Having a partner that plays video games is a huge win in my books. They say that nerds and gamers make the best partners so when two people share this common interest, it’s really just like pairing wine and cheese. My wife was a very passionate gamer when we were kids, but as time went on, I was beginning to think that she had hung up her controller for good… or so I thought.
But perhaps I’m getting a bit too far ahead of myself in this tale of love and loss… so let’s take it to the beginning. At the age of 14, I knew I was going to marry my wife. While I would like to say there was a cosmic shattering moment where worlds collided and I felt a love like no other for her while staring across a room lost in her eyes, the truth is, she moved in a few houses up from me and invited me over to play Starcraft with her on her Nintendo 64. We would spend a lot of our teen years together fighting the demon hordes in Diablo, being master spies in Perfect Dark, or carving up concrete in Tony Hawks Pro Skater. Sure, all the cosmic moments happened in our relationship and 25 years after having the courage to ask her to be my girlfriend, I’m pleased to say that we are still happily married with 2 beautiful children. It has been a huge journey, with lots of speed bumps along the way, but much like in gaming, there are obstacles and challenges to overcome before you get to the endgame, and one thing I thought would remain a constant in our marriage was gaming together, fearlessly now storming Ogrimmar for the Alliance, sailing the open seas of Wind Waker, and fighting the Covenant in Halo. I was invincible with her by my side but somewhere between “in sickness and in health”, or maybe “for richer or for poorer”, gaming fell by the wayside, and our couple gaming sessions became few and far between and work, children, and exhaustion really just depleted the fun factor for gaming.
Obviously, that wasn’t the case for me, and as you know, dear reader, video games played a huge part in my recovery from my stroke and therefore, became a huge part of my personality. My wife however, had to pick up a lot of the extra slack while I was recovering and even had to help me learn to play video games all over again, and I’ve previously shared how she became my own version of Skyrims Lydia, helping me build my merchant empire in Tamriel by jotting down blacksmith recipes. I never really thought about it, but I guess in a way, video games for her, had become a chore instead of a way to unwind. While she may have hung up her Spartan helmet for battle, she didn’t lose her Spartan spirit. When we welcomed our children into the world (Player 3 and Player 4) her spare time became even more of a precious commodity, and her limited downtime would be best spent away from all the noise and flashing lights with her nose buried in a book as she read her latest adventure where the hero or heroine would save the day against all evil. Ironically, it would be evil that reignited that desire to pick up a controller again.
Ironically, it would be evil that reignited that desire to pick up a controller again.
One fateful evening I stumbled across Dungeons 3 on Switch, and it seemed like a spiritual successor to the Dungeon Keeper series, a game that we would play side by side on our computers as teenagers. We both looked at the E-shop listing and shared memories about it, having a bit of a trip down memory lane. I was reviewing DarkStar One at the time and asked the Kalypso Media team whether Dungeons 4 (which was already announced for Switch but had been radio silent) was still coming to the Nintendo Switch and I shared my story about our Dungeon Keeper memories. The Kalypso team sent me some keys to test our Dungeons 3 to try it out and after downloading them, I handed a Switch to my wife to play. For the first time in a long time, we sat side by side laughing and fumbling through the game and honestly, it was just so wonderful to see her really enjoy a gaming experience.
Perhaps it was the high fantasy setting like her books, albeit one that didn’t take itself too seriously, or maybe it was the Dungeon Keeper gameplay style that invoked nostalgia, we played Dungeons 3 for most of the weekend and were quoting the narrator and his 4th wall breaks while also pointing out the clever references to other franchises (including World of Warcraft, another of our old favorites.) Her laughter was infectious, which spread to me and it added to my joy. Since that weekend she’s been playing more games with me, and it’s nice to see her still have her own downtime too.
What sparked me to share this story is as I write, I’m currently reviewing Dungeons 4, and I was so excited about telling my wife that Dungeons 4 now includes Co-op gameplay, so now instead of playing side by side, we can manage our evil empire together. I can’t wait to share the review with you all, and I really look forward to seeing what sort of chaos we can cause together. It’s a busy weekend ahead, with both Mario Party Jamboree, and Dungeons 4 demanding my time and attention, but the thing I look forward to the most is that my wife will be playing right beside me.
