Games and Emotions

Strolling through the T 545 game blogs I came across Rachel's Emotions and Video Games post. It caught my interest since I'm not sure where my emotional satisfaction comes to play. I haven't really explored many different genre so I don't have much to base an opinion on. However, that being said, I can't recall ever really feeling relaxed. Competitive, yes. I seem to be attracted to the "beat the clock" type of games, my all time favorite being Tetris. When I examine other games I enjoy playing the list includes, Scrabble, Backgammon, Cribbage, Solitaire, and jigsaw puzzles. All of these are neat, predictable, rules based games. I could do these things endlessly just for the thrill of doing it better or faster or first each time. This is exactly why I like Mario Kart so much. It's not really complicated unless you read all of the directions and get involved in the nuances of the short cuts etc. I just stay on the track and try to beat the clock or my opponent over and over again.

In contrast, while playing Mario Kart with CW, my 7 year old gaming buddy, the first day I introduced the game to him, it was clear that he was getting something entirely different from the experience. At one point he commented, "Oh, now I get it. If you do this and then this, that will happen. Hey that's really cool." He loved the challenge of figuring out all the little nuances of the game play. For him it's more than just a puzzle. He's very competitive, too, but I think his emotional satisfaction lies somewhere in the thrill of the unexpected. I don't like the unexpected. When something unexpected happens, I'm thinking that's not fair and I go straight to check the rule book.

Back in the day when my kids were young I enjoyed playing Oregon Trail with them, but I recall that I wasn't very good at it, probably since I couldn't manage all the unpredictable variables. It wasn't really a "neat and tidy" game. I guess I should dabble in some other genre of games to investigate further the emotional possibilities of the video gamer in me.