How I Remember Her - Games and Creating Memories

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jadegl

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Edited By jadegl

These past few weeks have been rough. People are tired, frustrated and emotions are raw. That’s all I will say about that. This piece isn’t about what is bad or frustrating about games, but instead about what is so very good. It’s about the ways we find friends and keep them, how memories are formed and treasured when we play games, and how our lives can become so much richer when we play.

When I was 13 years old, my best friend committed suicide. It was a cold January morning just after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. I woke up before the alarm went off. My bedroom was dark and the house seemed unnaturally quiet. I walked to the spiral staircase leading downstairs. I stopped. I could hear my mother talking very quietly to someone else. She must have heard me because she called out to me. She wanted me to come downstairs but she wouldn’t say why. I ended up sitting beside her at the kitchen counter when she told me what had happened. She told me I didn’t have to go to school, but I could. It’s all so fuzzy now. I did go. I walked to school alone in the cold, ice and snow crunching under my sneakers. When I got to school, I didn't speak to anyone until the announcement came over the intercom. I sat in a quiet stupor most of the day while everyone else around me seemed to be reacting much more than I could. I suppose it was because I felt like I was blindsided. I honestly didn’t see it coming, or maybe I did sense it was possible, but I never imagined it would actually happen.

This is Percy. He is a Persimmon. I saw this screen an estimated total of 513 times, give or take 100.
This is Percy. He is a Persimmon. I saw this screen an estimated total of 513 times, give or take 100.

That part of my life with her is something that I resist the urge to dwell on. What happened at the end isn’t the sum total of who she was. What I do think about, what my mind often goes to, is Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom. After two straight years of playing that game, off and on, the farthest we ever got was about halfway. We became stumped. I remember that we had an umbrella and no idea what to do with it. For those who are unfamiliar, Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom is an adventure game that operates with very basic commands chosen from a menu. The areas are depicted by pictures with minimal movement and sound. You must talk to people in those areas and take and use items to progress. When you complete a chapter, you get a password and the next chapter begins. It’s very much like a text adventure with simple visuals.

We tried to beat Princess Tomato by ourselves. There was no Internet, no place to go to suss out the game’s secrets with others, it was just the two of us trying to put our brains together and get through it, one step at a time. When we managed to finish a chapter, we were so excited. It was a slow process. We didn’t always play that game and we would get frustrated and give up sometimes, but when we progressed, it was a fantastic feeling of triumph and relief. Looking back, I know that the game was not great. On a list of adventure games, it probably wouldn’t crack anyone’s Top 10, or even a Top 100, but it still holds a little place in my heart. It was a game that helped me create memories of a person that I still miss terribly, even though she’s been gone now for almost 20 years.

Contender for Secret Best NES Platformer. Seriously, play it if you can find a copy.
Contender for Secret Best NES Platformer. Seriously, play it if you can find a copy.

There are other games that make me think of her too. M.C. Kids, which was a game that was unbelievably fun and of a surprisingly high quality for being tied to the McDonald's Restaurant chain. We ended up renting it multiple times from Sounds Easy, a local movie and video game rental store that was just a five-minute walk up the street from my house. It was another game that, try as we might, we couldn’t beat. The difficulty level would go from easy to monstrously difficult. And, instead of progression being tied to finishing the level and then the next like most NES platformers, it was tied to collecting “M” cards throughout those levels. Without the right amount of cards, you couldn’t get further in the game. Even with the game becoming too difficult for us to complete, we still kept going back to it. We were gluttons for punishment, or maybe we just really enjoyed the game.

As we grew up, we also grew away from the Nintendo and into other platforms. Only a few months before that frosty January morning, we were huddled around the PC in her family's dining room. It was her 13th birthday and she had invited a group of friends over for a slumber party. We were going to eat junk food, watch horror movies, and play Wolfenstein 3D. We each took a turn with the keyboard and mouse. Whenever one of us would die, or get to a new area, we would trade off. Finally, after maybe an hour or two, we got to the final level in the first episode. I remember another girl was in the chair, and the rest of us were looking over her shoulder telling her to walk one way or another and trying to spot enemies or items before she did. We had no idea what was coming. As soon as she opened that door and Hans Grosse yelled and started shooting, we screamed and every last one of us, probably seven teenage girls, ran away from the computer, some into the kitchen and some into the hallway. Obviously, we died, but we didn't care. It was probably on of the silliest moments that I have had playing a video game with other people. And it's a moment that never fails to put a smile on my face.

