Growing up in the sun-drenched coast of Chile in the 90s, at least in the neighborhood I grew up on, video games were a distant concept that might as well have been science fiction. Here, screaming Pogs and passionate Dragonball Z discussions dominated the school yard, where in their spare time they either did bike races in the evenings or played in the neighborhood soccer field. Many of my friends didn’t exactly grow up in affluent homes, so access to those futuristic gaming macabres you saw on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon was tight, and here there were no arcades either. Our world consisted of nice sea breezes, sloppy completos, loose street hustlers, anime nights on Cartoon Network and of course lots of outdoor activities.
However, I was never meant to play football. I hated this diabolical sport, much to the chagrin of my football-mad father. I hated moving at all and preferred to stay in Grandpa’s giant Disney library. There I fantasized away to literary worlds together with Captain Nemo, Edmond Dantès and The Little Prince. I preferred to draw and paint in my grandfather’s art office, looking out the sun-drenched window like a sizzling vampire. I was simply not cut out to scrape my knees on the football field or throw rocks at passing trains. I was made to disappear among paper and pencils.
One day it would turn out that I would combine my hobby interest with the Pokémon fever that prevailed in the latter half of the 90s, in connection with the acquisition of my first game console. Let me explain: when I moved to Sweden, the Pokémon panic had just started and the difference between the Swedish schoolyard and the schoolyard I grew up in was huge. Here there were no Pogs and the football lay untouched on the lawn; instead, the kids flocked to the lucky few who had received a Gameboy Color for Christmas, where there was often heckling and betting on which of the dueling pocket monsters would win. Like horse racing, but with colorful mice. There was something deeply hypnotic about watching these digital behemoths hump each other and the thought of becoming the neighborhood Pokémon master clouded my ten-year-old mind with 150 Japanese creatures. The science fiction I watched as a child was suddenly real and tangible.
“No” I got from the parents when I asked if I could have a Gameboy Color and I had to console myself by betting on the playing cards. However, it wasn’t quite the same and suddenly I had a brilliant idea: I would create a Gameboy of your own! The project started shortly after the release of Pokémon Gold & Silver, where, through my parents’ slow internet, I researched how exactly the maps looked in the games and started sketching the pixelated paths on a stack of A3 paper. Next, I cut out a scaled-up Gameboy Color from cardboard and using clear overhead plastic I brought from school, I drew a small pixelated Pokémon champion in the center with a felt-tip pen and pasted it into the Gameboy box.
This is an ad:
After covering my bedroom with New Bark Town, I was able to cleverly play a side-scrolling Pokémon adventure by hovering my cardboard Gameboy over the paper world and pretending that a little Pokémon trainer was wandering all over Johto. How did I solve the Pokemon battles, you must be wondering? I simply tabbed my Pokémon card under the transparent Gameboy box and used dice to figure out how many hits the creatures dealt each other. I was very happy with my poor man’s version of Pokemon, while my parents seemed mostly horrified at what I had turned my bedroom into. It was not my intention to frighten my poor pears with my obsession or to make them feel sorry for me, as I mostly prided myself on creation. However, this ended up buying a yellow Gameboy Color with Pokémon Silver, most likely to end the madness they had just witnessed. I finally had to throw away my paper Pokemon, but it didn’t matter: I finally had that science fiction gadget in my little labs. I had officially entered a new era.
It’s a very special feeling to jump into the gaming world at a young age. The smell, the sound, the feel of the Japanese little machine was so intoxicating that I had a hard time tearing myself away from it. My Gameboy saved me from boring trips to Ikea and many sleepless nights once I discovered that there were three legendary dogs to collect (I only managed to catch that volcano dog). I also made a lot of new friends thanks to the ability to trade Pokémon, where I vividly remember trading a completely useless Mew and a super strong Mewtwo. Above all, I remember how proud I was after defeating the elite league with my monster team, which I had raised as if they were my own pets.
However, as with other flies, the Pokémon fever among my friends cooled and even though I was curious about the third generation of Pokémon, it just didn’t feel worth it to keep collecting Pokémon that never seemed to end. My bright yellow Gameboy Color was then put aside once I got access to the TV consoles and it hasn’t actually seen the light of day since. However, I will always remember my very first game console very fondly and I will always be grateful for the time I was glued to that little joy-inducing screen. And that, my weirdos, is the story of how I got my first game console.
This is an ad:
