Gates of Hell

It’s 2012 and I’m playing Starcraft for the first time. It’s been 14 years since the first game was released. I thought I’d take a moment before I write anything else and tell you why it took me this long.

I’ve been a gamer since I was a kid, but not a hardcore one. I was raised with a NES controller in my hand and kept playing console games until around 2000, when I got my first decent PC at age 13. I dabbled a bit in different genres, but I fell in love with two of them, RPGs and Grand strategy. I want to make the distinction between Grand and Real-time strategy clear. My favourite game of all time is Europa Universalis III, but it’s nothing like Starcraft. You play a country on an epic scale, making long term decisions with very little microing, you can pause whenever you want, think about your decisions for an eternity, and a game can last for 40 hours. The only RTS I’ve played was a little bit of Red Alert 2 in my early teens. Starcraft had always been something intriguing, but frightening. Even back in 2000, Starcraft felt like a vague mass of complexity that everyone else had years of experience with. Since then, that feeling has only grown. I hadn’t given the game a lot of thought, but now and then I’d thought about starting to play, but it just felt too much, too complicated. Too late.

Then Day[9] happened. I’m a big fan of Felicia Day, and I stumbled upon Day[9]‘s stream where he played Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning with her. Here was a guy just beaming with positive energy and joy, entertaining and captivating, I had to check out what he was doing. I actually started watching a few Day[9] dailies without understanding a thing. But it didn’t matter, I was pulled in by his joy. Then I watched his 100th daily and it almost made me cry. Instead of the vague scary mass I talked about earlier, Starcraft now had a face and a voice, and I couldn’t resist it. I know how happy good games make me, and I wanted to feel what he feels.

I bought Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty a week ago today. I’ve just completed the single player campaign on Normal, and I haven’t done anything else except a few challenges. I haven’t even gone online yet. There’s still so much to learn, and I will be writing about my learning techniques and approach to the game. I hope that it can inspire other newbies and be an entertaining read for veterans, watching me stumble and curse my way through the basics. I also hope that I can look back at this and laugh one day. I’m not trying to become a pro, I’m not even planning on becoming really good. I just want to learn as much as possible because it’s a challenge and a fun, complex game. Most of all, I want to feel the joy that Day[9] feels when he opens up a game.