Stories of My Life (As Told Through Video Games)

(upbeat music) Hi again, everybody and welcome back to the Miles Palfcast, the flagship podcast of Creativity. 'Cause right now I feel like my biggest outlet, I love being creative. And my biggest outlets for that are doing this podcast and then doing photography. Two things I'm both, I'm trying to get better at. And they're kind of my outlets as far as that goes. And my job, my job allows me to be pretty creative as that as well, but not necessarily in this way, like in a media type way. And I love the segments that I do in this podcast. And to me, it makes it a lot easier to kind of come up with ideas and things to kind of spin off of and inspiration in a sense. But every now and then I wanna do something different. And I've wanted to do this for a very long time. It was one of my new year's resolutionish things to do is do like some one-off episodes where it doesn't follow these of the usual format and it doesn't go with the segments. There is one segment that I have to do because I committed an absolute atrocity last week. Neglected an atrocity. I gotta talk about that really quick. But kind of like a couple months ago, I did a podcast with an episode or with an, I guess it was a segment at the time. Like my favorite, like if I was to have one last meal, like what would those things be? And there was like several different like food items. And the whole point isn't like the items themselves, but like the stories behind them and why like I would have chose one thing or no over another and like how they played a role in my life. And the goal of it ultimately is to inspire you as a listener to do like the same. Like I always love when I listen to podcasts and I hear this kind of thing. I got it from the Sean Blimmer podcast. He did that and he did what I'm gonna do today as well on it. I just, I listened to him like, oh, I would, that'd be fun for me to talk about or for me to like to think about what my things would be. So that's the goal of this. Instead of like a last meal, what this is gonna be is like video games throughout my life. Now this is not about the video games themselves. It's very, very little to do with that. It's kind of like the last meal. It's like how these, each of these like top 10 video games like fit into my life and the stories behind them that the role that they kind of played. So even if you're not interested in video games and the slightest, that's not what this is about. And it's not gonna deter you. Now with that said, if this is like the first episode you've ever checked out and listened to the Miles Pafcast, just know this is not what they're usually like. They're usually, I feel like much more, they're much more broad and hopefully applicable to people. This is gonna be a much more like personal episode where I just talk about my stuff. So if this is interesting, don't give up on it. Listen to one in the past or listen to next weeks because this is, this is kind of a one off. And there's a couple more of these that I wanna do. But for this week, what I want, it was, for this week that's what I'm gonna do. Is the top 10 video games in my life and like the stories behind them. Not my top 10 favorites. Again, this is very little to do with the games themselves. It's much more to do so like with the stories and like the role they played in my life, one way or another. But before we get to that, I gotta do an I/O you want. ♪ You know who you are, yeah, who you want ♪ Because last week, I knew I would do this. I hate, it drives me crazy and it's just, it's mortifying. But I listed like a ton of different moms right off the bat. For Mother's Day, a bunch of often lost awesome moms that I had my life. I forgot two of these single most important. A, I omitted Carly. I, how I miss that beat. And then her mom as well, Luanne. Both people have been a huge intrepidinal part of my life. Both are great moms. Luanne has been like, was my, is Ann has been my second mom like my entire life. Growing up, we were always out at their house, out at Carly and Travis's house. And you know, she would take care of us like she was our own. And even still now like, I love when Luanne shows up at like cookie decorating things or at the 4th of July because you know, she does her mom stuff. She's showing up with stuff in hand, whether that's food or whatever it may be and the great personality to boot. So how I'm into that, I don't know. And then same thing with Carly. Growing up, she's like one of my absolute closest friends. So one of my oldest friends. And she's great for Brooks and Beckett. And the, just the real way that she approaches everything is a breath of fresh air. And she's, she's great. How I, I don't know, I have zero answers for how I forgot those two. But that's, that's what at least cover that base. Okay. Now though, into the main, the main, me to this podcast. I said it before, I want to do like the top 10 video games of my life, how they play the role. We're gonna start from the very beginning. This is Christmas of 1996. I, it might be on my earliest memories 'cause at this point in time I was six. I'm sure there's some earlier ones. But I can remember it so clearly, we were at my grandma's house. Back then for Christmas is we'd started out at, we'd obviously open presents at our house. And we'd go to one grandma's house for the morning and breakfast and brunch. And then we'd go to our other grandma's house for like the evening and for Christmas dinner. And it was at my grandma's, that evening at, in Grampistan. And I just remember that there was, we had three presents. Me and Garrett both had like three presents and there was