Thoughts 30

School Gaming

There was a time where I experienced probably the most fun inside lessons at school. It was twice a week, I believe it was a collective two hours across Tuesdays and Thursdays where it took place.

We would all show up early, eagerly waiting for the teacher to unlock the one thing keeping us from true excitement. Once opened, we would all pile in, bags smashing into each other, unbothered heads colliding, and the teacher stepping pack the instant after turning the key - he knew the best thing to do was to move out the way, there was no stopping us.

Anyway, we all sat down.

We press the button.

The screen blasts through a gradient from black to a blue hue in an instant yet it feels like seeing colour for the first time.

We type in our password and username, open up chrome - and that's it, we were in.

There’s something beautiful about playing games on the school computers. It had many parts, and was quite complex. The first of which, of course, was finding games to play. I’m sure you’re aware, the school had a blocker on all sites related to gaming and entertainment, bar Youtube. Therefore, we had to get creative, scouring for the websites that weren’t blocked. I swear, if you check the search history of school kids, the amount of times “unblocked” would come up would outnumber US citizens (Bickuribox12). But hey, we found sites, we found methods, and they worked. Slope was my game, I thoroughly loved it. But there were other classics like 1v1.lol, that one rocket league rip off, and the elusive Minecraft 1.5.2 download.

However, it was never that simple. You see, they, the antagonist of this story, had full access to our computers, so they knew which sites were hot, and as a result, that one site you played cookie clicker on yesterday is now an empty symbol of despair branded with that damned cross.

It was a constant chase, but we were always one step ahead. There are so many of those free game sites, I even made one myself, so no matter what they did, we always found a way to keep ourselves entertained. I remember segamegadriveemulator, I still play it today, it’s probably my favourite of all the sites.

But hey, that’s the first hurdle out of the way. But the second is where the heart palpitations begin - the teacher. Every kid had a minimised window of some game, periodically peering their head over to see where the teacher was, breathing a sigh of relief whenever they could see them, because when you couldn’t, there was only one place they could be (behind you). The old alt-tab and clicking off the minimised window worked like a charm, but one of the worst additions to the enemies arsenal was Big Brother esc surveillance software. Now, the teacher can see everyone’s monitor at all times, so we had to improvise. Teacher away from the desk, play. There was some kid stationed right in sight of the teacher’s monitor, looking at the screen and giving the rest of us the all clear if the surveillance window was closed. Also, there were always those kids who got the back seats with their monitors pointing away from the teacher, maximising their safety resulting in optimum playtime. As I said, this was complex.

But hey, we all had a good time. My best memories are when everyone’s playing the same game, trying to outscore each other, and when one person was on a roll, we’d all huddle around their PC to watch greatness, caring not for whether the teacher saw the commotion. There was no greater honour, cruising with everybody shouting, then when you lose, letting out either a cheer or a groan of friendly disappointment. Either way, if you wanted to make friends, if you played well, you’d be set. The funniest thing was that we all believed “He’s getting a high score” was a valid excuse to play games, it is what we often used in these situations, and it barely worked, but on just a few occasions, they would let us finish the game.

One more thing, I am fortunate enough to be able to play games at home, but I know, and observed it myself, that some kids don’t have that luxury either due to a lack of technology or due to strict parents. So it was nice to have time to be with your friends and have a good time. IT club was just as fun, it lacked the tension lessons had, but it also provided the freedom to really talk and have fun, and to me, that’s what IT is all about.

I’m joking, that’s what IT’s about from years 1 to 8, and maybe during the last week of the school year.

All I’m saying is, I miss it, but I’ve got great memories; and to be honest, I would have loved IT with or without games, because it's a great subject and we had great teachers. The presentation of SLT as the enemies was a playful hyperbole… or was it.