Prologue — A Story Begins with Play

The blinking glow of our family’s only television reflected off the laminated map that was spread out on the living room floor, while an overworld theme filled the room. A single Nintendo Entertainment System controller lay beside it, as two brothers—one teenage and the other a young child—studied the map, then looked up at the television. On the screen, a pixelated world filled with landscapes, towns, monsters, and a hero awaited our input.

Gaming wasn’t simply just something happening in front of us. It was something we interacted with and an experience that we had a hand in creating.

I sat cross-legged on the floor, watching as my older brother, Terrance, picked up the controller and played through Dragon Warrior, an epic adventure unlike anything we had played before. But what made this experience so special wasn’t just the gameplay. It was the way my brother narrated the game’s events, much like he did when reading comic books or acting out superhero battles in our room. His voice brought life to the dialogue and decisions, sometimes even giving characters their own unique voices. If he disliked a character, he never hesitated to make it known and his commentary was always hilarious and expressive. He transformed the game into something more. It was an interactive story, a lesson in problem-solving, and a test of perseverance and imagination

And then there was the music.

The dungeon theme in Dragon Warrior was unforgettable. The game had an incredibly simple yet effective way of building tension: as the player descended deeper into the dungeon’s eight levels, the music slowed down, becoming lower, darker, more foreboding. And the deeper Terrance ventured, the more my anxiety rose. The tune, already eerie at the first level, became even slower and heavier with each descent. I sat there, glued to the screen, watching as Terrance explored and fought enemies, sometimes low on health and supplies, desperately trying to escape. As he climbed back toward the surface, the music would gradually speed up and rise in pitch, relieving some of the tension. Sometimes he didn’t make it out, falling to powerful enemies. Other times, he triumphed, emerging from the dungeon victorious. But in both victory and failure, the journey itself was what mattered.

Looking back, this was my first lesson in games culture. Video games weren’t just gameplay—they were shared experiences, stories, art, learning tools, and social bridges.

That realization would shape the rest of my life.