That is what games have the power to do. Yes, they can be pieces of art that make us feel and think about issues on a deeper level, but they also have a very basic function. They allow us to have fun with each other, to connect with each other, to form moments in time with other people that we can look back on fondly. As we grow older, we can lose people in our lives, whether it is a function of the natural passage of time and growing apart as individuals, or whether it is something more sudden, a friend who is lost much too soon to comprehend. When I think about games, I want to remember that for all the discussions we have as a community and all the arguments we can get swept up in, we still have this amazing hobby that brings us together. Let's not lose that. Let's not lose each other. Let's make those memories last and find those rare and wonderful islands of common ground.

And then, let's play some games.

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thatpinguino

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#1 thatpinguino  Moderator

Very well written and very well put. I think I am definitely guilty of spending too much time being critical and not enough time enjoying things in the moment. Thanks for the reminder to soak in the fun every once and a while!

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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I'm retroactively sorry for your loss. Which is to say, an era-appropriate version of me in the past is now sorry for your loss, and that continues unto today.

I often think about people I've lost without having them die or anything; just those people you drift apart from. As much as I might like to use humor to scrub over uncomfortable things, it's worth remembering the people you've drifted apart from in the past, in order to better appreciate the people who you connect with today. You'll probably drift apart from them too, perfectly naturally, so you might as well make the most of now.

Also, fuckin A your last paragraph.

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MooseyMcMan

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I feel like I'm just a few words away from having something meaningful to say, but... Instead I'll just say that I'm sorry, and that, as always, your wrote a great blog.

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RonGalaxy

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I wholeheartedly agree with the points you've made. No matter what the game is or what it is trying to accomplish, they are made to bring us together.. yet we argue about the semantics and it brings out some really ugly stuff (snowball effect). There are so many worse things to worry about; the world can be a really ugly place and horrible things happen daily, yet for some reason drama erupts from the silliest of places.

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Yummylee

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Another great blog Jade, and I'm really happy that you've started to blog more often as of late! The overall sentiment of your blog, and one that you have trumpeted in the past, is one of the reasons why I find myself drawn to what you have to say. You seem like someone that tries more to dwell on the positives and not constantly scour around for reasons to moan about this or that. It's why even if I happen to disagree with you I'll gladly read what you have to say!

I'm sorry for your loss, too. To lose a best friend at any age is horrible, but when you're 13? That's borderline traumatic... I haven't lost anyone personally. Well, there was my dad, but I think that speaks to how that relationship went about given how much of an afterthought he was. Point is I haven't lost anyone I really deeply care about, least not yet of course. As such while I can't relate to the feelings of loss you went through, I can to some degree understand losing a friend, be it by growing up into different people, or falling out, or what have you. Like yourself, there are games that have these memories permanently attached that can be bittersweet to think back to. Some of which were truly awful, much like your own examples! During such years, however, I'm sure everybody found themselves growing weirdly fond of terrible, terrible games :P A simpler time...

I can remember one game, World's Scariest Police Chases, that I loved to rent and play with my best friend at the time. It was awesome because of how each player had a role; one drives, one shoots... not exactly innovative mind I know. I think I was the driver, I can't quite recall. But still, back in my childhood days of primarily playing PS1 games there weren't that many cooperative games I had available. So while it's likely to be looked back on as some traditionally crappy TV show-tie in with little redeeming qualities, for my mate and I it was one of a few chances at the time to flex our cooperative skills and overcome the game's challenges as a duo, rather than passing the pad or simply watching the other play something.

There were other games that allowed us to play together too, like the Warcraft series. Though it's WSPC that was one of the first, so it has a little bit of extra importance circling it :P

Unfortunately I don't really speak to that mate of mine very much anymore. That one was a case of us growing up into different people, and as the years went by--especially once we hit our 20s--we started to lose a lot of the common ground and drifted apart.