numbers on them. So like this is Miles, one, Miles, two, Miles, three, and then same thing with Garrett's. And obviously we had no idea what to expect. Like why would you have to open presents in a certain order? And lo and behold, number one was a red Game Boy Pocket. Red always with my color, growing up, my favorite color, and it was a red Game Boy Pocket. And the second one was two games, Bugs Bunny and Aladdin. And the third one was like a carrying case like the Game Boy and the Games. But for my number one video game, the one that plays role in my life, it's Aladdin or it's Bugs Bunny. I remember Aladdin most clearly. And these games, it's an original Game Boy Pocket. Like there is no backlight on these games. It is black and white or gray and white and the simplest of games. Like in Aladdin, I remember like you had like collect lamps or something or another. And obviously you're facing off against a far and Bugs Bunny was all about collecting the carrots. And so far moved from what any kind of game, actual video game or like even like a simple mobile game is today, but man, back then it was so cool. I remember just being over the moon 'cause we'd never had anything like that before. Video games obviously didn't exist, phones didn't exist, nothing did. And it was so, it's such a clear, great memory because that was like our first foray into this world. And it was Christmas of '96. To stay along the same thread, the next one number two, the second game would be Pokemon Red. Like it is crazy to me. Like I say Pokemon now, the fact that Pokemon has lasted for this period of time. Here we are, what, nearly 30 years later, 25 years plus later. And still it's relevant as it ever was. And it is crazy because I think back to like, these original games when they first launched, we got them, this would have been, I think they launched in 1998. I remember we got them in 1999. I remember like dad came in and he said, he'd got something for Garrett and I 'cause there's always, we were always together on this stuff. And he'd gotten me Pokemon Red and Garrett Pokemon Blue. And it was right before we leave for the ocean because every June we would always go to the ocean with, like I said, the aforementioned Carly and Travis and the WAN and it's a long drive. We'd go to Lincoln City and back then, I remember we'd like, would mount like a little TV in the car, we'd watch like home alone and the goonies and stuff. And you know, obviously can far move from what it ever was today. But I remember dad like getting us these games, like we could play them on the way. And Pokemon Red was the first game I ever completely beat. In no small part, thanks to Travis. Because Travis like borrowed the game. And I remember he was super into it and he got me like a ton of different Pokemon like Ralph the Bat. 'Cause the easy thing about Pokemon is like beating the actual storyline, the hard parts collecting all 150 at the time, 150 different Pokemon. And we're Travis did that and like you get like the little certificate and stuff. But is the first game I ever beat? And it was just like the lead off into so much stuff. Because obviously Pokemon still persists today. And I've played a number of different games. I've played this game over several times. And it's just like, if I think about like clearly one of the cornerstone games in my life, 'cause you know, we were one of the OGs to this whole party and what it's evolved into today. Also, crazy to think about how like we would want to like battle or trade Pokemon, you'd have to get like this link cable. To link between your two game boys. The cable never being more than like two feet. So you're always like uncomfortably close. And if it pulled out God forbid, 'cause the whole thing gets wrecked. Remember that like it being crazy. And then you know, like I said, all the different spin-offs and stuff. So many times like we'd play with friends and trade and battle all that stuff. And it's just evolved into so much. But back in the early days, back in 1999, go into the ocean and play in that house. Great memories. And that's the thing about these games. Like I can think of like so many different times of playing these games and not necessarily what I was playing or where I was playing, but like where I was at. Like I can remember like being in the combine with grandpa and playing this game or being in different places, going different places and playing this game. It's just like that's what these are to me is like different memories of different points in time that connect and just like create this spider web of my life essentially. Number three is another big one. Number three was Mario 64, 'cause this was the first game we ever got on an actual console on an Nintendo 64. And I think I've told this story before, but I remember so clearly this as well of it was in the fall of 1997, I believe. I could have been springed, but I'm almost sure it was fall. And how I remember that is to earn an N64, what we had to do was I had to memorize this like hundred word spelling list essentially. It was a first grade spelling list. I remember like the days of the week were on it and a bunch of other words. And I'd memorize that and I'd learn how to tie my shoes. Garrett also had two conditions. I think he probably had to tie his shoes as well and then something else, but getting through each of these things, I remember like sitting on the combine with dad and this is why I think it was the fall of like getting these last few words off my list. Like I'd gotten through it across the mall off like my last two words out of this hundred word list before I could earn N64 were Thursday and other. Why those