Chronicles of Player One

I still remember that night, me and my siblings were playing on our Nintendo 64 when I realized my parents were missing. I couldn’t find them, I started calling for them, crying, but my neighbors heard me. When my parents arrived, I learned I couldn’t do that again.

Video games have always been a part of me. I remember playing on a Super Nintendo when I was 4–5 years old, it was so fascinating to me. I was pretty spoiled during my early childhood in Venezuela, my family was well-off by then.

Then we moved to the US and lived in New Jersey. I had never spoken English before, I didn’t even know people spoke a different language than mine. I was soon learning all these words to understand what kids were trying to tell me, learning how to make friends, how to ask for food, to play games, and to keep up with the class. We lived near other Venezuelans that migrated so I got to play with their kids. I will never forget when I saw that Game Boy Color yellow cartridge with a Pikachu, then I was introduced to the Nintendo 64. We didn’t have one, so we would go to this kid’s house to play and I couldn’t get tired; it was so engaging. I didn’t get a word, but I learned how to smash buttons and make progress. When we left New Jersey, they gifted us that Nintendo 64 console.

We arrived in Puerto Rico in the summer of 2002, a family of 5 with nothing but a $500 credit line and hope. I remember that apartment in Caguas, it was empty. We slept on blue inflatable mattresses in the bedroom, and we had a kitchen and a little hall with a window to the outside. To date, I can’t look at Corn Pops cereal without remembering to be eating a snack-size box for breakfast as my first meal in Puerto Rico. My parents would leave sometimes and I would turn on the console and my siblings would watch me while I play.

That Christmas, I can’t forget the excitement when we open the Nintendo GameCube with the Super Mario Sunshine game. I would play for hours. My brother was 4 so he learned how to play, so we would take turns. It was through video games that I would make friends. Being an immigrant I had this feeling of an outcast, kids found me odd for my accent and vocabulary, but video games made me find more things in common with people. There wasn’t race, gender, or nationality that mattered; only being good.

I sneaked out a couple of times from school to play at tournaments. I would hang out at game shops, looking at all the games available, meeting other kids, most of them were way older than me. These kids used to look out for me, protected me from bullies at school, and it was so interesting to talk to them. I felt that I found a place to belong.

I played on all systems available.

Bored? Turn on the console.

Sad? Turn on the console.

Stressed? Turn on the console.

Need to blow off steam? Turn on the console.

Can’t deal with reality? Turn on the console.

It was an outlet for me, it was part of my identity. At first, I couldn’t get a single word, I remember I couldn’t get out of the room in Pokemon Sapphire because I didn’t know I had to set up my clock, but I soon wanted to understand, and so I learned English. It was how I made friends. It was sometimes all I had.

When I feel like nobody could understand me, I just turn it on. When life seemed dull, I thought of it as a game and it brightened me up. My parents were missing that night because they were looking for work, they left us playing so we wouldn’t notice and kept it quiet, and because the neighbors would find out and call social services on us. It was what my mom could count on after she divorced to keep us busy while she was figuring out how to pay bills. It was what my dad could show off when he was absent most of the time. All this time, video games were keeping me away from knowing our reality in Puerto Rico.

It’s been my longest relationship. Through video games I learned a language, made friends, I found refuge, experienced addiction, and challenged myself to level up. That’s why it doesn’t bother me what people think about video games; life is an RPG and we get to choose what we want to be.