In any case, Let's play video games indeed!

Loading Video...

Also, a little something just to end my post on a lighter note!

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SpaceInsomniac

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#6  Edited By SpaceInsomniac

The Smashing Pumpkins released their album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in 1995, but I didn't get a copy of that album until early 1997, right around the time Final Fantasy VII was released. I got a PlayStation before my friends, so after I played the game myself, I played through it with my friends by going over to their house once or twice a week. When I wasn't there, I would spend hours and hours listening to Mellon Collie and leveling up over and over again.

We were using a gameplay walkthrough to make sure we didn't miss anything the second time around, and we would frequently run into a situation where the guide would say something like "if you have Bolt 2, use it," and we would have Bolt 3. We flew through that game thanks to my absurd amount of grinding--a term that I wasn't even aware of back then--and even now it's one of our favorite gaming stories to tell.

To this day, my favorite Smashing Pumpkins album and my favorite Final Fantasy game are forever linked in a really beautiful way.

I played through Secret of Mana for SNES with them as well. A 30+ hour Super Nintendo RPG in 3 player simultaneous local co-op with two great friends. My gaming memories don't get any better than that.

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Mortuss_Zero

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I agree with everything you said. I wish everyone could stop for a minute, look at each other and realize: Hey, we're all here to play some video games and have a good time. We're all the same in the ways that matter.

Also, it feels like it can't mean much coming from a stranger on the internet decades later, but my condolences for your loss. I've almost been the best friend who committed suicide, and I wish she'd gotten help like I did.

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ShadowSwordmaster

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This is another fantastic blog you made Jade.I agree with you that games do bring us together and that is something we should not let go.

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Aetheldod

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#9  Edited By Aetheldod

Well I have 2 games with a similar connection , you see my dad killed himself in 2002 , I still think it has been the worst day in my life and I miss my dad , he was more than a father he was (still is in my books) the finest human being I´ve ever met and I remember a x-mass vacation we had with the whole family (in mexican terms when we mean the whole family we mean grandparents , uncles , cousins and dogs included) at my grandparents lake house and it was the first year the N64 was out , we didnt get it but one of my cousins did , and my father would wake up like 6 am (even earlier than us) and begin playing Mario 64 , I still remember fondly his smile and joy in just moving Mario around in a 3D enviroment and also replaying the slide courses over and over. The other game is Tetris because my god my father was king on Tetris on the NES he was godlike (kid you not) I still cant fathom how he could beat the game over and over in hardest difficulty D:

And yeah , you never think of the last actions of the person you loved , frankly you dont care about that but on the good stuff you did with them and the happy memories , and I´ve met so many people who wishes for us to scorn and hate on my father because of his suicide and I just cant do that , why should I hate him or reclaim anything? He was a great father , friend , lovable parent , great husband and always did his best for his family , one action will never ever erease that.

And sorry for your loss , even if it happened so long ago.

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Patchcoat

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What a superbly written piece. Thank you very much for sharing.

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deactivated-60dda8699e35a

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This reminds me of when my friends and I used to all play Super Smash Bros together in elementary school. When that game came out for the Nintendo 64 were we all hooked, and I can still remember how I was so excited to get home to play the game that I would daydream about it in class, haha. Geez, that was nearly 15 years ago now that I think of it.

An even older memory than that is when my brothers and I would all stay up really late playing Super Mario Bros and Snake Rattle and Roll on the Nintendo. I can only vaguely remember playing them, but I know I was probably awful. I just really remember watching my older brothers go through the game, since they were significantly better at it than me.

Thanks for writing the piece, it was well written and interesting. I honestly can't imagine what it must feel like to lose a friend in that way, but at least you have good memories of her.

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Slag

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@jadegl:

Losing your best friend at 13 has to be unbelievably hard, that's a such a rough age when you are just starting to figure things out. My belated condolences. I'm really you had to go through that and I'm very sorry she isn't around for you today.

