Candy Crush and my addictive adult gaming habit: are you next?
I used to love computer games. I grew up in the 1990s when computers were just starting to hit their stride with colourful graphics, realistic artwork and interactivity. My uncle and my father were huge computer nerds, and still are, well into their 50s and 60s. The upshot of this was always having the latest computer gear on hand as children and teenagers.
Early memories of new technology
I remember when my dad brought home our first computer mouse. According to Wikipedia, “the mouse remained relatively obscure until the 1984 appearance of the Macintosh 128K, which included an updated version of the original Lisa Mouse.”
I think my dad would have brought a mouse home in about 1986 or 1987 – although I could be mistaken. I clearly remember him showing us how to use it, and we were enthralled because up until that point it was keyboard commands or a joystick –only.
The Amiga 500 computer
And onto gaming. My sister and I loved to play computer games and our very first love was the Amiga 500. I have since found out that like the Commodore 64, the Amiga 500 was prided by gamers as a superior machine, as it offered a huge leap in realistic graphics and colour grids.
The Amiga 500 was actually the next step up from the Commodore 64, according to Wikipedia. This was the computer where I first started gaming and I can still remember all my favourite games:
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
….and so many others!
When life took over from gaming
I stopped gaming when I became an adult. School work, waging school, chasing after boys and ripping holes in my jeans suddenly became better pastimes than going from level to level on an arbitrary game. At age 21, my then-partner brought home an X-Box – a gaming machine that I was familiar with but none-too-impressed by…somehow the “male-dominated” environments of car racing and shoot-em-ups seemed like a place I was not welcome.
The game that turned me off gaming was Final Fantasy. I longed to like this game, but I was frustrated at how many things I had to kill to get to the goods parts. While gaming I liked strategy, skill and planning – I loved the artwork and fantasy worlds that were created in pixels. But I hated driving games and shooting games – B-O-R-I-N-G.
Male vs/ female playing environments
The Boyf used to work in a computer games shop, and disagrees with me that the environments created for most commercial games are male-dominated and exclusive to women. Fair enough, he has a greater understanding of the gaming sector as a whole than I do. I have also blogged previously about the fact that one of the (few scant) positives about dating older men is that they don’t play video games.
So, now I’m addicted to Candy Crush.
The Boyf knew what he was doing – and yet he let me proceed any way. I am now so addicted to Candy Crush – I play it several times a day. People – I AM A LADY IN HER THIRTIES – who has lots of better stuff to do!!! And yet, there you’ll find me – sitting on my arse, playing Candy – when I should be cooking dinner, working on my manuscript, having sex, emptying the bins, feeding the fish or trolling people on Facebook.
Are you next?
Probably. “Approximately 97 percent of teenagers and 81 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 play video games, according to a Monday study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project,” says PC Mag. They also say, “About 60 percent of adults ages 30 to 49 are gamers.”
The game of Candy Crush
So – what is it? It’s a bit like Tetris – except you have to line up different “candies” and they explode, clearing a line, sort of like Tetris. You go up through the levels and the game gets harder. You can connect to your friends via Facebook and they can give you free lives and see your score for levels.
If you would like to play Candy Crush with me – go to my Facebook page and connect with me!
https://www.facebook.com/alyce.vayle
Let’s crush those candies together!
Tell me: what games do you like to play? What was your favourite gaming machine from your childhood?
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