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In the last year I had an epiphany. It turned out that my favourite genre of gaming is one I'd written off my entire adult life: the easy to pick up, but hard to master local multiplayer game. Gather round children and I shall tell you the tale of how we first met.It all began last summer when I was feeling mopey and despondent following the end of a relationship - something not aided by September's transition from pleasant climates to an impending eight months of dreary yuck. It was a the last weekend of nice weather we'd have and I wanted to go out on the town, be around lots of people, and cruise my way through Saturday Night like John Travolta in a certain 70s movie about the disco scene. Unfortunately, I didn't know of anything going on that night, so I reluctantly agreed to go to a game night at my friend's. I hope you'll forgive me for saying that spending the last warm Saturday of the year playing video games with a bunch of dudes in a basement wasn't exactly the sort of adventurous outing I had in mind.
It's not that I didn't like games - I think my job description suggests that it's a thing I'm quite passionate about - but rather games didn't seem like they'd fulfill whatever was missing from my life at the time. Single-player games can be wonderful experiences, but they're rather isolating by nature. Online games pull together people from across the world, but their social interactions tend to be lacking to say the least.
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