You know games were never about my friends for me like they were for you. Very few of my friends liked to game, so for me it was primarily my me time and a bulwark against loneliness.

But I did always want to have that kind of camaraderie that you had/have with your friends and I've always treasured the few times I get it. There's been some nice stretches where it happened for me and it's created some nice memories.

My neighbor and I had our own "Princess Tomato" adventure game we never beat, for us it was King's Quest. FWIW we never did beat it despite several years of sporadically trying, I managed to by myself last year in about an hour. And boy you are right, playing adventure games today with so e many guides so easy to access just ins't the same.

My sibling and I used to play Super Mario Bros together all the time, but that stopped once the 3D era due to motion sickness for my sibling. Back then we thought we had to swing our arms with the button push to get Mario to jump.

We had a school lockin once, and we got a SNES and Mortal Kombat past the chaperons. We tried to do fatalities all night long. No one figured out how to do any of them.

A teammate of mine gambling away our room key on a road trip over some very ill advised Mario Kart play.

My Dorm mates and I used to jam away on Goldeneye in my room and we installed Marathon 2 Durandal on all the school's lab computers. Stuff like that.

That's why I like DotA/DOTA 2 so much. It's a way to have fun with my friends who all live far away now and keep in touch.

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jadegl

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I just want to thank everyone for being so kind. I appreciate everything you've said and the condolences that youve offered. I will say that this was a long time ago. This upcoming January will be 19 years, which is more than half of my life at this point. So while it is something that I think about often, the good thing is that I think more of all the good things and my mind barely ever goes to any of the bad. I even have dreams with her in them, and we mostly just hang out and talk like nothing happened. I realize in them that she's gone, but I don't feel sad, I just enjoy the time. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you all and express that before getting into more specific replies.

@thatpinguino: Don't worry, I spend a lot of time being critical too. I think when we love stuff, we want to talk about it all the time, and that means good and bad. Sometimes it seems more bad than good, but I think we can change that. I hope so. :)

@rongalaxy:@mortuss_zero: I agree. I know that sometimes I get really involved in conversations online and they can get heated. Then I look back when I am away from the keyboard and I realize that the people I am talking to are not that different than me in what they're trying to say, it's just that we're not hitting on the same wavelength for whatever reason. Maybe the words we're using are too charged or maybe I just don't realize how close we actually are until I have time to reflect and cool off a bit. I think maybe if we just sat back and thought more maybe about the good stuff we wouldn't wallow so much in the bad.

@spaceinsomniac: Thank you so much for that awesome story. My husband actually told me about how The Wallflowers reminds him of playing Wing Commander. I guess if you had a CD in the disk drive and a mission would start that was on the same "track" it would play the song. I'm really not explaining it well, but he has this whole CD to game connection thing too that he described to me when we were first going out. Your story reminded me of that. You also reminded me on my husband helping me with Kingdom Hearts by looking at a guide and trying to make sure I was getting everything as I played. Again, thank you!

@yummylee: Thank you for sharing your story! I love that awesome, fun memories can be made even with games that people would consider not good. It's unfortunate that we grow apart from people, so I'm sorry you grew apart from your buddy, but people change and have different goals and ideals, so I understand. Still, you have all those good memories, and that's a very important thing to have and cherish. I know that a lot of the best experiences that I have had with my two brothers, my friends and my husband all revolve around games, playing games, fun stuff like that. It's kind of funny thinking about it. Maybe it's just how my brain works!

@aetheldod: I'm very sorry to hear about your father. I know that I am very lucky to have my parents and I can't comprehend losing them. So I know that I can't fathom your pain, but I hope that you know how sorry I am. Although it is not the point of the piece, I think that it is important to talk about suicide. I remember people saying it was selfish, what she did. I know that I never was angry at her. I was sad, dumbstruck, but never upset. I think that it wasn't selfish. She was hurting. She had issues that I wish she had spoken up about so that she could have gotten help. But never selfish, never angry. I think people have a bad idea about mental health, it's stigmatized. I hope that people will get over that with time, but I don't know. That's why I hold onto the good things about her. It's an honor to have known her for a short time. If I dwell on the worst parts of our time together, then I don't continue to honor her. Thank you for sharing.

