Perfect

"Dad, I don't wa-a-a-nt to play Wii Golf."

This is how it starts. My 9-and-a-half-year-old daughter (the half means "halfway to me buying a shotgun") sits criss-cross-applesauce on the Sumosac in the corner. I've recently lost her into a fathoms-deep angst following her emergence from all 7 "Harry Potter" books in two weeks, only to realize that nobody would arrive on her 11th birthday to whisk her off to Hogwarts. To deal with her depression, she's re-reading "Half-Blood Prince" again. For the 11th time.

Frustrated, I turn off the Wii. "Well, what do you want to play?"

My question falls on deaf ears. She's disappeared back into her book again.

I cross the stained Berber carpet and flop dramatically next to her.

"OK, Jen. If you made the perfect game, what would it be like?"

Unable to resist, Jen puts the book down.

"Well, it wouldn't be a Harry Potter game, although that could be fun," she says.

"Really?" I say, genuinely surprised. "Why not? I figured right about now you'd be begging for a Harry Potter game."

She pauses thoughtfully. "I guess parts could be good, like Quidditch. But I'd already know everything that would happen, like the Lego games. They're boring."

We own all the Lego games: Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Batman. Jen will sit on the couch while her younger brother Peter plays, helping him through tough spots. Generally, however, she's interested just in the cut scenes, looking up from her books, knitting or drawing only to consume the small bits of brick-enabled story.

"So then, what do you do in Jen's game?"

She pauses for a minute, and I let the silence sit. Outside, wild turkeys are pecking at the thyme that's gone to seed in the grass. Jen and I watch for a few moments.

"It starts with just being me," she says hesitantly. "Like I'm a character in Free Realms, or one of your games, where you look at your character on the screen."

"That's called 'third person'," I explain. She stares at me blankly. "So you're playing yourself?"

"Right," she says. "Except the game starts in College."

"That sounds kind of boring," I suggest. "Not even like Wizard College?"

She shoots me a disapproving glance. "No. Just college," she continues archly. "And you start with like a blank game. You have to pick your major, find roommates, get an apartment. You have to buy all your clothes and get furniture for your room and stuff. And the game gives you lists of stuff to do."

This sounds eerily familiar.

"So, what's the point?"

Her eyes drift back out to the turkeys. They've moved to the stream at the bottom of the hill.

"Make money, have kids, get famous, travel the world, write books, make movies. Stuff like that." she says. "You know, to be happy."

She's just invented The Sims. Unprompted, she's stepped outside the boundary of every game she's ever played, or seen me play, and come up with the idea for the best selling PC game franchise in history.

"OK, I think I get it," I demur. "But it sounds totally boring. How is that fun?"

She adopts the voice she uses for talking to small children.

"Well you see, what's my favorite thing to do? Tell stories, write stories, act out stories. Right? Well, in the game, I'd get to make all those stories happen. And I could learn stuff too. Like, how to get a job and how to shop for furniture or whatever. So it would be like trying out being me, just older. I could even get married and have kids without all the gross snogging."

She hides her mouth as she snickers. "Snogging" is her new favorite word, thanks to Harry Potter. But when the smile fades, I see the anxiety of pre-teen insecurity in the corners of her mouth. In the way her eyebrows stay tight just a second too long.

The room is still. The turkeys outside have moved on to better forage. I force myself to let the silence sit again.

In my heart, I say "don't grow up" 10 times fast. A fervent prayer for frozen time.

Her eyes stay focused outside. I hug her tight like a ball.

"And if I mess up, I could just start over again."

--
(Image courtesy Oobinoobie)

Comments

Awesome read Julian. You must be proud to have an aspiring game designer for a daughter. There is something profound in her desire to be in a game where she can "play" as a grown-up. I guess SIMS is the 21 century version of playing "dress-up".

Rabbit, every time I read your articles I wish I had kids too. And this coming from a self-avowed child-disliker. I know I will eventually have children, and when I do, I hope I have a similar relationship to them that you enjoy.

Great article, as always. Thank you for putting pen to paper fingers to keyboard.

My wife and I both do not want kids, but everytimr I read one of these it makes me reconsider for a moment.

rabbit wrote:

One lousy typo ...

The Drunken Gamers just called me out for missing a comma in my last email to them. Apparently, the last function to flee their inebriated minds is grammatical rigor.

Pyroman wrote:

I always used "cross-legged" because "Indian-style" vaguely sounds like a description of something alot more fun than sitting down.

I must say you have something there. I never thought of it that way.

