Some of my favorites are Minecraft (I still remember how we used to play minecraft: educational Edition at school and build stuff and simulate wars for history class, and also how every day at lunch, we would speedrun shoving as much food in our faces as fast as humanly possible before the bell rings and thenwe are off to sprint across the campus to (hopefully) get a spot in the computer lab so we can all play Minecraft together, and of you are late, then you only get to watch other people play-good memories), Terraria, Roblox (before I got banned because I was peer-pressured into saying some scammy things by some bots who were all saying it, in this obvious scam obby, my favorite games on it were: flee the facility (what first got me into Roblox- from like PrestonPlayz playing it on Youtube,and probably natural disaster survival. Growing up simulator did leave an impression on me tho.), Prodigy (not to brag, but I'm level 100 and I still have my starter Peeko at level 100, no-membership run pay to win game, really), Valorant (this game helped with my mental health so much because I was so lonely it was miserable back in high school and still banned off Roblox, it got me out of my maladaptive daydreams and living off nostalgia, and actually out there talking to people), Deltarune, pointlesssites.com and bore button-also some good games on there too, Solitaire (especially TriPeaks) and minesweeper (you know, when your parents turn off the wifi), Geometry Dash ( used to be into it as a kid, but I could only beat the first level, now that I'm older, I was able to beat xStep, soon I will beat Clutterfunk), .io games (especially diep.io (I would play on 2 teams as a pacifist landmine main), zombsroyale.io, surviv.io, skribbl.io, betrayal.io, junon.io, and slither.io where my brother and I used to watch (MG)MasterOv play and we saw he was the coolest guy ever, and I actually got to meet him in a game of slither-my username was bot1 'cuz I wanted to do a bit of trolling-you know, get people to let their guard down, and he thought I was an actual bot, lol. nostalgia), flash games, especially EBF5 (I found this game at my lowest and it got me through some really tough times or else I might have started doing drugs), and I also used to be obsessed with sniper games, for some reason, probably because it ins't seen as "girly" (internalized sexism), and I also loved playing the Fireboy and Watergirl games (he was always fireboy and I was always watergirl) and I also completed all of the worlds hardest game levels on the cool-math games version except the last 2, after way too much time grinding it, (RIP Flash), itch.io games (I really liked wholesome cats and a weird game called don't get the job-it feels weird and strangely good getting complimented like that) and Kongergate games: psychological. I used to play Clash Royale and Clash of Clans because my friends were playing them, but I never really got into them and I was kinda bad and I was trying to hide that and get other people like my dad and my brother to play for me, and that caused a lot of drama, and once my friend accidentally used some of my gold,, gems, and elixir that I was saving up. on something in clash of clans, and blamed it on an imaginary person and that started a whole ARG. I liked going to Fortnite concerts, but I never really played Fortnite. I've been playing games all my life, and once I tried to quit because I thought my gaming was a waste of time, but I really couldn't and I wasn't as happy, and now being a gamer is part of my identity, and I'm PROUD of it!!!