@random45: Thank you! I think the best times I remember with my older brothers were involved with games. My brother Paul would play RBI Baseball with me and let me be the Boston analogue, which was really nice considering he cared more about baseball and the team at that point than I did. They both taught me how to run Commodore 64 games and even made a save disk for me for The Legend of Black Silver. I honestly don't think I would have ever been as into games without the, my dad, and my friends. We are all lucky people.

@slag: Thank you for your stories. I know that games can also be a salve for loneliness sometimes. I know that in high school, I was much more solitary in my gaming. I just didn't have the friends that were as into them as I used to. Then I met my husband, then just a friend, and we had this great relationship with a lot of similar interests. I remember him buying me the Quake 2 complete box set after I was finished playing Quake, which he also installed on my new computer. Although that was just one awesome thing he did, I think that it solidified that relationship quite a bit. I wonder how many people can say that Quake and Quake 2 were a relationship builder. :D

Again, thanks everyone for your kind words. I read them all and they've really brightened my day. My main hope came true which was for all of us to share some awesome gaming memories. Thank you!

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Slag

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@jadegl said:

@slag: Thank you for your stories. I know that games can also be a salve for loneliness sometimes. I know that in high school, I was much more solitary in my gaming. I just didn't have the friends that were as into them as I used to. Then I met my husband, then just a friend, and we had this great relationship with a lot of similar interests. I remember him buying me the Quake 2 complete box set after I was finished playing Quake, which he also installed on my new computer. Although that was just one awesome thing he did, I think that it solidified that relationship quite a bit. I wonder how many people can say that Quake and Quake 2 were a relationship builder. :D

Hah probably not too many!

The Quake games do seem to have this real lasting appeal. I go to this annual LAN party these days that is a bunch of high school friends of a friend of mine (i.e. they went to high school with him not me). We pretty much just play Quake III and mods of it (urban terror etc) all night long. Maybe there is more togetherness power behind Quake than one might think!

In any event , very cool story jade!

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I_Stay_Puft

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#15  Edited By I_Stay_Puft

It's always good to remember the good times with those we lost. Thanks for sharing about your memories @jadegl

I remember M.C Kids that was such an awesome game. Too bad most people will remember it as the Mcdonald's Game but there was so many secrets in that game that it kinda made exploring in that game for them sorta fun.

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citizencoffeecake

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Touching post, very well written.

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pekoe212

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#17  Edited By pekoe212

Wowza. This is so beautifully written. Reading about your gaming memories with friends is bringing up some of mine, sadly not enough with friends in the last 10 years, found it hard to find people that shared my interest. And I am so sorry for your loss, I can't comprehend losing a best friend, in whatever manner, at that age.

This hit weirdly close to home for me because when I was in 8th grade, my locker partner at school committed suicide in January, on Martin Luther King Day. She was 13 too. I didn't know her well, as she stopped being my locker partner after a week in favor of sharing one with her friend, but I was always wondering about her and worrying about her. She was nice but definitely disaffected from school, not even in it half the time, and when she was it was headphones on and drawing (she was a talented artist) rather than paying attention to the class. Getting in trouble for smoking and alcohol in her locker. It was obvious that whatever was going on in her life it was very difficult, and she was doing her best to tune out the bad stuff and put on a brave front. When she died I just felt so much rage. Because she was 13. Adults were aware of the problems in her life but could not or would not help her. Adults were probably the cause of the problems in her life, if rumors going around school were true. She slipped between the cracks. She was just a kid, and yet there was no one there to help her when she needed it. It just felt like....this should not happen to someone so young. The universe should have mechanisms in place to stop it. No one should feel that sad and alone. I myself was already struggling with depression, but compared to her I felt I had a lot of support. Luckily, to this day I have not lost anyone really close to me in that manner, but I've been close to people who had dear friends or family commit suicide and seen the fallout. Every time it's happened, however, it's affected me quite strongly, I think because I recognize those tendencies in myself and it is frightening, and i recognize the pain the other person was going through and feel grief and empathy for them. The only upside is that it solidifies my resolve to keep going not matter how bad I feel, and reminds me that no matter how insignificant, unhappy, or awful you feel you are, you are terribly important to someone...and if you leave for good you leave a wound in others' lives that won't ever completely go away. Because you can't really erase yourself from the world, even if you think you want to.