two words, I don't know, Thursday makes sense, but other, it's like come on, that doesn't seem hard. But those last two words I got, I remember like being on the porch when dad said we could go over must have been after harvest, probably on a rainy day 'cause he wasn't plowing and driving over to Moscow. And I remember on the way we were like driving down this hill like into Moscow right before you get to Rosars kind of driving through Torch Walmart 'cause Walmart was where you get all the games back then. And he's like, oh by the way, like they, there's all these different controllers. You can get a red one and Garrett can get a blue one and just, yeah, I remember each side. excited because like this is a whole new world. We played Game Boy games obviously, but those were all 2D. This is gonna be our first like 3D game. I remember like the first like playing that first Mario world. And they get into the first Bowser. And Bowser I remember being so scary that I we we I could literally remember hiding behind the couch one evening as dad beat the first Bower for us which again just a crystal clear memory that again just it's kind of all comes back to the video games and and playing through these and I remember like the second we got eventually like wave race why be two controllers we have three controllers at the very beginning for a single player Mario game and eventually got wave race and we could play against each other but Mario 64 definitely like a cornerstone game as they kind of opened up all this stuff. Number four we're going away from Game Boy's going away from games 64's number four was backyard baseball one of the the CD wrong games. I love the Nintendo stuff. We always had Nintendo stuff up through the years but man there was something about playing games on a computer like with the CD ROMs putting the little discs in like we had this like this basket this like this long elongated basket because mom worked for Longer Burger she told baskets and we had like this probably 6 inch by 24 inch basket that all like our CD ROMs were like to sit again and several games that I'm gonna talk about today were in there but one of them was backyard baseball. First time I remember playing it was up in Cordelaine like again Carly and Travis they they're recurring characters in the story like they were up there with us and I remember like sitting and watching Travis play it and we were playing it and the best part was like you go through a game and you beat it and they're like all right let's go outside and like pretend to be these guys let's go outside and play our own game of baseball and that's what I always kind of led to like I talk about all these video games we we we played video games but we were never like a super like obsessed with like we'd ever played like all day every day we always had limits and we always spent so much time outside and that's what like backyard baseball kind of led to like I remember like all these times as I've just played in the backyard and mimic these games and being the different characters and you know playing with with our friends outside in the backyard it was so cool and it just inspired that and you know it's like I go out and pretend like you're doing a home run derby or whatever it may be and and this game was cool because it made sports at that point in time accessible to people who were like we were 10 or or nine or 10 years old and it was it made it easy and fun and eventually too many more backyard sports games football basketball and even now like there's a new one coming out in July that I'm super stoked about because they're remake in the whole thing but that was one of the ones I remember early on like loving it and then going outside and like let's go play our own baseball game and just having so much fun with that that was like 1998 and 1999 I want to say number five back to Nintendo 64 was in the year 2000 I remember getting this game used because like we must have traded in a couple other games and then we got this one really like late to the party after it was really cool and popular I remember playing through it and in the day and age of a dial up internet obviously like this was the year 2000 it was dial up internet and we spent so much time on the phone with our buddy Dakota who'd played the game and we're like walk us through like what to do like what to do when you get to like the forest temple or how to beat the water temple and he would just like we just be on the phone for hours and basically it's like walk us through it which an amazing amount of patience on his part looking back but that's that's what we do and there was one time where we were doing this and mom was like working on her computer like there's some internet problem believe it or not and Jared path was over and helping her and she's like hey you guys got to hang up the phone like I've got to get this internet figured out like we're working on it Jared's got to go soon and I'm sure we like we're upset about it and frustrated and then then proceeded to be the wildest crazy coincidence that I've ever seen because Jared's like oh you guys are playing ocarina of time I've got I actually have an extra game manual in the back of my car that I can go get for you right now whether or not this is planned like mom I still know it was this plan or spontaneous because it seemed I remember it was very spontaneous and just this crazy coincidence of him having not one but two of these the guides like the guys are so great back in the day but he had two of them is like here you guys can have this one so no longer we spent all this time on the phone we could just look at the guide and that that was