book!)  Feel free to check them out here: Free Online Infocom Games or I think a bunch are also available as free apps for iPhones and the like.

More posts on gaming will be in the pipeline, I'm sure... I mean, after all, the more dumb, violent square-pants there are in the world, the better, in my opinion...