I'm glad you treasure those memories of your friend, and that you have good dreams about her. And thank you so much for writing this, it's really given me some things to think about. I thought I'd resolved for myself my reaction to what happened back then but I wonder if it isn't still affecting my view of the world even now. I'm also gonna nag my brother a bit more insistently to play some online games with me. :)

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SpaceInsomniac

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#18  Edited By SpaceInsomniac

I saw a video on my You Tube subscription feed that instantly reminded me of this thread, so I thought I'd share it.

Loading Video...

And my condolences to JadeGL and anyone else here who had to experience such loss at such a young age.

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deactivated-62a216db3532b

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Fucking M.C. Kids

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tescovee

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13, wow. Thats so hard to wrap my head around. So young...

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peritus

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Thank you for sharing that. Its beautiful.

On a side note, i really like M.C. Kids.

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ClairvoyantVibrations

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This is a very beautiful piece. I've never known anyone who's committed suicide, though my best friend has told me multiple times that she was close and its so difficult for me to imagine how I'd feel if she had gone through with it. That has nothing to do with games in the slightest. My friend isn't a gamer outside of Mortal Kombat and Halo, but I guess that's not really the point. It's just very hard to think of how I could feel in one of my close friends took their own life.

Your Wolf3D story reminded me of a time when I was maybe... 9 or 10 years old. I was playing King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (a game that I thought was surprisingly good, despite being into Call of Duty 2 and Counter Strike at that age) on my PS2 (yes I'm young) with a huge group of friends. Maybe 8 kids sitting around a tiny TV screen all screaming whenever a raptor would jump out of no where, and collectively becoming anxious when Jack said "No magazines on back up" right before something big was going to attack us and we could only hope our Tommy Gun would kill the thing before we heard it click. It was an amazing experience, really. One that I can't imagine I'll ever have again, and thinking about that makes me kind of sad. I still have fun with two or three friends over and some drinks passing around a controller playing GTA, or playing Nidhogg tournaments, or dicking around in Octodad, but I don't think anything will really live up to that experience I had when I was 10.

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Crembaw

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I, uh...I know this is your blog (a damn good one at that) and not mine, but something's been on my mind and this kind of pushed me over the edge.

My friend commit suicide last year. A few months younger than me, leagues more fit, just as into video games as I was. We'd known each other literally since Kindergarten. Yeah, we weren't strictly best friends, but we were pretty close. The two years where I had to carpool with him before I got my drivers' license tried that patience pretty goddamn hard - we were both fucking idiots, we both had stupid opinions and we were both sure we were right, but I was so bullish and hot-headed. I could blame it on the transition periods with my medications, or on stresses from high school, or beginning to become slightly aware of the surrounding world, but you know, ultimately I was a hell of a lot meaner than I should ever have been. Especially since he always came back and it seemed like nothing had happened between us.

I think I knew that he had problems at home. His parents always seemed strict on him. I never knew the details. I still don't. It's not my business. But there's a sort of way people draw to one another when they're young. People are more alike than they would ever like to admit, even when they start diversifying their peer groups like we did. But still I couldn't really believe it happened. I sort of seized up. The month had already been so fucking awful (I had had a relapse into depression when Ryan died, and my friend passed a week later). Things didn't feel real. Sometimes they still don't. Sometimes I wake up and I think about asking him how we did in that game I dreamed about. Sometimes I wake up and I think he's beside me like at the sleepovers from when we were little. Sometimes I wake up and realized I didn't actually just apologize for the two years of abject SHIT I gave him while unfairly using him to let out anger that had built up inside me. Sometimes I wonder if I should call him and set up some times to play on Xbox Live. Sometimes it's not even that, I just scroll by his player tag in whatever service and stop and think about why he hasn't been on.

