100 More Days (aka 200 days)

Day 179: Here we go again, Here we go again

I vote more Firefly? Browncoats FTW

The downside of playing for 100 consecutive days of gaming to save our marriage is that we played even when we were cranky, tired, annoyed, or uninterested.  In this blog I have talked a lot about my range of emotions and even when I could barely stand I would play.  I have to admit the last few weeks our enthusiasm for gaming together has been waning.  The routine of playing daily quickly dissolved into fitting a game in a few times a week.  The last few weeks we have had a lot of conversations about what comes next?

But let me back up and explain the awkwardness that jump-started the conversation.

Tired, Awkward and Missing Kiddos 

Marriage Reboot without Children (Eeek)

The in-laws recently took the kiddos to the “happiest place on earth” for over a week.  We live in So Cal but the in-laws in Florida so they did a fly by and picked up kiddos and took them to Disneyworld.  The kids were having the time of their lives chasing Doofenshmirtz through the Epcot center me and the hubs were left really alone for the first time since our marriage reboot. 

When Shit is Weird Pack Your PS4

Every parent will admit that a week reprieve from parenting is nothing to scoff at.  But when you are redefining your relationship the kids leaving can make everything, well, really uncomfortable.  The day after the kids left, I had a union meeting and the hubs tagged along.  This was our first hotel stay without our kids.  We knew it might be difficult so we packed the PS4.

We arrived late (around 10 pm) and prepared to immediately set up our system.  But of course to add to our turmoil our four-star hotel assigned us a room and TV with no HDMI port.  The hubs seemed uneasy so I called the front desk, concierge, and hotel engineering office.  To add insult to injury each guy I talked to explained to me where the HDMI  port would be on my TV (you know, since I have no penis of course this entire problem is obviously that I don’t know how to use a TV).  When the last guy finally understood that I just needed a new TV we finally got the problem resolved around 1am.  So before collapsing into bed we turned out Magicka and killed a few monsters to calm our nerves.

PS4 Hotel Vaca like a Boss 

What Comes Next

My take-away is my PS4 is awesome and that I vocalized that I have been surprised by the genre of games that I have enjoyed playing on it.  During this project we have played a lot of games but no video games entirely through.  So we decided this will be our next conquest.  We plan to choose one story-driven PS4 game and in 100 days play through it together.

We were very scientific about our game choice.  We made pros and cons of various games (ex: Witcher, Tomb Raider, Wofienstien, Last of Us).  We watched gameplay, read ESRB, and even got on the message boards to see what would be worth three months of our life.  I know at this point you are frantically swiping ahead on your smart phone screen to see what we chose but you will just have to keep reading.

Learning from our last 100 days, we decided we don’t have to play every day but that we won’t play the chosen game solo.  After 20 years of friendship, 12 years of marriage, and 200 days of blogging and games I am still finding new ways every day to love the hubs.  Here is hoping the next 100 days has more good days than bad and I will find a new a different way to love games.

Proof We Need a New Game ASAP

Unashamed Button Masher

Day 176: Gaming without Tantrums

Within many aspects of my life I am fairly accomplished person but I really do not like to fail.  I will be the first to admit that I am feisty and I am not always proud of the way I react when I am not automatically successful at a task.  Yoga has helped to calm my ego but when I am with the hubs there is less censorship and accountability because he is my person.  Simply put, if I am going to be a brat when I suck at a game it is usually while I am playing with the hubs.  I know it is terrible to admit in writing that with my partner I am my worst self but this is usually true.  The implication of my limited range when it comes to game controls has been a major factor in our play and communication as a couple.

BUTTON MASHER EXPOSED

Twilight Magicka session in Hotel 

For decades I have been able to get through gaming habits with hotkeys and button mashing.  The hubs recently (yesterday) admitted that he has strategically chosen/encouraged co-op games based on the complexity of the controls because he knew I just wasn’t good enough for more advanced games. 

After six months of co-op gaming we have been introducing new challenges to see if I can overcome my lifelong habit of mashing.  I shamefully admit that using both analog sticks is still unnatural to me but I am getting there.  The first game that has really started to push the boundaries of my skill has been Magicka.  

