When I was growing up, I didn't get a lot of time with my father. Mostly summers and the occasional Christmas. It definitely was not for his lack of want, he bought all my plane tickets and did all the planning every time. But my mother took me to Florida and he moved around within the Navy. When he got out, he moved back to his hometown with his friends and family, so those breaks and holidays were really the only time he could see me. When I did visit, he would share with me the things he thought were cool. He was a D&D kid in school and a giant nerd, and turns out I was just like him. He would show me his fantasy art books, his comics (he had a respectable collection with a filing system and everything), and we would listen to his huge library of music together. I once even fell asleep reading one of his copies of the Fellowship of the Ring in a hammock in the yard.
He also had a computer with several (what's now known as) old school CRPGs. The first game I really got into with him was Diablo. I got so engrossed in it that I would draw the warrior I made in a sketch pad I had, and once I had a nightmare that the Butcher was hiding in the basement. He really got me into Baldur's Gate as well, and wisely stopped the 12 year old me from making a Fighter-Mage-Thief named Legolas. He told me I could do better than that.
Another game he had was Planescape:Torment. I watched him play it, but didn't get into it myself. I thought the main character was ugly, the environments weird... it was just too far out there for the younger me to appreciate. I wanted swords and dragons and castles, and P:T had transdimensional rifts, wisecracking floating skull party members, and little combat in lieu of long text boxes. But, a part of me knew I had missed something, and growing up I would keep thinking I let something slip when it came to that game.
The years went by and new games came and went; when I heard of game coming out I thought my father would find interesting I would call him and tell him about it. A few years ago I discovered the makers of Baldur's Gate and Torment were revitalizing the genre and making spiritual sequels. The Baldur's Gate guys were making Pillars of Eternity, and the Torment guys were making Torment: Tides of Numenera. I got extremely excited and put nearly a thousand dollars into backing those games. I did this for two reasons: One, those games were a part of the connection I had to my father and I wanted to support as well as thank the creators by backing them. And two, I wanted the autographs of all those people involved and the tiers I pledged came with autographed copies of the game. I wanted to take those autographs and those games and share them with my father, as my father had shared the precursors with me.
As of one year ago last night, I forever lost that opportunity. I will never be able to show him the characters I made, the decisions I made, the quests I did, the treasure I collected. Sure, we both understood these are just games, but they were more than that to us at times. They were adventures, stories, and a common ground. It would be like a child growing up and cooking their parents a meal with the recipe they taught them, or playing for them a song their parents wrote years ago. I won't get to do that, and I hate it.
But what I do get to do is enjoy the games and experience them as they are new, just like I did almost 20 years ago. And in the case of Torment, maybe appreciate it like he appreciated the precursor. He's no longer here to experience it, so I'll have to do it in his stead.
Submitted February 28, 2017 at 06:23PM by Gishin http://ift.tt/2l92AXL
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