Maybe I’m to blame:-) I started playing educational computer games with Drew when he was still small enough to sit in my lap. We roped Paige in as well, especially with the geography game, “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?”. However, Paige had some immunity for this gateway drug, while, for Drew, playing games became a major pastime.
We took our mutual interest in the Discworld books of Terry Pratchet onto the computer, and we became obsessed with trying to solve the riddle of Myst, a 1990s classic. The first “non-thoughtful” game we played was a futuristic car racing game, POD, that came free with PCs running Intel’s then new Pentium chip set.
As Drew got older and developed his interest, he quickly left me behind. His coordination with the more sophisticated game controllers was far better, and I quickly became an observer of his games, rather than a participant.
He was of the generation that benefited from an extraordinary pace of evolution driven by the competition between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. Rather than get caught up in which was “best”, Drew simply played them all.
One of the surprising byproducts of on-line gaming was Drew making friends around the UK and other parts of the world that he never actually met in person. I still remember one dinner time conversation where Drew casually brought up some “friends in Manchester”. As far as I was aware, Drew had never been to Manchester, so he had to explain that he’d met them playing on-line, and they were part of a team that competed against other teams from various parts of the world.
Drew’s gaming interests were thought out and eclectic just like his interests in reading or film. They ranged from classics, such as Donkey Kong, to the latest trends in Esports. Drew also had to patiently explain Esports to me after I heard on the BBC that the revenue in gaming had overtaken global film box office. I still marvel at people watching other people play computer games. (And the irony in the fact I watch other people play football (soccer) and race bicycles is not lost on me.)
Fortunately for me and Wendy, traditional board games were another interest of Drew and Sarah’s (and Paige and David’s). Perhaps they’re the antidote to the sometimes impersonal world of computer gaming? I’m not sure, but the same generation that embraced computer games has also been a driving force in the resurgence of board games. The photo headlining this article is from a “games pub”, Draughts, in Hackney. As these games don’t require extraordinary motor control, it’s more of a level playing field when the Murphy family play together.
Whether it was chess or backgammon, computer games, board games, garden games…, our family loves to play, and we play to win. The only trouble was, if the game required strategic thinking, Drew won most of the time.
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