Horray! Now, we are going to learn and talk avout gaming and games! I don’t know if I would put myself in the cathegory «a gamer», at least not as mich as before I became a mom!

When I first started out gaming, I used to LOVE games like Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot and Oddworld with the funny guy «Abe». But my all time favourite game has to be Tomb Raider with the real badass-chick Lara Croft!

I also enjoy games like The last of us, Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark, etc.

Consoll-gaming is my absolute favourite, but I have to admit that the easy accessed mobile-gaming is what I use the most these days…. On my phone I have two games that I play when I’m bored or just in the mood, and that’s Wordfeud and Toyblast. Toyblast is a bit like CandyCrush, but a lot more fun in my opinion!

I sometimes get a little alonetime between being a full-time student and mom to an eight year old boy, and I feeling the urge to sit down with my PlayStation and enjoy a little gaming time, and when I do, I always wonder why I don’t do it more often?!!…. It’s sooo much FUN!

I’m looking forward to this part of the semester, and wonder what we are going to learn about!

Last night I was thinking about how many different games there are and how they are adapted to fit a certain age. Many games has an age limit, like 18, or just a suggestion “fits age 6-14”.  I talked to my mom the other day, and she reminded me that I used to play a sort of learning game. A game where we learned different things, colors, numbers and other stuff that I am not interested in learning now, because I know it, and because this game is made for kids. The game is called “Josefine og gjengen”. I did a quick google search of it now, and I remember playing it, nostalgia is coming.

You can tell by the colors and figures that this is a game for children. Josefine is the one in the middle, and she is saying “Hi, do you want to play with us?”.

Today, games for children still exist, it’s just that I don’t see them as much. My little sisters often dowload games at the appstore, like Momio, or they go to an website and play online. My thought on how games are different, kids games to adult games, is that I find that the kids games are more about teaching, do simple tasks and have fun.  Adult games are more violent, at least the ones I have heard of. They are often more exciting and you maybe feel the adrenaline rushing when you play. Many games also have an age limit set to 18. I guess this is because you kill people in many of the games, the game is very violent. And then there is the whole debate if video games can cause people to act out and get more violent in real life due to playing a violent video game, but I am not going into that whole debate now.

Wow. One week in and I have found my place? I got mixed feelings just by writing that sentence. I feel a sense of relief, but I also got this serious feeling; like I got in over my head and “I don’t really know anything about it” kind of feeling.

When we moved over to gaming world this week I felt small and with lack of knowledge, but excited. I don’t have any experience with this. “This” being gaming.

I come to think of games like shooting games, then car games comes to mind and of course (even though I have no experience nor knowledge) role-playing game. Based on the different kinds of ”gamers” that were presented in lecture, I discovered that once upon a time I actually was a gamer. I would call myself a previous “casual gamer”. I don´t play games nowadays, but when I was younger I played tetris online and PC game Flåklypa/Pinchcliffe grand prix. I can recollect to have actually thought “I´m gaming” once, ha ha! This was about the age 12 and my friend´s big brother had a Lord of the Rings game. I remember the feeling of joy and that my adrenaline kicked in a couple of times.

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As a social human being and previous “casual gamer”, for now, my interest goes for the aesthetic dimension of games, and that is how I will approach gaming.

Ok, so I may have exaggerated by saying that I have found my place but I have figured out my approach to this subject and according to the schedule we will focus on aesthetics and culture this week!

SIDENOTE: Listening to Your hand in mine by Explosions in the sky whilst wrapping up this post and I just realized that there are so many powerful word starting with the letter “E” – my favorite is empower.

OFFICIAL NOTE TO SELF and challenge: Delete less

GAME ON!