Raising a Gamer

So Long And Thanks For All The Windfish!

This post should go live on or very near the 1 year anniversary of the start of this series. This gives me a unique opportunity, a year’s worth of old posts that I can read through and reflect on.

Raising a Gamer has been a great opportunity for me to slow down, take a step back and truly appreciate the miracle of my daughter’s development. Through gaming I have seen her refine her basic motor skills, tackle problem-solving, and build a foundation of social skills that she will surely take with her into Kindergarten in another month or so. When I started this series with Mae she was still very much developing a lot of the skills needed to interact with anything other than a touchscreen tablet. A year later and she is successfully navigating the DualShock Playstation controller and working both analog sticks to control the movements of Spyro and Crash Bandicoot. She now takes her time with each title we play together and thinks about what the best strategy might be. Pokemon Snap was a great example, she would memorize the locations of each Pokemon and then wait until the perfect moment to get the best shot and thus the most points.

While great for Mae’s development, Raising a Gamer and 1MoreCastle have been crucial for my own development. This opportunity has introduced me to a lot of great people from all around the world. Prior to 1MoreCastle I didn’t have much of a creative outlet, but now in a post-1MC world I find myself writing and creating on a near constant basis. If I am not creating I am thinking about creating. It is a great feeling to put something out into the world, even if only a few ever end up reading it. I am happy to have had the opportunity to share my experiences with my daughter and our adventures in gaming. I have been exposed to podcasting as a guest host on 1MorePodcastle. I have even dabbled in video editing with my recent Retro Lullabies piece.

I will miss 1MoreCastle and reading the great work from my fellow contributors but I know that everyone, should they choose to continue creating, will find a new place to call home. This site has been a beacon for extremely talented, creative, and positive individuals and any new home for the current stable of 1MC contributors will benefit greatly. The retro community is a better place because of 1MoreCastle and I am glad to have been a part of it.

I may not be able to post on 1MoreCastle anymore but I am still very much a gamer dad and would love to share my journey with you. Follow me on Twitter at @ChrisASwartz to continue the conversation. Send me your game recommendations, tips, tricks, advice for getting an infant to sleep through the night.. and I will be sure to keep you mired in all of the adorable daddy/daughter cuteness your Twitter feed can stomach.

I plan on continuing on in the community and have a few ideas planned with two other future former 1MoreCastle contributors. Get excited, it’s going to be fun.

It’s been real, 1MoreCastle.