Saturday, June 24, 2017

Falling Flat for Thedas...

Dragon Age offers gamers a world that's magical,
gorgeously rendered, and endlessly adaptable
.
I've always been a passionate gamer. I still remember my first Atari in childhood, and how fantastic I thought Asteroids was. I went on to play every predictable console that was released, while also spending plenty of time at the arcade as well, on Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Galaga, Donkey Kong Junior, Dig Dug, Popeye, Centipede, and dozens of others. My love for gaming continued right on into adulthood, from the days of Myst, Zork: Nemesis, LucasArts's superb and hilarious Monkey Island series, to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, the entire Legend of Zelda series (especially Ocarina), and eventually into MMORPGs like LOTRO and RPGs like Bioware's Mass Effect series (especially ME2) and many more.

Sure, I'd gotten a little obsessed now and then—I still remember basically living three months in the world of Mass Effect while playing the entire trilogy. Or at least that's how I remember it.

Then came the world of Dragon Age. First, I played Dragon Age: Origins (or DAO for short), and was entranced with the richness and complexity of the game's world and its mythology. Each time I started up the game and that haunting music played, I felt that I was climbing through a window into another world—a deeply magical world.

After Origins, I (stupidly) skipped Dragon Age 2 (a mistake I later rectified), mainly because I was so excited to finally get to play Dragon Age: Inquisition. And it was with Inquisition that I fell in love. I fell flat. I fell like cartoon characters fall, complete with sound effects.

By the end of Inquisition, I was in love. I loved the game and its world. I loved it like I loved books. Coffee. Narnia. His Dark Materials. Eggnog. Hedgehogs. Cats. Astronomy.

I mean, I loved it like I loved Tolkien. This was serious.

And three years later, I'm just as obsessed as ever. Probably more so—because the DA world is rich enough to withstand endless replays, explorations, discussions, and microscopic scrutiny. Thanks, to Dragon Age: Inquisition, I got dumped by an in-game love interest for the first time (dammit, Solas!) and was actually so incensed by the experience that I ended up writing a fan-fiction comedic play, "Dumped, Drunk and Dalish," about my Inquisitor's drunken aftermath just to process it! (Please note—it's idiotic but fun, and you're welcome to check it out at Archive of Our Own here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5705719.)

And that's why I'm here. As a fantasy writer, I basically had too many thoughts about Dragon Age, at this point, to keep to myself, and wanted a platform where I could share and discuss whatever moved or inspired me about the games, novels, and their world.

So welcome to my blog, complete with ramblings from my perch at the Herald's Rest. Thanks for stopping by! The next round of maraas-lok is on me.

1 comment:

  1. "I mean, I loved it like I loved Tolkien. This was serious."

    This is so much me. The entire experience, from really enjoying Origins, accidentally skipping DA:2, then falling completely and obsessively in love with Inquisition.

    I'm in love with your essays [also your fanfic, but that's another story], too, and so I'm going through to read them all, in order.

    I'll probably continue commenting as I make my way through the archives, but for now let me just give you a heartfelt thank you. You have consistently given words to feelings and thoughts I didn't know I had.

    ReplyDelete

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