Nostalgia From the Start

When all my friends got their first Atari I was still trying to understand what my grandmother ment by the visits the "tree-fairy" made to her window. Then after some time, all my friends had a Nintendo. My brother and I got one as a present, but my mother didn't let us open it and send it back. Nintendo was not allowed in our house. I remember we used to bribe a boy in our school-bus so he would invite us to his house to play. At first it worked, but after some time it became imposible. So, my brother and I decided to invent our own "real-life" mario bros. We were the players and we had to walk around the house with books in our head. Each level meant one more book. We invited friends over so they could play the monsters. We used chairs and tables as obstacles. Every time someone lost all the roles were mixed around so someone else could play. The best was that when we had to stop for dinner or something like that, our life game froze in time so we could pick it up some other time at the exact same place.

Some years later I travelled around Europe. in Switzerland I stayed at the house of one of my mother's friends. He had two kids and a nintendo (or what ever was the equivalent of that time) I remember sitting down infront of that game for hours trying to understand what was going on. I couldn't.

Today, when I get a hold of pacman or tetris or mario I have to play. I get the same feeling I do when I see a caramel coated apple at a circus. They are not what I liked the most, but because I couldn't have it when I was younger, I have to have them when I see them no matter what.

What interests me most know, are narrative games like Peter Gabriel's EVE. I feel the same kind of thrill, curiosity, and exitment as I did with my grandma's stories.