Monday, May 30, 2011

My Induction To Gaming, Part 1

When I was 10 years old, my brother brought home a plastic pack the size of a Sky Flakes retail pack with the label Jyhad printed in front.  When we tore it open, it contained 19 different cards with dark artwork and some text which hinted that it was a card game of sorts.  Having played only Chess, Chinese Checkers, Snakes & Ladders, and a few classic card games, my brother and I have no idea what to make of it, except that it was a fairly nice reference for him, the beginning artist.  But I was then enamored with the unknown possibilities of games that I've never encountered before.

A year later, the card game called Magic: the Gathering was introduced to the boys of our elementary school.  Together with the coolness and opportunity for social gaming, it brought with it the media counter-hype of its "occult nature".  Local news and religious people connected the sometimes dark, fantasy art --and I guess the nature that it is a card game, similar to the Tarot-- and claimed that it has an evil influence to the players, especially the kids.  Being lost and confused because of this irresponsible media dictum, it took another year before I actually discarded (pun?) my preconceptions to understand Magic for myself.

It didn't take long for me to start looking for other games that are like Magic, or that mysterious Jyhad.  After high school, I started scouting hobby stories generally far from my comfortable distance to check out other games, old and new, that may be found in the deepest corners of the shops' shelves, far from the eyes of other players who may have found no interest in trying them out anyway.  With the help of a few hobby magazines at that time, InQuest being one of the primaries I looked through, I searched for the particularly interesting ones.  I found out that most of them, after years of having no stable fanbase (unlike Magic) are already "dead" and are being sold for a quarter of the original price.

I happily took them into my arms like orphaned puppies, to introduce them to my friends.  I bought into Netrunner, X-Files the customizable card game, Wyvern, and others.  I was sad, though, that there weren't enough marked-down boxes to buy, and I was stuck with only a few cards to play with.  But, in the beginning, that's okay.

Eventually, without the fix of getting new cards to discover new strategies and combinations, I set aside those other games and returned to playing Magic.  I got into it more during college, and had a good lot of fun, until eventually I got tired again, mainly because I couldn't even dream of getting into competitive gameplay.  Magic, for all its beauty and grace, feels so empty and wasted without tournament competition.  But even if I try, tournament-playable decks are actually more expensive with all the pricey cards they put in just to cope with the dangerous strategies of the experienced opponents.

Later on, I learned to search for casual playgroups over the internet.  Not really "learned", as I've been scouring for online groups on other discussions, but I finally found the sensibility to look for the other people that may feed into my need to play the other non-Magic games.  I suddenly stumbled upon a group of local players who played a game called Vampire: the Eternal Struggle.  Vampire is, in fact, the new name for a card game that's almost as old as Magic about vampire intrigue, violence, and politics.  Back then, Vampire was otherwise known as Jyhad.