Before I jump directly into the topic at hand, I would love to give some flashbacks, put down a solid foundation and build a beautiful structure of a post, like a true blue Civil Engineer I have been.
If I need to tell about my experience as a serial gamer, I should probably start with KONG and the PRINCE, the most unforgettable games I have ever played when I was still a primary school student.
I remember all those beautiful days of my childhood, when I would return home from my school, freshen up, eat some snacks or plain old curd rice and get into playing my favourite game of KONG. Thinking back, my inclination of drawing cartoons as stick figures probably stems from my fascination of the KONG!
The game had an average stick figure, the hero, who had to save a stick figured heroine, who was ‘beauty’napped by the villain, a bulky stick figure. I am not sure, but they must have been stick figured gorillas, because of the posture of both the hero and the villain, which appeared to be bow legged and also based on the name of the game!
It looks something like this. I tried to replicate as much as I can remember.
The hero is at the bottom of the building, moving slowly (since he is bow legged!) and escaping automatic bombs in blue colour, which keep coming from the top left corner, while Kong, the villain keeps moving on the top floor, (jumping bow legged) trying to scare the poor hero.
Initial stage of the game – Kong
Once the hero seems to be making a progress, the villain begins to throw bombs or stones in weird shapes and they manage to break the stairs and pathways, all the while, the hero still needs to escape the steady flow of bombs, coming automatically out of a small structure.
Breaking the stairs and wrecking the way!
I was in 3rd standard when I first played this game. At last, when the hero wins, the girl is in his arms and he carries her at the end. I only played till I won once and then moved on to the newer game of PRINCE.
While KONG was a black and white game (I made the cartoon in colour because, I love colours!), PRINCE was a game in colour. It had a guy, whose style of dressing was like Disney’s Alladin, he ran faster than the stick figure hero in KONG, found magic potions in unlikely places, went through secret passages and sometimes got killed under sharp shutters and thorny walls! Although it was an interesting game, I stopped playing Prince after 5th or 6th level because, the booby traps got bloody as the game progressed! (I was only in 4rth standard during this game. It was too much)
After that, years have passed and I have played many a games, from Pin Ball machine, Minesweeper, Soltaire to Disney’s Alladin in computer, to Tetris in hand held video game player, to snake game and block game in Nokia 1100, to Ice Age game where I raised many extinct animals and their families, to Paradise Bay, where I had to make an island livable! I even played many food games, where I make food and feed the customers on time, solved many a sudokus, to finding and making words. The other memorable game is Seeker’s Note: Hidden Objects, which I played for the span of more than 5 years, installing and uninstalling (because of severe neck pain of being a serial gamer!), but thankfully, my progress had been saved by Facebook! (Wait , I remember participating in online snooker matches too, LOL! What fun!)
Some of my gaming madness had rubbed off to GBee, who is also a serial gamer. He enjoys playing different kinds of games, his all time favourite being Angry Birds.
GBee is usually allowed to play on the cell phone only on every Friday, for 1 hour. On one such friday evening, GBee managed to win a game, I am not sure which one.
The serial gamer wins!
Just as GBee began to shout that he won the game, the baby who was newly learning the numbers thought his anna was asking him to recite numbers and shouted two! I generally initiate KBee to recite numbers by saying ,’one’ he says ‘two’, I say ‘three’ and we alternate the numbers and play. It was funny to see him do the same with GBee thinking he was asking to recite numbers.
Although it was nice to see GBee play games in cell phone and win them, I still think his fun pales in comparison to mine. It is the fun of playing games by graduating from hand-held video game players to computers, to laptops to cell phones to iPads and finally moving to XBoxes and PS4s and then coming back again to cell phones!
What fun!
P.S:
- I remember playing a game of a monkey eating bananas as it jumped from one tree to other and even Dave, which was my favourite in our school computer lab!
- My dad having an office of his own in the early 1995 has been very helpful in making me a serial gamer. He never stopped me from playing on the computer. Now that I think about it, I had no time limit for playing on the computer. I would play till I was bored! I hope GBee doesn’t find out that I never had time restrictions for playing games, he may curse me!
- Whenever GBee is not allowed screen time, he takes that opportunity to draw the Angry Birds levels he has completed, something like this. (That inspired me to draw the KONG game and post it here. Thanks GBee for the inspiration.)
- KBee is into puzzles like the origami puzzle game. I do help him once in a while.
- I don’t think I have ever seen Mr.Bee play anything except Candy Crush or Snooker! He prefers PS4 to cell phones as gaming platforms.
- Taking this post as an opportunity, I would love to thank all the creators of various games I had ever played in my life, till now. Thank you for making them! Cheerio!
P.P.S:
My mom is a gamer too!