My Gamer Grandma

It’s hard to overstate how important it was that I grew up with a gamer grandma. She just turned 80 years old a few weeks ago, so I want to take a bit to reflect on

Back in the early 90s, when video games were still seen as children’s toys or quarter munchers, I was born with a family full of game-playing people. My parents had an NES, all of my cousins played games, and my youngest uncle, still a teen, was an avid gamer who was always playing the latest RPGs on SNES and Playstation.

And so, from the earliest memories in my head, games have always been there. I have many vivid memories of confusingly stumbling through Metroid and Ninja Turtles and getting lost in their 8-bit beeps and simple graphics for hours while not progressing whatsoever because I’m two and a half years old. And I have just as many memories sitting there watching my uncle play through Final Fantasy VII and Lunar Silver Star Saga and Earthbound and whatever other game he was interested in.

But, the most vivid memories come from playing games with my gamer grandma.

She’d keep me on most weekdays since I had working parents. For a long time before my brother was born, it was just me and her. She spent many mornings playing all sorts of games. For a few examples…

Shanghai II on Sega Genesis.

This is what I thought Mahjong was until well into adulthood. I thought it was a tile matching solitaire game.

It’s really silly, looking back, but my confusion about the strange-looking tiles as a toddler did indeed reflect into the eventuality that I’d be completely befuddled by the rules of Richi Mahjong many years later. (I swear I’ll figure it out eventually.)

Tetris, of course, but also… Tetris 2.

Nobody in the world remembers Tetris 2, but I played it with my grandmother and had lots of fun with it as a toddler.

Dr. Mario, of course, but also… Yoshi.

People today decry this one as a little boring, and I decry those people as lame and impatient. This is one of the cutest 8-bit puzzle games, and you can really enter a zen state while you keep the stacks going and going. Try to get a high score.

And the classic Tetris Plus.

Tetris, but you help an explorer guy reach the end of the level? It was so much fun, so cute, and I’m baffled they haven’t made another one anytime in the last 30 years.

Getting dropped off at my grandparents’ house at eight in the morning, watching Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, playing some puzzle games with my grandmother, eating a PB&J sandwich for lunch, or maybe a pizza (she always calls it Pickza for reasons unknown, even to this day), running some errands out in the small town… Gosh, that’s the life, ain’t it? I miss being a toddler.

My grandmother played games most days she kept me. When my brother was born, my mother stopped working for a while, so we went over a little bit less, and soon I’d start school and stop going over on weekdays at all.

She still plays games, though it’s mostly the standard free to play mobile puzzle stuff that begs you to pay it money or watch some ads. It’s the same kinds of games she played in the 90s, just a little more sad with worse graphics. Reportedly, she’s still having a lot of fun with them all the same.

But the most significant impact for me as a young one is to realize that games really are for everyone. When you have a gamer grandma, you don’t buy the stock cartoon stereotypes of the skinny glasses-wearing nerd staring at a TV like a zombie, or the fat slob raging at his computer. You don’t buy the lies that games are just crude violence and wish fulfillment for teen boys. Games are art, and great art. They bring together families across generations to have fun and make memories.

Practically my whole family played games. Mario Party fests with my parents, getting my cousins to help me beat Earthbound for the first time, staying up all night with my little brother to play through Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn in a strange sort of co-op. But, for some reason, I’m not sure I’d have come to love games so much if not for my grandmother.

Congratulations on turning 80, and I hope you have another great 80 years ahead of you.