My name is Aaron, I am a Dad.
His name is Josh, he is a son...of mine...the son...my only...you know what I mean.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Ultima 6 Day 1 - BROOK JOHNSON!

And so it begins...begun...began? Anyway, we got started two days ago.

I've decided to keep it to one day at a time with these posts. Hopefully, these first two will be the only ones made more than 24 hours later.

So we started the game up and watched the intro, I read it all to him in my epic dad voice and he was thoroughly impressed. His mother had an impressive eye-roll. Josh's reactions were pretty neat, the storm and lightning got him excited as did the portal. The hardest part was stopping him from asking what was happening and what the story was long enough to tell him what was happening and what the story was.

Next we created his character, which, with very little hesitation, he shouted out the name, "BROOK JOHNSON!" My wife and I exchanged a shrug, and I typed it in. I cycled through avatar portraits and he chose the red-beard and helm image.
That guy

To which Josh yelled,"YEAH! BROOK JOHNSON!"
That guy
BROOK JOHNSON

With that out of the way, we proceeded to the final character creation step, virtue. In Ultima 6 a scene, somewhat unrelated to the rest of the game, occurs where the player is asked a series of questions. Each question contains a scenario that illustrates a conflict of virtues in which the player must decide the course of action that they believe is more important to them. With no true right or wrong answers, Joshua surprised me again. He seemed to understand each question very well and made his decisions himself, though he was concerned that the gypsy woman ran out of blue (Honesty). He loved the animation of the mingling waters, and seemed a bit upset that he had to drink it (Talk about getting into character).

Then came the final opening cut-scene. He became visibly creeped out. The red, evil-looking figures tying the Avatar to the alter, "Hey! That's not Brook Johnson!" And the big winged-one with the evil-looking book about to kill him, "OH NO!" The daring rescue,"HEY! Who are THOSE GUYS?!"

"Joshua! I'm trying to read it to you! Calm down!"
"Sorry!"

Okay, the limits of the old game's story telling ability didn't allow for his specific character image to be the one on screen, almost lost his interest right there. Modern games spoil us sometimes. He settled down and watched the exciting escape. I had forgotten that the writers were careful not to name the gargoyles for what they were. It left that demon first-impression that brilliantly prejudices the player against them. I look forward to watching Joshua, hopefully, develop some empathy for them later in the story.

After the throne-room battle, we saved the game and quit for the evening. It was a short first session, but Joshua's energizer-level ADHD could not be contained further. He was literally running in and out of the room with his excitement, trying to get him to sit still and look at the screen...nope.

The opening to the game is really exciting, I hope the overall pace of the game isn't too slow for him.

     - Dear Joshua,
BROOK JOHNSON!

With love,
Dad


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