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What Made Me a Gamer?

Plz… What kind of a question is this? I was born a gamer. From the day I fired up our Amstrad CPC464 and saw those horizontal lines draw a v e r y s l o w d r a g o n across my screen I was hooked on The Hobbit. To this day, typing the word “please” come weirdly naturally to me because the first phrase I was forced to type over and over again? ‘say to thorin “carry me please’ Yup, the Hobbit taught me lateral thinking and manners.

Dragon breathing flames

Some of you may remember, that particular phrase is mostly useful back by the Misty Mountains to climb through a crack. You need to do it once. Maybe twice if you get captured by elves. Why the heck I was I typing so often? Yeah, save games were all sorts of hassle in those days. You had to remember to reset the the little mileage-type counter, fast-forward all the way to a blank bit of tape, press Pause+Record, type Save, lift pause (without bumping record) and wait.

And then to load you had to go through the whole rigmarole of a) finding the right tape, which of course you labelled, right? And b) finding the right counter number, which of course you wrote down on the label, right? And then c) fast-forward to the right bit of the tape and hoping like hell you had remembered to reset the counter before saving.

As you might have gathered, I had not.

Most of the time I was eaten by a troll, until I learned (and when I say “learned”, I mean “told by my dad”) to wait for dawn. Hey, I was about 6 years old, okay? I couldn’t read the books. The rest of the time, I made it all the way to Lake Town and drowned clinging to a barrel. Or possibly got crushed between barrels. I forget; it was traumatic. Yup, The Hobbit is also on my ever-expanding list of games I have never completed.

Never mind, eh? Start as you mean to go on…

This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.

Other takes:

Next Jen: What Made Me into a Gamer

Aim for the Head: The Gamer I Am Today

carocat.co.uk: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Yuki-Pedia: A Tale of Two Games

gunthera1_gamer: Early Gaming Experience

Extra Guy: Ah yes, I remember it well

Silvercublogger: Uncovering Lost Treasures

Master Kitty’s World: Gaming Through the Years

Gamer Unit: What was the game that made you a gamer?

Game Couch: Karateka