Grandmothers and Gaming

by Greg Campbell
 

The title sums up the content of this article/editorial, but isn't all-inclusive.  Anyway, most teens think little of their grandparents (assuming they're currently living).  A sudden urge to help (one of my) grandmother(s).  She comes to our house semi-regularly to babysit, and normally watches TV as entertainment.  I figure that since she's bored, I'm bored and since there's a Playstation in the living room, I may as well teach her to play something.

She's watched me before and commented/hinted that she couldn't play anything that required fast button mashing.  Alright, that rules out most the games I have.  Let's see...  Wild ARMS?  No, that has a timed sequence.  Lunar?  Possibly, but probably too complex.  Final Fantasy Tactics...  Well, this is as close as it'll get.  Turn based, tutorials abound, fairly simple to play.

We get into the living room.  After setting up the PSX with FFT, getting past the title screen, and showing her a brief tutorial and giving her a brief lesson on what the buttons did, we started a new game.  After some trouble inputting the name (she tried Greg and got HS before realizing what happened), I decided to just use "Ramza".

The first cut-scene and battle went slowly.  I explained to her many times, always patient, what the buttons did and in-game things such as act range, movement range and Guest/Enemy status, but in simpler terms. Simpler terms was also a challenge, trying to explain what the swirly blue square was, the sword, what a cursor was, glowing blue squares, etc.  After about 30 minutes of explaining and showing her, she finally got one move and attack right.  (It killed the foe.)

The second cut-scene went well and battle went poorly.  (Well, I was like this when I first played.)  After about a ten minute explanation on how the battle prep screen went, we were off to fight the thieves   She learned quickly how to use items with chemists, but still had problems with moving and attacking.  I explained more about the squares, cursor and such, but it was dinner time.  Well, so ended day 1.

My results less than I'd expected, but there's still hope..  I was around this skill level when I first tried, and if she improves like I did, things will go well.

Moral of this: Try RPGaming with parents and grandparents.  It'll probably be a slow, gradual process, but they may learn to love it.

-EE "Tired of the ordinary"

"Slowly, gently is the way..."