that and it was it was an amazing coincidence and and crazy and still sticks with me to that this day but man that game was great I'm like sitting in the basement of friends house like playing that like I say late into the night it was never passed by time but that's for sure because we never allowed to do that but just great great memories playing that uh number six this was also late 90s this was another city rom game and these seven six kind of go together number six was the incredible machine the incredible machines the game it got for Christmas again I think it was like in probably late 90s probably 90 90 uh I was probably eight or nine 98 or 99 and the incredible machine was a game where you'd have like all these simple parts super nerd game very sciencey but you'd have always like these simple machines like a like a bowling ball or a ramp or a switch or a bomb and you had to like figure out how to put them into this this scenario this board and you create like a chain reaction like a Gutenberg chain reaction like if you you push the play button on the puzzle and like it does something and you have to make all of these things connect to solve a problem or help this tennis ball get into a basket for example and I I loved it because I love puzzle games and I think this game like inspired my love of puzzles because I still love like any kind of puzzle crosswords anything where you have to like problem solve and think you're right through it that's what this game was and again I it's crazy to be like comparing like this game where it's all about like sitting there and thinking it through and delayed gratification and the frustration tolerance all these things that I work on every day with kids in my job which is why I recognize these things and I compare that kind of game into like what it is now not there's anything wrong with the Fortnite to the world and the the Call of Duty's but like that those games are driven on like that that drive for dopamine and they they never really truly and like there's always something else to get so it's they just kind of they they're a very active game for a passive player whereas like incredible machine was like you got to be you don't have that dopamine rush like you're sitting there you're trying to pick this stuff out and again as nerdies it was man I loved it I'm forgetting like so many different follow up versions of this game and playing through all the different puzzles and and and kind of this for the next one roller coaster tycoon same thing this must have been in like 1999 I recently like they made remake this game and I downloaded it was probably a year ago and just like sitting there and trying to play it like even for me now like I'm like how did I play this for so many hours because it again it's it's so slow paced it's it's like a problem solving puzzle game where you got like you strategy and like obviously lay down these paths to these different rides and have the price of these rides for different things and if the line gets too long you jack up the price of the ride and then you're trying to build these roller coasters and you're trying to build these different things and you play through like these scenarios that last literally like years like a month would probably take like 10 minutes and you play through all these months and you're like trying like build this park that's generating I don't know 20 million revenue in five years and it takes a long time and it gets it's very slow pace but I love these games and looking back it's like that's it's so cool because I I'm curious like how much that truly impacted me my ability like to sit and to focus and to like not not have to be doing stuff but you're like trying to problem solve your way through these things I have so many great memories of playing the roller coaster tycoons of the world and we're also getting like zoo tycoon all the different you know tycoons essentially but between that and the curl machine it was just like problem solving puzzle games and I loved them I've got great memories of playing both those ones got a bolt for Christmas it's just all about the strategy and that's so cool I hope someday like if it makes it into video games it's she has at least some level of interest in games like that because it just seems important it seems helpful number eight kind of the opposite of all that number eight was a ruin escape ruin escape was probably one of the games I've played the single most put the most hours in my entire life it was a game that I remember was introduced to us in like the early 2000s bikes and cousins that we had were visiting who are visiting from Montana and it was this it was one of the first online massive multiplayer games I feel like it always up went up against like world of warcraft and ever quest but we did ruin escape a game where you'd like online you were in a big giant world with other people who were you know live playing at the same time and there was it was like a medieval thing like you could do quests and you could get armor and you could go defeat monsters and you could do all this stuff and man the number of hours we poured into that thing like doing those things I just described are like leveling up on skills my username was Ironman 30 now this is way before Marvel and the Iron Man's that we know today it was literally because I had just gotten like this this is so dirty I'd gotten a new watch because I got like really good grades and it was an Ironman watch like the brand Ironman and it had a 30 lap counter on you could you could do laps up to 30 which is the fat why they limited it 30 I don't know but it was like an Ironman 30 lap watch and so