Earning the Ending

I HAVE A VIVID MEMORY of sitting next to my childhood best friend on her plaid couch, watching her older brother conquer his most recent video game obsession. The game, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, centered around a protagonist named Link, who must defeat Ganondorf, the evil ruler of a tribe that had taken over the kingdom of Hyrule. As with previous versions of Zelda, the game progressed through battles, but this edition also had a music-making element, as Link (and, by extension, the player) learned to play songs on a magical ocarina that conferred special powers.

It was the first video game that ever enthralled me, and we sat there for hours, watching the colorful, digitized mossy green and gold world unfold over the swirl of hair on my friend’s brother’s head. My friend’s mom would ask why we wanted to watch someone else play a game rather than play it ourselves. As a kid, I couldn’t explain.

Now, I’d be able to answer her question eloquently: I was drawn into the beauty of the design and the music, but was also entranced by a line of inquiry: what exactly was happening in this game? What monsters and characters lurked around the next corner? The game inspired trust: it was clear there would be a satisfying end to the story.

As an adult, I do occasionally play video games—mainly simulation games, a recent favorite being —but I’ve never identified as a gamer. More than the games themselves,. And, as a nonfiction writer, I’m mostly drawn to storytelling games.