Love, my mom told me, isn’t bought with money and gifts. That night, I explained what I’d done to my parents, and they mercifully and patiently walked me through the now obvious truth that girls aren’t video game characters they’re humans - something I’d learn if I spoke to them. When her hand wrapped around the box, something was off. I knew instantly that I’d made a mistake. She opened the door, took the box, said thank you, and we never spoke of it again. I was taking all my romantic cues from a video game.Īfter three weeks, I mustered the courage to actually give her the ring. I knew an expensive gift was the only method to win the affection of the girl who lived on the cul-de-sac.
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The metal was cheap, made of that faux-silver that turns your skin green, but that didn’t stop me from blowing my entire savings. Then I bought a ring from the Mount Vernon gift shop. I ate some sushi and pretended I liked it. The trip was my first shot at adulthood, and I wanted to put my skills to the test. For five days, we made appearances at all of the must see attractions of the nation’s capitol: the Museum of Natural History, the Vietnam Memorial, a food court that served sushi, which I’d never seen before. Worst of all, I saw women as objects that could be won by following a rigid formula.Ī year after my Harvest Moon addiction, I took my first extended trip away from home, flying to Washington D.C. I measured the entirety of my personal growth on my love life. I learned the wrong lessons from Harvest Moon.
Thank heavens the game didn’t sell fedoras, because I fear I would have bought one and tipped it until the brim came off.Īfter a hundred hours of giving expensive gifts to every woman in town, I was happy to finally shirk the exhausting "out every night" grind of singledom, for a quiet life at home with my wife and dog. On graph paper, I charted how I could minimize my expenditure and maximize my profits so that I could spend hundreds of dollars to woo video game characters.
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I relished the maturity of manual labor, dating, and even long-term budget management. In Harvest Moon I had money, access to alcohol, and a bedroom that didn’t have the Tazmanian Devil painted on the wall.
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My weekends consisted of TGIF on Friday, SNICK on Saturday, and when the stars aligned, a birthday party on Sunday at the movie theater, where I might spot a crush from school from a safe distance of 100-yards. Please let’s not forget I was 12 and particularly fond of quiet places with air conditioning. I became obsessed, setting my alarm clock for the middle of the night so I could spend a few extra hours planting seeds, watering saplings, and selling my bounty for enough cash to buy a couple drinks at the village tavern - which just so happened to be the best place to find myself a wife. Stardew Valley borrows liberally from the structure. As an agricultural newcomer, you were charged with transforming a field and an empty farm house into a thriving business and home. The folksy world, which changed with the seasons, was painted in colorful, chunky pixels. The Super Nintendo game, created by a small Japanese developer Amccus, simulated life on a farm in a rural community. I needed something wholesome to play while I calculated my next move. Mom hadn’t banned a video game before, but ever paranoid, I feared that if I angled for a different gorey shooter, a decade-long ban on all violent games would be instated in the Plante household.
I made a reasonable plea, enumerating the enemies and the weapons that could be used to murder them, but my argument was met with that look of disgust that I imagine every parent is taught before taking their newborn home from the hospital. It was the best option I had in those pre-Twitch days. In fact, I had already played Resident Evil vicariously through granular reenactments on the playground. In October 1997, on my 12th birthday, she decided that I still wasn’t old enough to play Resident Evil, a video game riff on George Romero zombie films that literally everybody at school was playing. But when I step into the game’s tavern, which is more cafe than beer hall, I’m reminded of the most pathetic lesson I learned from video games. It’s all-ages fare with a cartoonish look and sugar-sweet story. I enjoy the leisurely days watering tomatoes and nights fishing for snapper.
This past week I joined the millions of newly-minted devotees in Stardew Valley, a game that transports players into the dirt-caked boots of a humble farmer. My mom was wrong about violent video games it’s the family-friendly stuff that’s treacherous.
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