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Long before mobile phones and text messages were invented, I collect little paper notes, trinkets found in some place or moment, and letters written in stationary paper from friends, crushes and acquaintances believing that such note giving and exchanging of letters will never happen again. I had this vision that in the future, such things would always keep me nostalgic during pragmatic times.
Many years later, the vision would come true. When I opened the boxes where I kept these letters and trinkets, it made me feel very senti. Suddenly, all those people I met in the past suddenly talked to me once again.
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Before Sims2 was ever conceived, I played this role-playing game called Mario World. The game was complete with bidas and contrabidas, namely a plastic miniature figure of Super Mario and Luigi and their allies as the heroes, while the big boss enemy in Thundercats, a robot that turns into a gun and an army of plastic, mutilated action figures hardened by days of being used as a pamato in some children's kalye game which we called tau-tauhan as the villains.
They had their own bases and headquarters, which consisted of big carton boxes, closets, study tables. Even the bodega in our house was not spared from my imagination. They waged a perpetual war where, the heroes and the main villains never fought directly at all. If I would describe how the game went, the battles where mostly done in a shock and awe fashion where the side who could display the scarier military equipment wins.
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When I was in second year, I had saved enough money to buy myself a Barbie so I would cease "borrowing" my sister's Barbie dolls. I had to get one myself discreetly at SM Centerpoint because my Guile action figure needs a 'damsel-in-distress' and a goddess. Surprisingly, I also acquired my sister's Ken Doll after she losses in one of our bets. These sudden turn of events was perhaps the reason why I never finished that role-playing game because as I grew older, the plot and story arcs thickened to the point that I completely outgrew the toys themselves.
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Ultraman was very influencial during my elementary years. I had a whole box of trading cards of his franchise which are already 15 years old. When I was doing my general cleaning, I never took them out of the box fearing that it might crumble when I touch them. As I gazed into the transparent dirty white box where I kept the cards, I could not help but think at how things turn out in the end. Who would have thought that after spending a huge chunk of my allowance trying to get as much information about the franchise through the trading cards I acquired,
I would get everything that I wanted to know from Wikipedia many years later.
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When not playing Mario World role playing game, I focus my attention to another sort of role playing game where I turn my big room into a mini-city, complete with carton boxes that serves as skyscrapers. I don't have a proper name for such activity but I had rubber monsters and 12-inch action figures engaging my 10-incher plastic grey Ultraman in a mock battle. Imagination played a big role in this game for I even had the map of the city drawn out in a notebook so that I would never get confused while I lay the buildings when playing a new "episode" of the game. There were plastic houses in different colors stolen from somebody's Millionaire's Game so I would have suburban areas and plastic jet planes and battle ships to complement the whole set.
But unlike in the Mario World game where the bidas never die, this game was quite violent and carton boxes where often trashed just to be close to what I saw on TV. In fact, I was recreating my own version of Ultraman, that if I knew how to write a script then, I could have written one of the episodes of that kiddie show..
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I remembered my dad telling me to grow up and stop playing such kiddie toys. After all, I was still hooked up to such games when I was in second year high school. However, when I think of such role playing activities I played during those times nowadays, I think they were very advanced for my age. If I've realized its positive impact then, I should have defended my hobbies as an "exercise of creativity and imagination." But since, I felt that age is becoming a factor as to why my role-playing games became more awkward in its last years, I had no choice but to cease playing without having a final closure on the games I played.
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So I had to dismantle everything and put them all in different boxes. It was difficult at the beginning, but my preoccupation was soon replaced by my surging interest in computers. As I stacked the boxes in one corner of my closet, I made a vow to take them out again and place them in a room where they could stand permanently in their places they used to occupy. The former headquarters tucked deeply inside closets and bases disguised as study tables or piles of broken appliances would be resurrected in an entire room converted to a Mario World setting. Back then, I used to believe that such imaginary world would never be far from my thoughts, no matter what happens. But as time passes, things that used to be my fancy would be forgotten. I don't even remember anymore how on earth I played those role-playing games with no beginning nor end, without getting bored at all.
But as I took them out of their boxes after a decade of being forgotten, the boredom nor the method of playing doesnt matter anymore. At that moment, all I could ever tell myself is that how I wish I had been more creative back when playing such games was my life.
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