Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

061

12/30/2013

0 Comments

 
Our kids will have childhood memories of their own. Memories that they will think are super awesome. We will scoff at them as somehow not as great or authentic as our memories. We will be wrong of course, just like our parents were wrong, and just like they will be wrong when they think the same of their kids.

A lot of Minecraft and Terraria gets played here. Not much of it gets played by me. I enjoy these games, of course, because they are enjoyable. They are created to be enjoyed. They are not really made for me. Not specifically at least.

I am an adult, and I have a certain amount of agency in the world. I have aquired tools, physical, mental, and emotional, that I can use to subtly tune my environment. I can make things. I can change the things that other people have made. Don't like that shade of teal, paint it orange. Don't like the wall, knock it down and rebuild it. Don't like your wireless performance, upgrade your network. The world is plastic. It takes effort, or money, or both, but it can be changed. I learned this by playing.

Sure I've had jobs that furnished me a whole host of skills, but I learned none of them through the dutiful application of labour. I learned by playing, tinkering, messing around. I take things apart and reassemble them because it is fun. It's play. Nothing I've had to remember to function competently at a job, the bureaucracy of the tasks, has stayed with me. I could tell you all about applying vinyl wraps to vehicles, because sticking vinyl to things is fun. Changing your environment is fun.

When you are a kid, your agency in the world is muted. Filtered through an insulating layer, often for your own protection. But you are able to play, and the play most kids gravitate toward will provide them with that agency. Minecraft and terraria have player agency in spades. They are building blocks. They are Lego.

It would be very easy to say that in some way playing with blocks and Lego is more authentic. A better way to play. That, of course, would be wrong. Different skills can be learned by playing with physical toys, and I don't think that any good can come from not providing them to your kids, but digital toys will be as super awesome a memory for most kids as anything else they obsess over. If minecraft can instill in a kid, the inherent plasticity of the world I think it's a net positive.

Sometimes you should go kick a ball around too. That makes for good memories.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact