Mushroom Kingdom Chronicle

Last week I wrote a guest-chronicle for a Swedish gaming website called Svampriket.se. I wanted to post it on my blog as well, but since I know most of my readers do not understand my native tongue I asked if I could translate it. Permission granted. To see the original text, follow this link. Reading it in Swedish is a lot better than English, so I recommend it if you do understand the language. As for you English-speakers out there, continue reading this post.

When a computer was introduced to the household, there was an immediate contest between me and my sister about who would use it. An egg timer was put for an hour at a time so justice could be maintained, but it was still difficult to tear oneself away from the magical worlds we entered.

In my last years as a child, before being a teenager devoured me completely, I played Age of Empires 2 with my then boyfriend. We did not have a intimate relationship, as many children of that age lack, but we shared a passion for gaming and it held us together. We sat close to each other in the only computer chair available and built cities to start wars with the other nations. Age of Empires 2 was my first real game, which introduced me to the gaming world beyond Hugo, Lek & Lär and Mulle Meck.

Even after the relationship ended, my life continued down the path of gaming. I bought my own laptop for money saved from allowance. The pride of having something like that for myself was overwhelming. Nothing could stop me from entering other worlds. I bought The Sims and was amazed by all the possibilities a life could have. It was incredible to build a house, be an early adult, to date computer-controlled men and to have children. Soon all the expansions were in my bookshelf, along with the first four PC games made around the Harry Potter series. I did magic! After reading the books several times and being able to recite every line from the then published movies, it was a dream fulfilled to walk around in the Hogwarts castle.

There was no knowledge of what existed outside of my little world of The Sims and Harry Potter. Not until I met my partner. An outgoing man who worked for a game company. I was reborn when he introduced me to more advanced and developed games. I learned about User Interfaces, framerates, keybindings and graphics. There was so much more in games than just playing. Everything was of interest, I let myself fall into the fast-growing industry. Soon I was in on all notes, played the latest games, followed tournaments and understood what it meant to create a game. He took me into his world and I loved it. I did not play to avoid reality anymore, I enjoyed it and played with someone I loved. There was passion in games, there was cooperation and communication. Playing together helped our relationship and made us a strong couple. I am so grateful that he let me into his world, and I do not want to leave it any time soon.