There's guilt. Oh God, there's guilt. Could I have helped him? Did I know? Why wasn't I a better person? Why did he do it. All stupid, stupid questions that stick on the inside of my skull, little plaques that clog my thoughts and cloud my dreams.

What am I doing playing games? Am I just trying to escape? Am I trying to waste my own time so I don't have to do the things I should do? Am I trying to get back into League because we never got to play together? I don't know. These things come on in a flash and then evaporate by the morning, and then by the time I see my psychiatrist all I have to report is 'same old same old.' But it's not. It's so much worse. I feel a great, clawing need to do something with my life, but also a heavy chain wrapped around my neck, dragging me back, back, deeper into that fanged depression pit. It comes to life as excuses. It comes to life as dreams. It comes to life as playing video games a little bit more often than is healthy. And, it comes to life as this gnawing sensation, this hate-filled tick, whispering that really, deep down, in some small way, I helped drive him to do it - and that even if I knew for sure that I had nothing to do with his decision, I would still think it was my fault, because I'm so self-centered.

Sorry. I tend to make things about me when they're not. I really didn't mean to, but it just sort of, came out.

Sorry again. And, thank you, for what you write, and say, and do.

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FinalDasa

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#25 FinalDasa  Moderator

This is a really great write up :D

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Karkarov

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Good blog post, well said. Games are just a hobby really, but people should remember that it is your hobbies you talk about and share with your friends. Loss happens to everyone, but what is important is the memories of those times you had with them and those shared moments.

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Paindamnation

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@jadegl: Glad to know you're still kicking butt with writing. Good show.

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rick9109

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@jadegl: I enjoyed reading this, thank you for sharing.

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Jazz_Lafayette

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Thank you for writing this out, it's a wonderful piece.

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RipMurdock

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#30  Edited By RipMurdock
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agentboolen

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#31  Edited By agentboolen

@jadegl: yes I tend to play old games once in awhile just to remember the fun I had with certain friends. Only problem some of them just don't hold up and the old nes days where much harder then current games. But I still have find memories.

Just yesterday I played through Super Street Fighter 2 and remembered how me and friends would rent it just about every weekend (because we couldn't afford the $60 price tag) and would just pass the controller back and forth beating each other.

I kind of miss those days. The internet gaming age is nice but there was something special about friends passing a controller to each other.

Just some other games i remember playing with friends Contra, Double Dragon, Megaman 2, Sunset riders.

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paulunga

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I wanted to make a silly joke about current events but instead I'd just like to thank you for sharing. So, thank you.

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jadegl

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I just wanted to pop in and thank everyone for their kind words and their stories.

@agentboolen: I know that nostalgia can certainly make us view games positively that we otherwise would find pretty poor. The games that I mentioned, besides Wolfenstein 3D which is a classic and still fun, are pretty mediocre. Actually, Princess Tomato is pretty bad if you try it now. I bought it on Virtual Console due to my fond memories and while the graphics and story are cute, the gameplay is pretty rough and hard to get into. Still, it's more what happened around the game, like you were saying with renting Street Fighter II with your friends.

@crembaw: I understand the guilt, but it does get more manageable with time. I won't say "better" because I don't think that's the appropriate term. It's just something you can view and manage with experience. I often felt a lot of guilty feelings for years after what happened. One of the biggest issues I had was my lack of reaction for the days following. I didn't cry until the wake, which was 4 days later. I just wasn't feeling what I thought I should be feeling. Everyone around me in our group of friends was just showing grief out loud with crying, shouting and anger, but for me it was all internal. I thought something was seriously wrong with me. Like I was emotionally broken or something. I realize now, with time, that I just was probably in shock. Also, over time I realized that people handle grief differently and my way was no better or worse than someone else. At the time, however, I thought I was a weirdo.

I hope that you are talking about your feelings with someone. If you ever need someone to talk to or at, you can always feel free to PM me. Also, I appreciate you sharing your story here. I think the most important thing is fostering discussion on the forums, so you talking about your own experiences is what I hope for. So please feel free to comment.