A notion on which I’ve often dwelled of late (and may well have discussed here or on some social media outlet) is that when I was young I had no concept of a bad videogame. Games that today carry a reputation as horrible, poorly designed duds — Deadly Towers, 8 Eyes, Dr. Chaos, Hydlide — just seemed to me, at the time, as if they were above me somehow. I didn’t understand them, much as I was unprepared to understand much of the world. In that, they held a certain mystique.

I didn’t play them much, as I couldn’t get far and I got frustrated — but I never blamed that on the games. It never occurred to me to pass judgment. I just figured they were made for someone else, or for a time when I was older and prepared to understand them.

Even today when I look back on these games I get an intriguing sense of cognitive dissonance. I understand that they weren’t altogether successful creative efforts, for one reason or another — but they challenge me to look at things in ways that I otherwise wouldn’t, to try to understand how and why they are as they are.

In that, I find these games endlessly fascinating — whereas my fascination with more accessible, clearly well-designed games ended long ago, once I got everything that they had to say.