I I needed a name and I called myself Ironman 30 which then that I think Garrett was Iron Iceman and Buddy Vars was Sonic Man it just it kind of led to it but playing all these different games like it was really cool because like there was forums you could go to forums and like talk with others and like if you needed to sell stuff you could go on these forums or if you needed help like walking through different quests you could go to these forums and there was there was no way to talk or communicate in this game outside of typing so if I got nothing out of this game nothing else out of this game the one thing that it really taught me and looking back it's kind of crazy because it was one of those like perfect time perfect place kind of things if you wanted to communicate you had a type and you had to communicate that's how you message people that's how you sold items I'm like standing like one in one of like the busy towns and you just click you type over and over again like selling ruin to hand sword or selling ruin to H and you just you type these things hundreds and hundreds of times and every time you go on to communicate but because of that I got hundreds of hours of typing experience like right now I can type very very quickly and I look at kids these days who you know I who come and through my work and I work with them and like every now and then we like we touch on typing and they're nowhere close to it because they don't have have to type anymore. Like, how many kind of multiplayer game it's all voice driven, you never really have to type outside of like when you, you know, you graduate and you get a real job up until then it's not super necessary. Yeah, there's your score reports, but we typed for entertainment for these games and I remember a similar example. He was like in a Malcolm Gladwell book. He talked about all these different examples of like perfect time, perfect place. Bill Gates is kind of the same boat. Like he lived in a certain spot where he had access to these computers over in the Seattle area. He became the massive business mogul with Windows that he is today. And I feel like in a very, very much more weaker way, like having RuinScape at this point in my life got me to be a really, really quick type or which has paid endless dividends these days. Like I type nonstop in my job now and it's unbelievably helpful to be able to do so to a really, really fast clip. Also about RuinScape is great because like a lot of friends would play like we had a massive like kind of like a coaching tree. Like we just had a big tree of friends who would do this with us and it was great. They had like a membership thing. I remember it being so cool because we mom one day let us become members. So like we'd access like extra game content kind of like you know the paid content and perhaps today. Five bucks a month. But holy smokes was that the greatest thing in the world when she let us do that. Kind of the same time in place, whereas I talk about like with Zelda, Akira time like this was a time when the if you were on dial up internet there was no phones working anywhere. So there's always a battle between like if you wanted to play that was great. But then the phones wouldn't work. So there were certain times where you would have to get off and looking back those natural boundaries are kind of great because we never got the point of being like utterly obsessed where I feel like I a lot of my patients are are now in it definitely impacts their their self-regulation and social emotional skills and all this other stuff. But man, RuinScape excellent game 100% on my most played. Number nine, another like really friend base game. This was in the age. This was in 2007 in the age of the guitar hero. But we went with rock band. And rock band came out in like late 2007. I remember like getting money for Christmas, getting gift cards for Best Buy and we went up one day on a snowy day and we got like the big box of rock band that came with the two guitars, the drums and the mic. And I love this because like we would always go over again to Carly and Travis House who keep coming up over and over because they were they were our people growing up and still are. And our band was called clockwork thievery. And I just remember like playing late in the night again probably like 10 or 11 o'clock. Like through all these different like bands and festivals and concerts and get was on the drums and Carly was on the vocals and Travis and I were like lead guitar and bass. And just made spend the time just playing those games. It was just that was as good as it got like they was so much fun playing through those. The other day I was cleaning out or helping mom clean out some of her basement stuff and I was looking at old video games that were down there. It just boxes that we'd gotten and I'd left. And back then like if you wanted to buy like the DLC songpacks, you had to like buy another like disc for it and I came across like the country, you know extra song list disc. It's like we could play country songs in rock band because that's what we loved and still love and it was it was just that was so cool. I'm like mud on the tires was on there from Brad Paisley and I don't know several others up should have been a cowboy tobe Keith. Just playing through those games with their friends. It was so much fun. Clockwork thievery. There's a lot of things I can't remember. But I can remember all our rock band band name. So not least number 10 2017 much more recent one was what really kind of got me back in the video games when I went off to college. I I was going to say like most people I feel like it's kind of the opposite when