So I kinda got back into gaming

I have heard girls saying that they hate the “gamer girl” stereotype, because it implies that girls don’t usually game, so they must be some kind of special breed if they do. I don’t have much of an opinion towards the label, but I admit that I used to wear it with pride.

Used to. You know, back when I played Doom and Quake and Duke Nukem. As a child, I was brought up on computers, as in, on Windows 3.0.1. Or something to that effect. I played King’s Quest, to begin with, and when I started primary school I became less adventurous and would look for more creative and educational games to play.

Freddi the Fish was one of my favourites, though I couldn’t help but notice that the game was, subtly, not the same each time I played it. You had to generally find all the sea urchins on about thirty different game screens, as well as finding messages in bottles. Super easy cartoony educational stuff. I was smart, though. I realised that the game had the same outcome all the time, you always found the kelp seeds at the end1. But later I noticed that sometimes you would have to do slightly different things to find certain sea urchins. If it wasn’t in that weird underground cave, it would be in the shipwreck at the end. If you walked back to a previous screen you already looked in, it would appear there. Little things like that. Through playing a lot of these educational games, I realised I was far too smart for the ones I was playing, haha.

During primary school I had a The Little Mermaid creative program on my computer where I could create nice notepaper, stickers and cards. I didn’t have any stickers to print on so I just made do with making cardboard badges. But it was really fun.

I was about ten years old when I started playing Supaplex2, a pacman-like game with very different rules and more complicated ways out. At the time, it was the best game ever. Well… it was on par with Commander Keen.

I would fight with my dad over who got to play the next level of Commander Keen. And every time he failed the Miragia stage I would absolutely insist on playing it.

Reality check: I always got stuck at the same place he did.

I also played Minecraft addictively a couple of years ago with James and Mike. I was obsessed with that game. It was just the best. But first-person-shooter games like Doom and Quake and Duke Nukem were my favourites, which began when I was about ten years old. I finished Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake II, and from what I can remember, I think I finished the first ones too. Or at least with the help of my dad… yeah, he was obligated to share his computer with me. :P

I know I have been mentioning a lot of PC games, but I should also add that I played a myriad of games on my Sega Megadrive II (yes, Sonic games included), and I was just all over Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the PS2.

The one game I couldn’t stand though? The Sims. I kid you not. I would spend literally an hour doing up my sim/person, get bored, and stop. Brandon would say to me that that wasn’t even the point of the game. Hahaha.

Sooooo, soooo, sooooo, when Tristan convinced me to get Steam late last year so I could play Terraria, get Steam I did. Here’s a fun fact for you: When I created my character, I spent a little bit too long customising the character’s look. #typical

Because a lot of my friends were also on Steam, I guess it was about time. I was flipping out at all my favourite games being there. I was just thrilled. I have only played Terraria and Commander Keen (I am heygeorgie on there). Brandon pointed out that I have not logged in for 31 days, and I exclaimed that I was on holidays and the last thing on my mind was Steam (and job-hunting).

By the way, Liz asked me some curious questions last month, some of which are hilariously linked to my mention of gaming.

How long have you and James been together?

Five years, eleven months, four days.

How did you get into blogging?

I kept a personal, written diary when I was younger. After some time I let my friends read some entries. Around the same time, I started using a computer for the internet rather than just playing King’s Quest and Supaplex over and over. I could type faster than I wrote, and I was pretty good at mixing potions and working my way into the minds of old folk in an 8-bit game, so the transition to write on a public internet-space seemed normal.

Have you ever had biscuits and gravy? Do you like it? Would you try it?

No, I have not. I don’t eat gravy anymore since most of it is basically chicken stock (I’m pescetarian). If you have a recipe for vegetarian or seafood-based gravy though, holla @ ur grl. :P

How do you decide what picture to take/use for a thumbnail?

Sometimes it’s a picture from the post, just cropped, and I take the photo myself. Sometimes it is a recent image from my Instagram profile. If there are a few, I choose the best one, or maybe one from the same photo shoot. Otherwise I use a stock image, which is related to the content of the post. A lot of the more contemplative/abstract posts of mine have really cheesy vintage-style thumbnails. I started doing the thumbnails in early 2012, and it was only a couple of months ago that I, honestly, in all seriousness, went through the past/remaining 550 posts in my blog archives and created thumbnails for each and every single one.

