On Childhood

[aliseadae]

As a child, I entertained myself by reading. I also played with my brother and with the kids down the street. There were four of us total and we would play spies, and school, and football.

My brother and I had a game all to ourselves, one where we'd invented our own world. We each had many characters that we played that inhabited the world.

My neighbors and brother and I invented a card game of our own. We collected Pokemon cards but we made up our own game and made our own cards. We named the game after ourselves and occasionally still play it.

On my own, I read books. My mother bought me The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley around fifth or fourth grade after we saw it in a bookstore. Mom knew all the good books as she's a librarian and she'd pick out books like The Westing Game or The Blue Sword or Fire and Hemlock for me. Reading has always been important to me.

My uncle gave me Lord of the Rings when I was 10, the same uncle who'd always want me to watch Buffy and read Octavia Butler. He gave me the Hobbit as well (it was a boxed set) and that was what I started reading first. I read all the books before their respective movie came out and soon after I finished all of them, bought my White Tree of Gondor shirt. I love that t shirt still.

My dad introduced me to Star Trek and Star Wars. I remember watching the latter with him at age 7 or so, scared of the trash pit but wanting to see more, wanting to see the next movie. Star Trek was introduced when I was a bit older. Somehow Tribbles had come up during dinner and my parents wished to introduce me to them.

These were all things that were fun, that were important and many of them are things I'm still interested in. I often think to myself, though, "What if I'd been introduced to Doctor Who? Babylon 5? More of Star Trek than just tribbles? What if I'd played videogames as a kid?" I often wish my childhood to involve more of the nerdy things that I like now. I don't know why I have this urge to have been introduced to things at a younger age than I was. In relation to Doctor Who, I think it has to do with my first doctor. My first doctor was Ten, Tennant, which makes me feel new and young. I don't know why I don't like feeling new to things and it isn't universally true for me. I don't mind being new to a webcomic, say, because there is more to read. Do you have that same urge to have known of things for longer?

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love that you made up a game using Pokemon cards and making your own cards--that's really cool.

I don't think I do wish that, about childhood and liking things, but I think I understand the urge--to be intimate with the things you love for longer.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Apparently a lot of kids make up their own games with Pokemon cards, even when they would claim they're playing the "real" game. (That's part of why I have my current job, actually.)

Most of them don't come up with actual formal rules, though.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

(Back from checking out your profile...)

Wow, you have done *amazingly* interesting things!

So, how did kids' penchant for making up their own rules for Pokemon lead to your current job? (If you feel comfortable talking about it--if not, no worries.)

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I'm the lead designer on the online version of the Pokemon Trading Card Game.

The fact that kids don't know actually know the rules of the game that they're purportedly playing isn't the only reason why my project exists, but it's one of them.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The fact that kids create their own rules, to me, says something about how the cards spur storytelling.

[aliseadae]

Cards and spurring storytelling reminds me of how I like to find people with Magic Cards so that I can use their pictures as writing inspiration. I bet I'm not the only one.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I used to do that with actual card-cards. There was this card company, back in the late 1970s, that used to take out-of-print illustrations and use them on greeting cards, and I collected them. I wrote one story based on a set of postcards done by Sulamith Wulfing. (It wasn't a very good story, though...)

[aliseadae]

Ooh! That'd be neat if people would mail each other interesting post cards and write each other stories (possibly also mailed?) Like some sort of secret story/post card network!

[aliseadae]

Well, I didn't actually use Pokemon cards in my game. We drew our own cards entirely but based the rules system off of Yu-Gi-Oh (which I never actually played or collected) and Pokemon (which I sort of played and definitely collected) card games. One thing that was different about ours was that a part of our game was building large settings out of blocks I had at my house. These would shape how the battles could happen.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

One thing that was different about ours was that a part of our game was building large settings out of blocks I had at my house. These would shape how the battles could happen.

That's a much cooler setup than the actual games, honestly.

Yu-Gi-Oh, in particular, would need something along those line that to make its mechanics genuinely interesting to play with.

[aliseadae]

The fields (as we called them, if I'm remembering correctly) were set up to be a certain type. Each of our cards had its own type (magic, electric, bug, water, air) so that certain cards could move to more advantageous positions if the field was the same type. We had spell cards that would switch the field to a different type in the middle of game. Some of these would affect the person's deck as well, changing each of their cards to be that type.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

More and more awesome.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That sounds just tremendously cool.

My younger son goes to Yu Gi Oh tournaments (he was at one today). My older daughter won grand prize in a Shonen Jump contest--the contest was to draw a Pokemon card featuring either Pikachu, Wurmple, Treecko, Mudkip, or Torchic--she won for her Pikachu :-)

But you guys created your own from wholecloth, which is extra creative. Can you describe any of them (names, characteristics)?

[aliseadae]

I had cards called Luna, Sol, and Stella all of which combined to make a big super card. The most creative ones were the spell cards. I had one that switched a card in your hand with one on the field (your opponent's) or something like that. It was called flip-flop. I had a teleporter card. I don't remember too many of the other cards or their names or abilities off the top of my head, though. My cards are at home and I am at college.

[guardian852.livejournal.com]

I do, in fact, have that urge rather often. But for the most part, I refuse to let that reasoning get in the way of enjoying things for the first time as an adult. Right now I'm reading Watership Down, and NOT ONE PERSON SO FAR has approved of me reading a "kid's book". "Why are you bothering to read a book about rabbits?" is a terrible question.

And yet, the times for some things do indeed pass. Somehow, those things don't bother me as much the things I 'could' enjoy but don't.

[lex-of-green.livejournal.com]

I approve of reading children's books! I do it all the time! And not even with classics. Watership Down is a classic and that gives it a certain respectability in mainstream culture. The people you hang out with are weird.

[aliseadae]

My mom brings home picture books from her library and I read them when I come home on break. Children's books with chapters are good too.

[guardian852.livejournal.com]

I know you approve. Clearly, that alone is reason for discounting your opinion.

[aliseadae]

But if you discount the opinion of everyone who approves you're just left will all disapproval and that's no fun.

I suppose you're right...

[guardian852.livejournal.com]

But if I agree, then Lex will take that as a sign of weakness and steal my limbs!

Re: I suppose you're right...

[aliseadae]

You can hide by putting children's books in her path. She'll get distracted by reading them and then you can run away.

[aliseadae]

Yay kid's books! Maybe they just don't like Watership Down? Or they just don't know how to appreciate good books. Kid's books are the best books.

[mapache]

Back home, we still have all the horrifically-unbalanced expansions my brother and I churned out for all our various board games. There's more potions for Elixir, tons of new monsters, treasures, and entire new classes with their own subsystems for Dungeon!, and a whole mess of stuff for a boring, pointless, choice-free roll-and-move Christmas-themed game from Peanut Butter magazine which we eventually turned into a rather cool spy-vs-spy game (the pet dog we added, with the ability to act independently of you, dig his own fast-travel tunnels, and collect toys for you from the elves, was brokenly overpowered). Then there's also the medieval miniatures game with LEGOs that we came up with; melee combat was dice-based, but missile fire was resolved by having to physically throw a brick from the location of the attacking figure while lying down and squinting from the correct position. The physical brick-based renditions of the various spell effects, like walls of fire and such, were pretty cool, too.

[carve037.livejournal.com]

I don't know; I can't help but think what a mess I might be if 4chan had been around when I was a kid.