Getting to Know You

Video games are weird. We can start playing them for a good long while, and then suddenly put them down. Or is that just something that I do? Either way, we gamers tend to build up a backlog of games that never seems to end. When we finally get around to playing the game, we may have forgotten why we bought it in the first place.

There's a game that I've been trying to play lately called Antichamber. It's a really strange game, with simplistic visuals, and extremely complex rules and mechanics. When I first started it up, I was really into it, and I managed to make it a decent way through it. I decided to call it a night and put it down, and from that moment, I haven't been able to pick it back up again, that is until a few days ago. This weekend I decided to started up Antichamber again just to see if I could make any progress, and well, I couldn't. I had forgotten where I was, and how the game worked. Normally when I play a game, I really can get a sense for how the game plays, and how it thinks. That is to say, that I get to know the game by spending a lot of time with it. By playing a game for a long time, players learn the rules and mechanics of the game, and understand how it works. This is how good games are supposed to be, by letting players experiment and learn. Their knowledge of the game becomes intimate as they learn the ins and outs of the game. From its story, to its characters, to its lore, to how the game works. Isn't this similar to the relationships in our lives?

As I've written before about our party members, we keep in touch with a very tight circle of friends. Yet, there are people in our lives that we lose touch with. They were good friends, it's just that sometimes life gets in the way and we fall apart, or perhaps, something went wrong in the relationship and it falls apart. Whatever the reason, there is still a chance for you to run into them again, or the thought of them still lingers in your mind. What happens when you get in touch with them again? It's rather odd isn't it? When someone whom you haven't spoken with contacts you, or you contact them? You may have forgotten all about them, or vice versa. What if the conversation continues? You forget how conversations with them used to be. In a sense, you've forgotten how to play. You've lost your touch. You've changed. You may not even be in the mood to play that game anymore. Time passes, and people change. It is the way of things. Games don't, though, which is what makes this a rather shaky metaphor, but still. There are many times when we look back on the people in our lives and wonder what happened, where they've gone, or even why we hung around them in the first place. Though, this is the road of life. It is paved with experiences and people that we meet along the way. Perhaps it might be in our best interest to leave them alone, or it might do you some good to dust off those old games and rejuvenate an old flame that you once had with it. Who knows what could happen? It might be a good experience, or it might not be. Who am I to say?

I think it is important to be able to look back and remember the good times and the bad. There are things in our past that are remembered fondly, while others are not so good. There are times that may seem better than they actually are because of nostalgia, or we might look back and wonder what on earth we were thinking when we did them. There are different phases that we all go through, and because of them we grow. We learn what is good, and what is bad. What is right, and what is wrong. What works for us, and what doesn't. Sometimes we have to go outside of our comfort zones to learn this, and sometimes will change us forever, or it might not.