How do you feel that blogging has changed since you started blogging? How do you feel that you have changed (in the blogging sense and in life in general)?

I guess blogging has changed in the sense that “anyone can be a blogger” (this I learned in my tertiary studies of media). Dudes on tech blogs or movie reviewers and things like that. Anyone can do it. In the past, I think it was kind of taboo. People with personal blogs also wanted to keep things fairly private. Also, now there is a ridiculous generalisation that all bloggers are narcissistic suck-ups. Which was said by someone on Twitter when I was randomly browsing retweets and trending topics, so sorry, but that person cannot be recalled and be slain or have deadly nightshade fed to3.

I do feel that people are more open to each other and more acceptable of meeting “strangers” on the internet because blogging is a different kind of way to meet people. You’re meeting people through windows of their lives rather than in some strange chat room.

I was always a writer as a kid. I wrote poems and I wrote short novellas when I was in secondary school. I have always liked to share my writing with people. To answer the second part of that question: as a blogger, not very much.

Like Seb said when he did the Confessions of a Blogger questionnaire, or at least, similarly — I would like to think that I have changed due to events in life, and my blog has recorded that — rather than my blog changing me as a person. Since I started blogging, I have obviously grown up, since I was eleven-or-so years old when I started and now I am twenty-two. In a decade I have lost friends, gained friends, met great people, struggled through studies, worked multiple jobs, fell in love, fell out of love, got depression, broke two bones — which is life, really.

I will admit that I like blogging (and web designing) more than a lot of the other hobbies I have. I can imagine that without it, I would be cooking more often, going on more walks, maybe recording more music or writing a novel.

Or, you know, shooting monsters in Quake.

  1. There were a few different games of Freddi the Fish, but I had the one with the kelp seeds.
  2. A few years ago, I recalled this game and realised I remembered the visuals but completely forgot the name. Completely. You should read my post where I rediscovered it. I am deeply amused because apparently I helped so many people find the same game.
  3. Back when Tristan and I were reminiscing over King’s Quest, I told him that I had deadly nightshade in my inventory and I assumed it was something magic so I typed “eat deadly nightshade” and consequently died. Thankfully I had saved game beforehand. Also, I was six years old at the time, so forgive me.

Comments on this post

Oh wow. Humongous Entertainment titles were some of my favorite childhood games! I played and completed, like, a whole list of them. Not every title, but I obviously played a lot of them. Multiple playthroughs as well, because as you discovered, plot-critical items and characters would be located in different places each time.

And did I mention I played a whole list of them?

  • Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (the first Freddi Fish game and the one you played!)
  • Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse
  • Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell
  • Pajama Sam in “No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside”
  • Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren’t So Frightening
  • Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat from Your Head to Your Feet
  • Putt-Putt Travels through Time
  • Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo
  • Putt-Putt Enters the Race
  • SPY Fox in “Dry Cereal”
  • SPY Fox 2: “Some Assembly Required”
  • SPY Fox 3: “Operation Ozone”

Unfortunately I have no memories of playing on our Mega Drive. I did finally get to play the original Sonic games, but the first one I played was Sonic Adventure, on the Sega Dreamcast.

I’ve played a metric ton of video games in my childhood. And now I feel like writing about my life as a gamer too.

Welcome to Steam! I should try to get you to try Team Fortress 2 some time. I have been playing that all day every day this week; I barely touched the game for ages for some reason.

Right now, though, I feel like digging up my Pajama Sam and SPY Fox games and seeing if I can get them to run on my new PC. I love them.

Oh my gosh, the nostalgia! I played all of the Putt-putt and most of the Freddi Fish games (I didn’t play 5). Now I really want to dig them up and replay them for old time’s sake, haha.

There were so many of them, Putt-Putt and Pep even underwent a redesign. The ones I played had the new design :3

I actually remembered where I kept my CDs and found them in 10 seconds flat. 22-year-old me wants to thank 7-year-old me for the foresight of keeping them somewhere I would remember XD They don’t work out of the box on 64-bit Windows; you’ll need to install ScummVM, but setting it up to play is straightforward. No idea if DOSBox works, but ScummVM was extensively tested with Humongous games and they all work great.