KILLING MY HUSBAND

As I mentioned in a previous post we starting our 100 days with Diablo and moving on to games like Helldivers is tuff because all of a sudden there is friendly fire.  The idea that not just your character can die but you can kill your party requires much more collaboration and focus sans button mashing.  Magicka has both friendly fire, new spells every level (some that suck), and forces me to use both analog sticks simultaneously whether I like it or not.  I cannot be successful in this game if I just mash buttons but the satisfaction of killing monsters together has increased ten-fold because things are just hard enough.

Healing Spell Kills Skeletons (Duh)

Dr. CCB & MrNinjaman in Magicka 

Tip of the Day: When it comes to married gaming its okay to start out easy but always try to be better (as long as you are both having fun).  Also, if your partner is not at your same level of gaming don’t berate them.  Instead take a page from the hubs book and ease them into gaming with quality titles that are within their current range.  Most of all—it takes time but things do get better.  

Rapists, Video Games, and Valentines Day

Day 35: Gamer Gate and Gone Girl the Game

My last blog post was about how digital spaces do not replace RL interaction.  But today I want to illuminate that what happens online does matter, it matters a whole lot.

Getting Punched by Gamer Gate

Yesterday, I guest lectured in a Women & Gender Studies course on the subject of sex and video games.  I had a chance to throw some Extra Credits, Colbert and TED talks in the mix.  During the presentation I surprised myself, because even though it has been a while, every time I watch Anita Sarkeesian talk about Gamer Gate in her TED talk I am uncomfortable.  This powerful feminist is clearly pained as she discusses the virtual threats of violence she has suffered just because she deconstructs problematic representations in games.  I heart me some video games but there are some games that just disgust me.   But I digress really the part that stuck out to me was my emotional reaction to a discussion of bullying, hate, and virtual violence against women.  Because men think that their behavior online does not impact RL when it really hurts women, even a confident kick-ass feminist, just as much as getting punched in the face.  When you sit at your computer and type the words that a woman deserves to be raped, murdered, or beaten no one is laughing, certainly not the woman who has to live with those threats.  Because even without those words being typed those are real life realities for women everywhere.

Women still have reasons to be afraid when we walk to our cars in the darkness.  More women have armed themselves for fear of both the predators they know and the ones they don’t .  To emphasize this reality, a cardinal rule of prostitution is that women don’t drive to locations because having a car increases the chance they will be beaten or murdered ten fold.  When you joke on the internet about killing, cheating, maiming, raping, or beating women, we feel fear, because everyday we have to live in a patriarchal society where violence against us is our reality. 

And I did not mean to say that women are not culpable of nefarious virtual behavior that bleed into the margins of RL because yes, women can be jerks too.  

Gone Girl and a Gamer Scorned

Spoiler Alert: If  you have not seen it stop reading because this post totally ruins the movie. 

The movie Gone Girl is a roller coaster because although the main protagonist Amy is a crazy person, there are many moments during the movie that I empathize with her.  As the story unfolds, Amy describes this perfect moment when her husband wipes the sugar from her lips as when she found her soulmate.  Later in the movie she follows her husband and finds him in the same exact intimate moment, wiping sugar from the lips of a younger woman he is cheating with.  Yup that guy is a total jerk, if you are going to cheat at least come up with some new moves.  I hazard to write this next section because maybe my reaction can be attributed to being raised in a patriarchal culture with distorted understandings of relationships and romance. But people, people like me, want moments that belong to them.  And when we have to share we might just loose our sh*t like Amy, but hopefully not that bad.

Because it was Lincoln’s birthday, and the hubs is a teacher, the whole clan was home on Monday.  It may not surprise folks that we spent most of the day playing games.  At one moment in my PJ’s I mentioned to my partner that I am glad a specific video game we play together belongs to me.  After a few hours of growing tension between the two of us, he admitted that over the last year he actually played that game with another woman.  I do give him credit for fessing up, that games don’t just belong to me but it doesn’t make it sting less.

Our friendship, our marriage, my sanity, and our blog all are based on the idea that games might be our salvation.  But like Amy, it is hard to hold on to hope when you discover the things in your life that were never really yours to begin with.

