The game of Trinity
April 14, 2006
Matthew Jenkins
A few days ago I got an e-mail informing me that an essay I wrote is going to appear in an academic journal. The paper is called something like “The Rise of the Computer Game Aesthetic: MUDs, MOOs and Yetis.” Basically, it’s a piece about why computer games are cool, dressed up in fancy philosophical words like “mimesis” and “ludocentric.”
I was pretty happy about this e-mail, although I found the whole idea of getting some essay about video games published in a journal kind of funny. Video games and academic articles don’t seem to have much in common, except for the fact that you could find both in the average college dorm room.
On the other hand, I have felt a bit like Pacman these last few weeks: running through this academic maze, trying to move fast enough to avoid the ghosts and collect all the yellow dots. The dots are all the things I need to do to “succeed”: get a high enough GPA for grad school, put out a good paper, make sure I actually have a summer job, buy a ring. The ghosts are all the things that prevent me from doing this: sickness brought on by too many late nights, anxiety from not knowing the future, and the spectres of fear and doubt that will trap me if I take the wrong turn.
Unfortunately, we’re at the end of the semester, and I have run out of power pellets – the ones that make Pacman invincible and able to eat all the monsters. To be honest, I think I ran out of them long ago, and it’s only been through the help of others that I’ve managed to make it through this year in (mostly) one piece. That’s the best thing about working on a team like Mars’ Hill– there’s more than one Pacman to eat all the dots. Perhaps it is at this point that the metaphor breaks down, and I just have to come out and say it. Thank you guys for being such a great team; this has been a year I’ll never forget.
Thank you, Zach and Robyn, for making our paper look awesome right from the start. Your attention to detail is the reason we won an award and gained recognition across North America this year. Thanks, Kevan, for continuing the awesomeness this semester, and for infusing freshness and some much needed order into Mars’ Hill.
Thank you, Rose, for being our wordsmith for so many late nights, hammering out all the dents in our paragraphs and pull-quotes, and making them look shiny and new.
And as for the rest of the editorial board, thank you guys for going above and beyond, for stepping up when we needed you and making this year, our tenth anniversary, something really special. Without the hours that your writers have volunteered, we wouldn’t have a paper.
Above all (and this is the last one, I promise), I’d like to thank you, Sarah Weigum, for being the best managing editor I could ever have. Thank you for remembering the little things and for bringing me back to earth. Thank you for your unflagging commitment, and for being so pithy, even at 3 a.m. Your ability to get things done, and done well, was as indispensable to Mars’ Hill as it will be to whomever you end up working for– CBC, BBC or beyond.
Well, now that I’ve said what I needed to say, it’s time to go back to the yellow dots. I’ve almost finished level three, and I think I’ll manage to evade Inky and Blinky and Pinky one more time. And if I remember correctly, it’s in round four that Ms. Pacman steps onto the scene.
I’ll see you all next year. Until then, enjoy the game.
Now you go...
One Response to “The game of Trinity”
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Having read the particular essay, myself. I can attest to the fact that such a republication is entirely well deserved.
Bravo.