(Well, the content of this note is not related to the type of bonding that responsible for the ability of some materials to conduct electricity (even though I do have some educational background in chemistry and engineering), nor it is related to the type of music that heavily uses electric guitar and drum (even though all the 6 music groups on my favorite list in Facebook play this kind of music, including the idol one). Anyways, if you notice the picture of the post and happen to have some knowledge in RPG, you might be able to guess where this post heading to :-). )
Having too many stuffs in your storage box often made you lose count of what you have there. And because Farah read some books by Mari Kondo recently (do some googling if you want to know who is she), we decided to follow the advice and do some cleaning of the storage. And indeed, I found tons of stuffs that I’ve already forgot I have them (like: “why did I keep this cat ears band?” or “so there where the other half of my socks went” :-) ).
It was then when I stumbled on the Nintendo DS that had been covered by dust for several centuries (Exaggeration of course. We had just moved to this apartment less than a year :-) ). Long time ago, when I was still young (oops!), I used to play dragon quest in that Nintendo DS. I was wondering whether Farah ever play such games, so I showed her the DS.
“Have you ever played dragon quest?”
“I’ve never played RPG at all.”
“Then you should try this. This is fun!”
I still kept some of the game ROMs, so we played. We were into it, therefore later we searched the net for a decent used Nintendo DS and bought it, so we could play Dragon Quest IX multiplayer together.
Some of you might think that our home would fall silent after that, because both of us too busy with our game to hold any conversation. But it was not. We still talked as usual, but now some of the conversation was altered to stuffs from another dimension :-).
If you ever played RPG, you might have known that you need to increase your level in order to gain strength and more ability such as spells. This level gain can be achieved by battling monsters and accumulating experience. In dragon quest series, the best way to level up is by battling metal monsters such as metal slimes, since they will grant you loads of experience points. However, the trouble with them is that they are very hard to find, and it requires some decent strategy to beat them efficiently. In dragon quest IX, since a player can travel to other player’s game, we often visited each other world and did metal hunting together. It’s basically a more efficient way, because by doing it together, the area that could be covered to find those metals will be wider, and of course it was easier to beat the monsters together.
So, during the metal hunting, it was normal to hear us call to each other like “come to the upper left corner, I stumped on a metal here” or “where are you? I found two of them here.” :-)
And since the places where the metal monsters exist usually also be inhabited by strong creatures, the calls sometimes turned into distress calls like “come here quickly, I’m cornered by Earthenwarriors!” or “help, I almost got stomped by living statue!” That’s why we need also to watch each other back there, providing each other with medicinal herbs or magic water if the HP and MP are already low.
And suddenly we realized that playing this game could turn into another way of bonding.
In contrary to conventional believe that suggests playing electronic game will diminish communication, it can also be used for bonding to make the players get close to each other. I’m not by any way trying to promote dragon quest here :-), I just want to mention that sometimes games can also give us benefit if we use it the right way. (And I recommend Dragon Quest IV or V if you’re looking for good story :-) ).
Now I am thinking to introduce the game to our children too (if we bless with some) when we think the time is already right for them to play it. Rather than forbid them to play a decent game and then have them play behind our back, I prefer to let them play, thus we will still be able to give some guidance. Moreover, by doing so, I could show up by demonstrating how to blow a liquid metal slime with thunder thrust, or perhaps they could also watch their mother sweeps king metal slime with hatchet man (I used spear when I hunt metal, while Farah use axe :-) ).
One thing for sure, the game definitely added to the memory share by me and Farah. So, when one day you heard us having an absurd conversation like the following, you would be able to guess why.
“Do you remember the time when we visit Bowhole, love? The one near the Wormwood Creek.”
“Was it when we almost be swept by Dracularge, dear?”
“Yes, it was. And the Harmours were also hard to beat...”
:-)
