I was born in 1987, and it would be eight years before my family received our first computer as a Christmas gift. Though Carmen Sandiego debuted two years before I was born, in 1995, this computer game quickly became one of my favorite pastimes as it introduced me not only to the world of computer gaming but to computers themselves. Nineteen years later, I can still recall the graphics displayed after catching the globetrotting villain and pulling on the chain that would lock Sandiego's prison cell. While I don't remember much detail about how the game was actually played, what I do remember is how captivated I was controlling the fate of a fugitive even though I had little control over my own schedule.
As a second grader, being able to interact with a game on a computer was magic to me. I had seen monochromatic card games played on my grandfather's computer, but I was seldom allowed to play them myself. However, now that a computer sat in the dining room of my own household, an entirely new and burgeoning world was opening to me. This world included the whirring noises of inserting a floppy disk, installing some software, and seeing a game's user interface displayed right in front of me. That process alone was enough to make an eight year old boy without instructions feel like a god over his own realm. Then came the actual gameplay. While I enjoyed every minute of playing my very first computer games at home, I had no idea how quickly and how comprehensively such games would influence so many other aspects of my life.
From learning how to type with Mario on a Macintosh to finally understanding that fording the river in Oregon Trail is always a bad gamble, computers and the games which I played on them paralleled my formal education and defined much of my childhood. Now, as a young adult, I find myself using computers on a daily basis and playing computer games weekly, at least. I'm even going to post-secondary school to study how to leverage what such technology has to offer in education. I guess you could say that my relationship with computers and educational gaming has come full circle.
Now, as I begin to ponder the direction that I would like to take my own video game design, of course, I look backward to identify the qualities, characteristics, and features that attracted me to computer games and engaged me in learning so many years ago.
One of the most important aspects of those games that connected with me was a riveting story line to give the game context. Had Carmen Sandiego been nothing more than a series of random geographical questions and answers, my relationship with and memories of that first experience with using a computer and playing educational games would have been erased a long time ago. A captivating story line is essential in my own game design.
Additionally, the games that I played as a child (and the games that I play today all allowed me to choose my own paths, regardless of whether or not I was choosing to go in the right direction. Similar to a choose-your-own-adventure novel, the fun in some of my favorite computer games is not getting to the end as efficiently as possible, it is in exploring the intricate details of a world, making choices while weighing potential consequences, and writing my own mental and emotional story as I played.
Whether researching, analyzing, or designing my own game, there is no denying the profound influence that growing up with computers and gaming will have on my work. And like the games that I remember most vividly, that work will undoubtedly have its own story line with adventures that were chosen and those that will never be realized. So is the affordance of a really good game.
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