Valentine’s day is just around the corner but instead of buying chocolate, or flowers, or diamonds, or silly hallmark cards give someone a moment.  Give them a moment, or a game, that belongs just them.  Give someone a moment, and never take it away or you deserve whatever you have coming.

Decided it's time the kids learn the joy of RPGs @privateerpress #IKRPG #Geekdads pic.twitter.com/gVb2AYcKF5
— MrNinjaman (@JohnRBoone) February 10, 2015

Stalking Update: The hubs was re-tweeted by privateer press for his new obsession with an ongoing family RPG that he is slated to blog about sometime soon.  I will admit I am a jealous of his retweet because I am still stalking Wil Wheaton in the hopes we can get him to Bakersfield to play some board games and I feel like I am losing momentum.  

The Return of Hope aka Wil Wheaton

Day 27: Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

This weekend was full of organic soup, family-time, cuddling, and games.  I set a personal goal for the weekend to beat the hill troll and find one thing to be hopeful for.  As my regular readers know I have had a hard time lately, and I have found a new obsession/ hope: Wil Wheaton. 

Wil Wheaton taught my Toddler Sarcasm 

Bakersfield was quite a flutter when Guy Feiri came to town and sampled a few eateries.  Guy is great and everything, but be-still my heart that the geek gods have spoken, and Bakersfield might officially be on the map.  I heard a rumor that Wil Wheaton might host an episode of Table Top in Bakersfield at Paladin.  Tabletop has been crucial to both our choice of board games and has strangely become a new family past time.  We watch tabletop so frequently that my 5-year old son Nathan has started mimicking Wheaton voice inflections, and not so charming in-game sarcasm. 

Gaming Updates

Since I have last blogged, we have hosted board game night where the hubs was named the new champion in Ticket to Ride Europe.  This also affirmed that we need to invite more couples over to play because it expands our board gaming options.  We finally beat the second act in Diablo3.  We found a rainbow goblin (will explain further).  Bur first, and most importantly, we finally killed that f*cking hill troll and beat the second scenario in the Lord of the Rings Card game.  

Wheaton fanboy/ gamers the next gen 

Dominating at Ticket to Ride

Don’t Kill the Unicorns

Many eons ago, before my career and children, the internet was upset that Diablo game art might be too cartoonish.  In response, and because Blizzard developers are awesome, the game creators included the ever-popular cow level.  The infamous cow level transported players from a horror movie landscape, into a level that was filled with walking cows constantly moo-ing except the moo's were made by humans to much hilarity.  Fast forward to 2015 and playing Diablo 3 on the PS4 when we chase down a rainbow goblin and it opens a glowing rainbow portal in the middle of a gulag.

In the game, me and the hubs, follow the portal and enter a land filled with flowers, pink teddy bears, and even unicorns (click the link to watch a video of us running from pink bears).  Then they start attacking our game characters and when I realize I am taking damage I start to flee. John wants to stand and fight, and bits of dismembered unicorn appear in the corner of my screen.  I yelped and started running away to the next rainbow to escape the fury of the adorable enemies in whimsvile.  In the end we only hurt a few characters enough to get away and took a video of the whole  endeavor.  The huge menacing guy holding an axe and running is my character and the violent Korra character belongs to the hubs.

HELP: Send Wil Wheaton

Tip of the day, just because we can kill unicorns does not mean we should.  And, Wil Wheaton needs to come to Bakersfield.  If that rumor is a lie, then we need to make it true, I will start the petition in moveon.org and work on a video plea from my 5-year old Wheaton fanboy.

*Note: I do realize there were several spelling errors in my initial draft the most notable the misspelling of Wil's name.  This is a hobby people, remember I don't proofread carefully.  Forgive me. 

Hey @professorCCB Where could this magic portal lead? #PS4share pic.twitter.com/HXfDIp7IUK
— MrNinjaman (@JohnRBoone) February 2, 2015

Me and @professorCCB #Diablo3 #PS4share pic.twitter.com/R4sCouI8e9
— MrNinjaman (@JohnRBoone) February 2, 2015