Welcome back to the world of gaming! I added you on there (I’m Miriverite). I also remember playing Freddi Fish when I was younger! I had the first 3 games and played them over and over. I think the 3rd game was definitely my favourite (The Lost Conch Shell or something?) It was cute, not too hard, and more of a relaxing way to spend a lazy Saturday. I played a lot of those easy/fun games (including some My Little Pony game, and the American Girls Premier).

With my father though, we played a ton of platformers. Sonic the Hedgehog was our favourite, along with the Super Mario Worlds :) Unfortunately, I played so many games that my mother took away all my systems in middle school. I played Ragnarok Online (and MMORPG) through high school, but I missed the beginning days of all of the awesome franchises (Call of Duty, Mass Effect, etc.)

I got back into gaming my last year of college, and don’t regret it in the slightest! Steam has been essential in getting me back into the swing of things.

A lot of the games you mention must be Australia-based games, but I do recognise King’s Quest and Sonic and whatnot :D

I grew up on arcade gaming and PC/Apple gaming, but now I’m primarily a console/handheld gamer. I just don’t like gaming on the PC; maybe if I had dual monitor, I may be more into it, but I’ve always liked separating games from the computer as I got older . . .

But yes, I love my games, though a lot of what i like are visual novels/graphic adventure games XD

I LOVE GAMING! I am a girl too and I honestly don’t care for the “gaming girl” stereotype. Recently I have had close to no time to play games. I know that if I get back into the world of gaming, there would be no time for me to do my work – or rather, my addiction would prevent me from getting any work done. I used to play Runescape and Maplestory the most on computers. I agree with you to an extent about Sims. I spent so long customizing my character’s, but once I got onto the game I did have fun haha. I’ve always had phases with Sims. Ah I’m tempted to play it now… (I need to control myself)!

I have no issues with the “gamer girl” term, only with those who use the word “fake” in front of it, lol. For some reason, there’s gamers out there who don’t believe girls actually play games and know their stuff when it comes to games…yeah, they suck. I don’t like the sexism side in the world of gaming.

Anyway, your post brought back a lot of memories for me concerning games and gaming in my own life. I remember my dad playing Tetris all the time on the Game Boy and my siblings playing PC games. And then my eldest brother bought the PlayStation and we started playing games like PaRappa the Rappa and Bust A Groove.

I was never one to play the difficult games though. I’d watch one of my brothers play them instead. :P I was far more interested in seeing how the story of the game would turn out like in his Metal Gear Solid series or in Heavy Rain.

I would describe myself as a casual gamer, mainly playing on my Nintendo 3DS (like Animal Crossing). The only other video game I’ve played sort of recently and actually beat on my own was the Walking Dead video game for the PS3 (the one that’s more based on the comics rather than the show).

On another note, I couldn’t get into The Sims either. I bought it once and gave it away to my friend like a few weeks later. It got rather boring!

The Sims is an awesome game. I have The Sims 3 and when I first got it, I played everyday for like a month. :D

GTA Vice City is also an awesome game. I played it on Xbox when my brother had it and now I have it for my pc. If you love that GTA, you will most likely love the other GTA games too. Especially GTA 5. I can’t wait for that one to come out for pc. :D

I totally love biscuits and gravy! I love the way my mom makes it. She basically just cooks a roll of breakfast sausage (country style), adds some flour to soak up the grease and the adds some milk till it’s of a sort of a thin consistency. She also adds pepper to it too. It’s really good. Then you just pour it over your biscuits. I eat mine with eggs too. :D

But of course, if you don’t eat chicken, you probably won’t eat pork. :)

Hahaha I am the same way when I start customizing characters in games. Plus then it takes me a year to come up with a name.

I added you on steam.

Steam is definitely one of the best things that has ever happened to gaming! Personally, I am not into the same types of games you are (I like platformers, RPGs, puzzle, and adventure games), but Steam just makes PC gaming so much easier. I happily await Valve’s new console. Anyways, go enjoy Steam!

A rather off-topic comment: stereotypes for gamers can be quite inaccurate, let alone girl gamers. I find that most gamers are very active people who do not live in their mom’s basements! And most girl gamers are also normal people – you and me and Cat and Vivian for example.