E Hunnie wrote:

It is all part of my plot to make your daughter think I am the coolest visitor...

I think you will need to step it up a little more to compete with the only guy I know (Demiurge) who dives and rolls around Rabbit's house using the Lightsaber effect on his iPhone while battling little Peter in an epic duel for the ages. It needs to be seen to be believed. I'm surprised we don't have video of that

cmitts wrote:
Pyroman wrote:

I always used "cross-legged" because "Indian-style" vaguely sounds like a description of something alot more fun than sitting down.

I must say you have something there. I never thought of it that way.

E Hunnie wrote:

It is all part of my plot to make your daughter think I am the coolest visitor...

I think you will need to step it up a little more to compete with the only guy I know (Demiurge) who dives and rolls around Rabbit's house using the Lightsaber effect on his iPhone while battling little Peter in an epic duel for the ages. It needs to be seen to be believed. I'm surprised we don't have video of that

Unfortunately, Cory's the guy who's been in charge of past Rabbitcon video work, such as my awesome Wii Fit hula feature.

obirano wrote:

My wife and I both do not want kids, but everytimr I read one of these it makes me reconsider for a moment.

Yeah, this.

Wordsmythe wrote:

Unfortunately, Cory's the guy who's been in charge of past Rabbitcon video work, such as my awesome Wii Fit hula feature.

That was the best video to come out of Rabbitcon Evah!

I don't think it's as good as the video Cory shot of Chris sleeping ... four hours was a bit long, though.

Certis wrote:

I don't think it's as good as the video Cory shot of Chris sleeping ... four hours was a bit long, though.

Wow, I must have slept through that video.

I'm having trouble finding it now, but I remember hearing a story at GDC several years ago, maybe from Lucy Bradshaw? Anyhow, the big surprise after The Sims came out (yes, the first one) was that all of these community websites had popped up with players using carefully constructed screenshots to tell these elaborate stories. The reasons this was a surprise are that 1. the game wasn't originally designed to support that sort of storytelling, and that 2. users had extensively modded the game to support these stories with new items, textures, poses, etc. Naturally, a storytelling feature was added to subsequent games. I think this says more about the nature of play, and less about "games" themselves.

- Alan

Awww. Gamers with kids.

Now your sons description of his perfect game would have been "I want a game where I can lock a guy in the bathroom and make him poop himself to death"

Will Wright - Haircut of a 9 year old girl, mind of a 6 year old boy...

cmitts wrote:
Certis wrote:

I don't think it's as good as the video Cory shot of Chris sleeping ... four hours was a bit long, though.

Wow, I must have slept through that video.

... Which is really impressive, considering how loudly Cory was breathing (and giggling) the whole time.

How many of us on here have daughters in the 4-5 year old range?

My daughter has a love of...well...everything at this point and games are one. My wife one two DSi's through a twitter thing (she's won so much on twitter it's not even funny). and we plan on giving one to my daughter for christmas but she likes to play on mine now. She always surprises me with her intelligence and her wit and her sensitivity.

Reading this piece reminded me just how much work I have ahead of me to help her make sense of a world that constantly confuses ME.

Thanks for sharing these precious moments with your daughter, Rabbit.

Excellent article.

My daughter just turned 11 and when she does game she enjoys Wii-ing, DS-ing, and Steam-ing thanks to PopCap's wonderful casual games (Plants vs Zombies in particular). She even does a bit of Portal once in a while--it melts my heart when I hear, "Daddy, can I play Portal?" That's my girl! Of course, she's got other interests so her gaming love is tempered with other things...particularly sports and a very energetic puppy!

While I don't want her to grow up too fast, I've not been able to stop it despite my best efforts (dammit) but it does do my cold, black heart good to know she's developing a love for gaming on her own terms. Seeing her mother and I game together and the fun we have encourages it, of course, and knowing her like I do she wants to be a part of that. The proverbial seed has been planted, nourished, and in order for it to be realized, I have to give up the one thing I don't want to give up: my "baby" girl.

It'll be tough but I think I can do it...especially if she's be able to pwn ANY potential suitors both in the digital world and in the real world...one she can do now no problem. It would not surprise me if the other was fast approaching... It makes a dad very proud.

*sniff

Damn, that's a good article.

Your piece has struck a powerful chord with us gaming dads with daughters.
As I watch my daughter grow it frightens me that one day I wont be greated like a triumphant explorer lost for years when I return home from work each day.
Thank you Rabbitt. Best of luck