Video Games and Mom

Although this is over a week late, I thought that in honor of Mother's Day I might share the tale of my lifelong efforts to get my mother involved in video games.

At a tender age, I got Dr. Mario for Christmas (at my excited and persistent request.) Of course, I just thought it was another Mario game... not realizing this was more akin to Tetris. It turned out to be far more more fun for my mother than it ever was for me, and she began enjoying the occasional use of video games.

Flash forward to a summer during my college years, where I was having one last hoorah with Civilization 3 before Civ 4 was released. She expressed the tiniest glimmer of interest in what I was playing, and without wasting any time at all I promptly installed it onto her laptop and showed her how to access the tutorial.

Needless to say, the jump from simple-puzzle game to complex-turn-based-strategy wasn't an easy transition. She had me sit and help her play through a few maps, and she took copious notes. I discovered these notes tucked away in the Civ 3 instruction manual the other day, as I was sorting through some old stuff in the attic. I fondly remembered my mother's brief foray into the world of gaming, and thought "it is a shame she gave up."

Then, a thought popped into my head: "Isn't Portal free for the month, to celebrate Steamwork's Mac release? And doesn't my mother have a nice Mac?" So I told her if she wanted, I could download a free game for her and she expressed interest. Thus began my mother's journey into the realm of nausea and motion sickness that prevents her from playing more than 90 minutes at a time. Haha, but to her credit, she's doing extremely well for someone unused to the WASD/Mouselook movement schema.

I have to say, I'm proud of my mother's propensity to give my favorite hobby a try, and hope that this time I can entice her with enough easy puzzle games that her new hobby sticks.

I think I'll save Civ V for after she masters the basics, though.