I went off to college. I didn't really play a whole lot of video games at this point in time like the we had come out. We played the we because we always had Nintendo stuff and it was great. But I went to college and like the we you came out and it was the one console I never got and is because I was in college and it just wasn't something I really ever did because like video games to me was like playing with Garrett or with our friends and when I was in college at least for the first several years it was it was just me like I lived with roommate during my first year and then he moved away and then I moved I live by myself in my sophomore year which I loved and I'm so grateful I had that chance. But I just never would play video games in which I can so it seems really opposite of how things go nowadays as far as like college kids goes. But I stopped and this is the game that brought me back in was the breath of the wild for the Zelda game was when the switch was just released this is in 2017 it kind of got me back into it because this was right after I met Kendall and we were like we're dating and she was moving to the Bahamas for her job. She was working for Discovery Land Company and like she was going down to the Bahamas for the winter because that's where there was a horse were still active. So it was like a long distance relationship which was so so hard for me. So I remember talking to one of my patients once one of my kids and he was like talking about how excited he was for this game and the switch coming out and we're like looking into it and thinking like oh this could be like a perfect distraction for this like I have no reason not to like it'll be great. And I remember back then the switch had just come out and calling around and like trying to find a place that had him in stock because they were sold out everywhere. I just happened to call up to this game stop in Cordillane. They had it like please save it for me. Drove up got it and and that was that like it got me kind of back into it but back into video games in a way that was very different from what it was before because I was now to face in my life and still am where it's like you have to you don't have a whole lot of time. Like I've got like random evenings here and there like for me like getting video games now is like I'm very selective. I only want to get the good ones that I know I can play through and we'll enjoy the whole time. It's not like how it used to be where you could just go out and buy anything and enjoy it. Like kids in a job and so many other obligations. So like the second phase of my video games is more of like all right there's maybe like three maybe four a year that I look forward to and I'll get and you just kind of like you just grow you just move through them and you join them and then it's it kind of goes back to everything else but breath of the wilds we got me back into video games and I love it. Tears of the kingdom was awesome but I feel like breath of the wild was the better one. The switch was fantastic. Perfect for what it needed to be being a portable game console. Now I got to talk about last year. I got the switch to and it's been fantastic but breath of the wild makes the list because it's it was the one that really got me back into video games and I'm like loving it and enjoying it and help me get through this really hard time in my life when kind of was you know away and I was long to do for leadership and it all worked out anyways. Thank you all for listening to this. This is this is again like a very one off episode and very different what I usually do. I think the takeaways from this like looking at all these things again the takeaways is like not necessarily the video games itself but the impact that they've had on my life and the stories and how they kind of intertwined everything and again I feel like a lot of these games were in that late 90s early 2000s window which makes sense because I remember reading books about how they talk about like when you're in that stage like the sports teams that you love when you're 9 10 or 11 are the ones that like are impacted upon you for the rest of your life makes sense because that's for me is the Mariners and same thing like with music with with country music at the time still is and video games I think kind of the exact same way like all these like really memorable formidable games were from that period of my life and even though there were so many it's like again we were lucky that you know we loved them but it was never like our life I remember I have so many remember probably even more memories of playing outside and having the very good fortune of growing up on a farm like the number of times we'd go out to the creek and we would do something out there and come back so can wet or muddy or go over to the big patio or the Sheds and play you know hide and seek or whatever it may be running our bikes we spent so much time doing that that yeah I love video games but it was never everything and everything also was being able to play outside but it was a part of my life and I love it and there's so many memories associated with it especially with friends and family and I love it that's great again hopefully this episode kind of inspires you to think if you play video games like what were the top 10 of yours like what are the most memorable and representative you're not like the favorites but the ones that kind of left that mark thank you for listening I appreciate it again back to normal episodes next week and me Gabby sound by it on the way out and thank you all for listening have a good one bye Gabby what does the one in the tiger say they are great