Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Quitting my Marriage and Picking Up a Controller

Day 1: The 100-Day Countdown Begins

The mere thought of being a wife is too exhausting to contemplate today…So I give up.  My marriage is broken and I have decided I do not want to fix it.  Instead, I am going to reset and try gaming with my partner to see if I still want to remain best friends.  I will blog to chronicle how it is going and let you know if I still like games or the guy I married.   

Am I still a gamer?

After experiencing the Guantanamo level sleep deprivation of being a new parent, I could not fathom why I voluntarily neglected sleeping to play games.  Additionally, having small children has limited the M rated games I play over the last 7 years and I have almost completely abandoned the tawdry way I played them.  I loved to trash talk.  Last year, I completed my dissertation, a solitary process that only left me 10 minutes a day to beat a Yeti in PvZ. 

My husband shifted game modes to table top miniatures and has spent a lot of time and money dedicated to Warmachine/ Hordes.  The November itch would always give way to a short-lived return to the digital but we did not play together.  Partially, because life got in the way, and the other part because my 5-year old is better at FPS play than me now and the hubs doesn’t have the patience for my terrible and awkward play (he needs to get over it now).   

The last few years I have been a mother, teacher, wife but not an avid gamer.  My relationship to games was more proximity than participation.

100 Days

Unlike my previous 100 days these games will be table-top and digital.  We have a new PS4 and shelves filled with board games I haven’t gotten around to trying.  If anyone out there wants to witness my experiment, you are welcome to join in and bring a game along.  I will play co-op, solo side-by-side, with the kids, without the kids, and anything else I can think of.

I have been playing games with the guy I married on-and-off for 18 years.  The next roughly 3 months will determine if I will continue to do so for 18+ more.

Playing: Tales from the Borderlands (TftB) 
System: PS4
Developer: Telltale


Reflection: TftB is amazing because we have been watching a story unfold without the bombardment of commercial breaks.  Its unsettling to make choices that feel right, or I interpret a certain way, and see the way they influence the game is not always what I intended.  After waking up at 4am to finalize my weeks lesson plans, the lack of dexterity required for this game was doable at 10pm.

When bad things happen some people think the only option is divorce. For better or worse I am going to try Diablo before divorce and I will keep you posted on how it goes. 

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