The big news (well, in my little geeky world) last week was the release of old school games that many of us played as kids online.
We’re talking Oregon Trail, Castle Wolfenstein (uggg those dogs!!), and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, just to name a few. You can visit this website to kill a few hours reliving your childhood.
I introduced the kids to Oregon Trail and Carmen San Diego that same day after school. I explained to them the significance of these games.
“You see kids,” I began “when I was a kid, I was obsessed with some video games too. Like you are about Minecraft. You already know how much I love Mario, but here area few games that were equally addictive.”
As I felt giddy loading up the games, I realized that every time I nag the kids to get off the screens, I was once like them. Sure, we didn’t have the graphics and the YouTube channel tutorials to go along with our games, but didn’t we want to play them all the time too?
At school, on our old track-ball computers, we had Oregon Trail. We had a rotating computer schedule to play the game, but sometimes, as a reward for finishing work early or good behaviour, we scored extra time on the game. I need to remind myself how it felt to play such a basic (but amazing) game back then. My own kids likely feel the same when they turn on their favourites.
Back to my kids’ education about these games. Carmen San Diego is a lot easier to play as an adult. At least, as an adult with some world knowledge about where certain animals live and what colours are on country flags. Take that game! I totally rule you now. The kids (especially my history/world-loving son) were enthralled with this. But wait a meaning, are we learning something along the way? Games can be educational?! What?!
Then it was on to Oregon Trail. The kids mostly wanted to keep pressing space bar to continue on our journey without breaks, but I convinced them, once well stocked on food, that we also needed to rest.
One of our characters names was Tommy.
He got dysentery, of course.
This made my daughter sad. Then we tried to cross the river. Tommy drowned. This made her really sad! Yikes. Poor Tommy, we barely knew ye.
My son has added these games to his ‘games folder’ on the computer. It’s hilarious watching them play games that kept my attention for so long when I was about their age.
Have you checked out these games? Did they give you the same sense of nostalgia that I felt?
