The Game That Changed My Life (TGTCML)

This is post 6 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Aywren, one of the Blaugust participants, posed an impromptu writing prompt on her blog asking:

Do you have a game you feel changed your life? Blaugust about it!

Contrary to how I view gaming now, gaming was not a big part of my life growing up--I classified myself more as a geek and nerd than anything (and I still do, don't get me wrong). But it's not like I didn't game, either.

As I've mentioned before, it's not like gaming wasn't a part of my life growing up. I played Berenstain Bears on 8-inch floppy while in pre-school. I was one of the first kids with a computer in school. But while gaming was something I did, it wasn't as big a defining part of my life.

I loved to game--I played Pokemon on my gameboy; I played Mario Kart on our N64; I purchased a PS2 to try out various games... but they weren't the only thing I did.

What girl growing up being born in the 80s didn't want to marry Jareth?

As a kid, I mostly read. And if I wasn't reading, I was watching a fantasy or sci-fi movie (that wasn't too scary). And when I wasn't watching a movie, I was out in our back yard, pretending to be in the fantasy world--whether it be near the trees or in the pool. I mostly saved video games for when I was out with my parents and bored, or when we had friends over. Sometimes my brother and I were allowed to play the N64 together, but it wasn't very often. Looking back on it, my parents were pretty strict with monitoring our play time as kids (not that it bothered us much as we had other outlets).

As a teen, while I played more games on the PS2, and kept playing on the N64/Gameboy video gaming was not a defining factor of my life. Again, I was a big reader. I was also very involved in my high school--I was in musicals, and plays, and band, and choir. I even wrote for the school newspaper for two years. I was in lots of clubs, and was involved in community theatre during the summer, as well as working various summer jobs.

My favorite Sailor Moon villain.

While I spent a lot of time online, it was mainly writing fan fiction (primarily song-fics), or working on a Sailor Moon Villains website (I was kind of obsessed--and I still am!), or creating dolls (you remember those--they were pixel models without hair or clothes or sometimes eyes, and you had to digitally add everything), or designing websites for fun, or lots and lots of chatroom RP.

It wasn't until I hit college in 2005 that I really started to get into gaming. I joined some clubs and started using my PS2 more. I started playing more games with my (now) best friend, and we would have girl-nights where we'd play games, watch movies or anime, and binge on pizza. Despite this, no one game caught my interest as something that would keep me gaming consistently. When we gamed, it was mainly multi-player games, and if they weren't multi-player, we'd take turns when one of us died. While I remember having fun with all of them, none of them quite left an impression on me.

When I transferred to a different college in 2007, I discovered World of Warcraft. And that is a story of it's own. So look for Part 2 later!