For non-video games, I used to love playing grounders, because it was an action-packed game full of split-second decisions, lava monster, bridge tag, until I (sadly) aged out of it, I love playing tag variations with my friends, they always team up to target me so I'm always it, like I tag someone, another person lets them tag them, and they come after me, and I'm always trying to rules-lawyer my way out of it We came up with some creative stuff like a game we made up called "the phantom game" where we have 3 red balls of different sizes so it's like dodgeball and we get to throw them around, we use pool noodles and plastic hockey clubs to "fight" each other while another person is chasing after us and trying to ram us with a baby stroller in the driveway. We also loved playing Noodle Tag, and also just when my friends come over and we all just goof around and play pretend and make funny scenarios, maybe roughhouse a little bit and jump on the beds and play nerf fights and fight with sticks and pretend superpowers and throw around stuffed animals and just scream and laugh and have a good time. I wish I could still do this with my friends-maybe I should join a larp group, but everything seems to have so many rules now, with clear objectives on how to win and competition, and actual strategy and stuff, and people taking games wayyy too seriously, just forget the rules and lose the shame and have fun and be kids again. It was very weird, but a lot of fun. We also loved the neighborhood game where the it person has to count to 30 while the other people playing have to exit at different exits and try to find each other before the its person catches them, and it was a lot of suspense. I also loved playing hide and seek as a kid and also just traditional tag, at the park with such a big group-though they still always end up forming alliances and ganging up on me anyways, but I don't care-I'm fast. I still love playing Marco polo, because it is basically like Grounders, except it is in a pool. My friend taught me this game where I stand at the bottom of the stairs and repeatedly hit a bouncy ball with my hands to keep it from reaching the bottom-it's harder than you think. Once i was in a warrior cats roleplay they kept sending me on quests around my school to get resources such as sourgrass for healing and such, and it was tiring, but it was fun. And also another time I was what could only be described as an anime magical girl type roleplay, and I was in multiple minecraft roleplays with the same people and also I just loved playing pretend as a kid, with my brother and this whole set of fictional characters where i was a girl with energy powers and a big magical broadsword and a money dragon with no inflation, and my brother and I and everyone else would travel around a land made out of an amalgamation of all the games we saw were cool at the time, and set out to defeat the hacker virus, the BBEG the story who sets out to take over and corrupt and destroy all the games and tv shows in the world so nobody can play any games anymore. Those were some fun times we had on those long car rides my dad insisted on taking me and my brother on, and he would always tell us to quiet down if we got too loud. Also, for as long as I live, I will never forget the time where a bunch of kids flash mobbed the school playground as a bunch of cats, and kicked everyone else off the playground, because it is their territory now. Also, once my friend told me a game, which i proceeded to continue by myself and with my brother so basically the objective of the game came in phases: so during the day you go on a variety of quests to get more resources and research and fortify the base (the base was the playground) and at nighttime you have to defend your base against the waves of robbers, and sometimes bosses. It was a lot of fun. Yes, I did a lot of one-shots as a kid. Oh, also even though I only got to play like 3 times in my life, I have fallen in love wit Ga-ga ball, and also I like tetherball (and riding around on it pretending to be in the wrecking ball video) until it breaks, playing wall-ball, 2 square, 4 square, dodgeball, capture the flag, all the classic PE games that don't involve actual sports. Man I miss the grade school playground gaming culture so much, there is really nothing like it, except maybe online, or on Roblox or something, but it's still not the same, but I'm banned, so. Also jump rope games are kinda mid-tier tbh, it is the original rhythm game. Also I really want to play dungeons & Dragons, I tried to run the starter campaign by myself, but it ain't the same, y'know? I love the D&D Beyond forums, and the MafiaScum forums, mostly. I was into chess for a while, took some classes with an actual GM, but I was never really good at it, well my brother got to go to the tournaments, and man I was jealous, but it honestly was kinda boring, but I checked the forums one day on chess.com and came to love forum games, especially kotl (stands for king of the ladder) by HorribleTomato (he's a legend.) Oh I remember, I also loved playing house and school with my brother me as the mom and him as the dad and the stuffed animals as our children that we homeschooled (this was before we knew where babies came from and why incest was bad, so please don't judge us. Uno was my favorite card game growing up, 80 points was my least favorite game because my family would always fight too much over it and yell at me when I make a mistake or don't do what they tell me to do-my first real experience with toxicity in game, but they love it. On also this one time I was playing laser tag at my friends birthday party and of course I broke the rules and ran around when we can only walk (it was really tiring), and then proceeded to be in literal last place-I barely got any tags, even though I was aiming directly at them. I saw a group of kids in there all standing around in a corner shooting at each other, farming up insanely high scores (nothing in the rules against that, but honestly it looked quite boring.) Also who can forget about the classic time wasters when we don't have anything else except our hands: double-up-seven, chopsticks, coconut crack, rock-paper-scissors-shoot. Also playing Secret Hitler with my friend was a lot of fun, and also playing Monopoly with my family (though I never bought any houses because I was averse to spending money, but at least that meant I didn't have to get into fights with them over money). Man, this took a long trip down memory lane. If you read all this, you're a legend.
