Formative Years

    The first game I ever completed was Pokemon Crystal on my brother's Game Boy Color. 

    Some kind soul had gifted it to him for his 9th birthday. It was the purple one. I'm sure the jealous tantrum I was throwing as he unwrapped it wasn't too bad. He had always been gifted the new fancy toys. Not that he didn't deserve them, he was a miracle after all.

    I reflect on (brood about) my childhood pretty often. My oldest brother was the first born grandchild of a huge family, so of course he was spoiled. And then my second brother was the miracle child, surviving a disease that should have killed him, so of course he was spoiled too.

Totodile, Pokemon Crystal 2001

    Then there was me. I think the excitement of kids had likely worn off after the 40th cousin had been born, so needless to say, I didn't get showered with gifts the way my brothers had. I'm sure I expressed my frustration plenty. I'd never complain about it though, really!

    Of course, the upside to my brothers being spoiled rotten was their hand-me-downs. It didn't take long for me to inherit the GameBoy. My mother had bought him Pokemon Crystal at some point, and I happily wrote over his save data with a new game. Totodile was my first starter Pokemon. He helped me beat the game at the humble level of 74, along with the first legendary Pokemon I ever caught, Raiku. I took me 5 or 6 attempts to beat Lance at the end of the game. I may have asked my oldest brother for help once or twice. He did so, begrudgingly.

The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past

    The games that I played as a kid were formative to who I am today. The art and stories that draw my eye have their roots in the charm and style of the games of the late 90s and early 2000s. 

    I remember being blown away by the lush nature and open world of A Link to the Past. I recall being entrenched in the stories of Golden Sun and Super Mario Tennis Pro Tour. I remember being charmed by the bright and colorful world of Kirby. I remember learning to manage time and resources with my first Harvest Moon game. Final Fantasy Tactics and Advanced Wars expanded my planning skills, and changed my expectations of the medium forever.

    It did much more than form my preferences though. My brothers and I played everything together. If it was multiplayer, we did our best to wear the contacts out on the game cartridges. We spent hundreds of hours playing Mario Kart and Smash Brothers. In fact, even the single player games, like Pokemon Colosseum, were open to back seat experiences.

     If it wasn't video games, we'd be out on the trampoline together, playing basketball in the backyard, or shooting soda cans with BB guns. They had my back at school and at home.

    Things would change. My oldest brother was nearing adulthood, and the effects of my middle brother's childhood sickness were beginning to manifest in learning difficulties for him.

    When I turned 9 my oldest brother moved to my father's house. When I turned 10, my middle brother was sent to a special education school to learn how to live without hearing. My single mother was now the only company in our home, and she often worked late. I had to learn to be alone.

     It was a melancholy experience. While I was grateful to be alone during my brooding preteen years, I missed the companionship of my brothers. After school, I was just... alone. No brothers to watch my back, no one to jab and sneer, no one to laugh and play with.

     I played Pokemon Emerald that year.

    The opening sequence of the game shows your character biking away from their hometown, the parents, and their best friend. The sun is shining down, the coastline behind them. They're on their way to experience their first journey, all alone.

    But the part that matters to me is the end.

    Your character travels an exotic world, thwarting evil, meeting new friends, facing puzzles and challenges, saves the world, and meets creatures of myth and legend. Your final challenge is the elite four, and the Pokemon champion. Your character faces them all, wins. and becomes the new reigning champion, all by their self. There at the end, having conquered what the world had to throw at you, your best friend arrives to meet you. 

    The final scene of the game shows your character biking back the other way, their journey complete, the world saved. Now, the night has set, the city is behind you, and you are no longer alone.

     The journey ends with you and a companion, headed home. 

 

    I can't say that I ever got used to being alone, or that I learned to be comfortable in that silence. The truth is that, sometimes, childhood ends sooner than we were expecting it to. I'm sure that my brothers felt that way too.

    Sometimes circumstances will leave us stranded. Maybe we're ostracized, left out, ignored, or forgotten... And sometimes we have to go through life that way, fighting our battles alone. If we can stick it out, face those challenges head on, just maybe, at the end, you'll have a companion waiting for you too.  

    I've got a special place in my heart for pixel art styled games. One of my first projects as a Computer Science major was a top down adventure game. It was terrible, of course. The character art was a lame stick figure made in MS Paint, and you couldn't do much more than walk around.

    Years later, I'd like to think that I improved a bit. It wasn't too long ago that I discovered Aseprite, a software specially designed for pixel art creation. Now I'm happily making the same art that kept me company as a kid.

    So, hello from me to you. I hope I can keep you company too.

Gerthew