I do two posts a week with this blog religiously. It’s not easy sometimes. If you follow the blog closely, first off, thank you, but second off, you’ve probably noticed how often I find almost any idea and turn it into a list. Part of that is because I’m just a list sicko and love that stuff, but part of it is that it’s not always easy for me to find something to write about each and every week.
So when I came up with this gimmick last year, I knew I was going to use it every year. It’s an easy one to write, and it’s a free yearly content idea.
But also, I think it’s a great way for me to reflect on the past year, and to make sure that I am taking something away from the video games that I spend a lot of time playing.
Like any great art, video games can make you think about things and even change your life. But when you are constantly gaming like me, it’s easy for an experience to be impactful, but then quickly discarded for the next game. One of the reasons I love having this blog is that it forces me to sit down and truly reflect on every experience I have, but this yearly post is a nice additional way for me to do that.
It was a very interesting year for me. When I wrote this blog last year, I thought I was on the verge of losing my job due to my company going out of business. It was a stressful time, with several sleepless nights and weeks spent juggling work, fatherhood, and job interviews. Luckily, everything worked out mostly well for me there. I also had my second child this year. There was a lot going on! Things are chaotic, and I’m definitely getting less sleep, but as long as you don’t have two under two (mine are 3.5 years apart exactly), the second child is a much easier experience. Both my wife and I are doing pretty well and getting through it. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s not so fun, but it gets easier every day.
Last year was my first full year of blogging, and I’m really proud that I was able to stay consistent with it. Through most of my life, I dreamed of doing something like this, but I just wasn’t able to commit. Something about being a dad has made me so much more disciplined with life and time, and really just about everything else. My daughters are really the reason that I’ve been able to do this, because they have unlocked a part of me that I didn’t know was there.
My goal this year is to ramp things up very slightly. I’m content with my writing output, but now I really want to add a podcast to the fold. Please keep an eye out in the coming months for the Big Nerd Gaming Podcast. I just want it to be a monthly thing where I talk with games and do some lists with friends. I’m trying to think of ways I can make it unique, and I’m trying to figure out how to do the production elements of the podcast. Hopefully, it will be worth listening to.
With that, here are the biggest things I learned from video games at age 36. I’ll see you with this same gimmick next year!
Write Things Down… For Those Who Come After
There’s an episode of the anime Violet Evergarden that has really stuck with me for the past four years. My wife and I were watching it in the middle of her pregnancy. In this particular episode, a mother knows that she is going to die in the coming months from an illness. She works with the lead character, Violet, to write letters to her child that she will receive on her birthday each year until she is pretty old.
Just thinking about that makes me emotional all over again. I will never forget that episode. I was reminded of it a little bit again while playing Expedition 33 this year. In that game, every time you make camp, you have the option to write in your journal. These journals are a vital element of the lore in the game. Each expedition writes in journals to help “those who come after.”
Playing Expedition 33 reminded me all over again how badly I want to leave a lot of written things for my daughters to have after I’m gone. I know that having written things from someone I lost would mean a lot to me, so I feel like it’s my responsibility to make sure I do this for them.
Luckily, I have occasional blog posts about life that I think they might enjoy reading a long time from now. So, I think I have accomplished this a little bit, but I also want to have more personalized notes and letters as well. Expedition 33 was a great reminder that I need to make this actually happen this year.
Art Can Heal
This one probably sounds way too obvious for most, but I really had never had a big time “healing through art” experience until this past year. I’ve used video games plenty of times over the years as a distraction during hard times, but I’ve never had a game that just clicked with every single thing I was going through until I played Crypt Custodian last year.
Crypt Custodian is a game about a cat who just died and who is now a custodian in the afterlife (it’s a long story). The game tackles a difficult topic with animal death, but it has a quirky sense of humor that helps lighten the load a little bit. It also has perfect music that I call “sadchill” that just kind of fit my mood without being overly depressing.
I played this game the week before and the week after my dog passed. I played it several nights with him on my lap. It was weird to play something so directly related to what I was going to, but in that moment, it was all I wanted to play. It just connected with me on a level that games normally don’t, and it helped me get through the toughest stages of my grief. It made me realize that when I go through something in the future, seeking out a game that tackles similar themes might be helpful. Hopefully, I don’t need anything like that for a while, but it’s good to know that video games can be an ally with healing in a way I didn’t realize.
Time Is As Valuable As Money
As I talked about in the intro, I spent more time than I’d like this year thinking about my future as my job was in jeopardy. I applied to many jobs and went to several interviews. Every job had its own plusses and minuses.
Obviously, money needs to be weighed into every decision you make employment wise. Money is important, whether we like it or not. But I also knew that I couldn’t chase the maximum amount of money possible. I had already done that for five years when I took a higher paying position, but I had to drive an hour to get to work every day. With one kid and another on the way, I knew I couldn’t do that anymore.
In part, I couldn’t help but think about some of my time with Until Then as I thought about this balance of money and time. In that game, the lead character Mark lives alone, as his parents both work in another country to make more money. The game has one flashback in particular where you see how happy Mark was with his family, juxtaposed now with how sad he clearly is being alone, even if he is better off financially than before. As a parent in particular, time and money have to have equal consideration with any big decision. Until Then was a good extra reminder of that as I set off into making big decisions.
It’s Worth Taking The Time To Enhance Your Friendships, Including Online Friendships
One thing I am proud of in life is that I am pretty good at maintaining friendships. I think friendships are just as important as family ties in most ways. I’ve had many friends move far away, have kids, and do all sorts of things that can slowly make a friendship wither away. I’m not perfect, but I do my best to reach out here and there, to visit when I can, and just do those little things that keep the connection going. It means a lot to me.
Last year, I talked about how much video games had been enhanced for me thanks to the communities I had found through my blog and through just entering different spaces. I’m happy to say that I have many “online friends” that I won’t let myself lose contact with going forward. I love interacting with friends on social media about different games or messaging them on discord and such.
But one thing I was missing was actually playing video games with friends. Outside of a few Helldivers 2 sessions, I really hadn’t played any video games with my new friends when I wrote this piece last year.
Well, in the past year, I’ve rectified that a bit. Between some co-op games like It Takes Two and Split Fiction and one of my favorite games this year, Rematch, I have spent a nice chunk of time playing video games with online friends this year.
And, to no one’s surprise, it turns out that actually “hanging out” with people makes those friendships even stronger! I’ve played games with several people that I already considered friends, but now I feel that much closer to them after gaming with them. I definitely gravitate towards single-player games, but this year has taught me that I need to give more multiplayer games a chance as well.
Post COVID, all of the data indicates that people are lonelier than ever before. People have fewer friends. They leave the house less. I find myself fortunate not to be in this camp. But especially as an adult, making new friends isn’t always easy. If you find yourself feeling lonely, I think you can make real friends on the internet if you put yourself out there a little. I’m very glad at the new connections I’ve made this year, as well as the connections I had made that are now stronger.
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