I got to thinking the other day about the journey that we as gamers have made when it comes to cooperative games. Warning: Contains some chin-stroking and woolgathering.

When I was a child, I used to love to go to the arcade at the local mall. It wasn’t that far from home and my mother would sit outside with the other parents as I wasted quarter after quarter on frivolous things. My games of choice were Gauntlet and Rampage. I’d meet up with fellow connoisseurs and we’d destroy buildings or monsters. I didn’t need to know these people to know they were my people. Hobbies can be tribal that way, and I was a gamer from the moment my cousin brought his Atari over to play Pong with me at my grandmother’s house. I loved playing video games, but mostly I loved playing video games with other players. Something about working together as a team to accomplish a goal just fires me up personally. I like to romanticize it as a tribe of Neolithic hunters taking down a mastodon, but that might be going too far. I just like to work on a team.

So I got to thinking about that the other day – I couldn’t be alone, could I? Surely there were other gamers who got their start in a similar manner. It only makes sense that there were others who enjoyed putting in the work for the reward. That then drifted over to this little essay about how co-op games have evolved.

Crowded around a wooden cabinet with a screen and some electronics. Dumping quarters by the pound. Trying to eat and play and not spill your drinks. Maybe partially listening to your mixtape on your Walkman to hype you up. The sound of other games being played. It was a symphony of delight. The best part about the arcade, I think, was that you could play with people you’ve never met and instantly share a camaraderie with them if you liked the same games. Yeah, it was roulette on getting a good partner for a game, but that was part of the magic and the fun. Even more fun was when your parents and the parents of your friends were able to arrange a specific time when you could all meet up and play. I lived for Saturdays like that. Especially for the Chick-fil-A waffle fries afterward. I can practically smell the honey mustard right now as I type this (and hate that the franchise in question are bigoted). Those rare days where we’d get to stay all day with our friends would usually involve one of the parents hanging around and letting us kids run wild. Good times.

I’ll note that my experience may be a bit off, in that I didn’t seek out games that were player versus player and that was the experience for many gamers. It just wasn’t mine.

Console. Games. That just… changed everything for me. I was I think about five when I got my first Nintendo entertainment system – sometime in the mid-1980s. My mother got me the deluxe system with the zap gun, Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt… and something special. Something that would become very dear to me: The Legend of Zelda. But that’s for another time.

I played those forever and loved them, but it wasn’t until I got to play Double Dragon with my cousin that the magic of the arcade really came back. He’d come over and we’d play for hours. Then Gauntlet II came out and oops, what free time? I remember my mother getting me a Four Score and additional controllers just so more people could play – even she’d play sometimes and was really good at it! My house became the de facto HQ of my friends and family for gaming, and the couch our command center. Then the 1980s were over and the Super Nintendo came out and boy, everything seemed to change all over again. I went on a lot of adventures sitting in front of the television in my youth.

I got my first computer in the early 1990s and while I had lots of fun on it, I didn’t really start getting into games on it till later. It was a i386, I believe, and while flashy, it was mostly used for writing at the time.

Then came Diablo. I loved that game so much. It was atmospheric. It was moody. It was counterculture. It was good. The first time I played it was with my foster brother on his machine, and he stood behind me for what seemed like hours to show me how to get through the first few levels, and in general how to play. I’d played tons of games on the computer by then: Curse of the Azure Bonds, Quake, Wolfenstein, Hexen – I could go on – but none of them really fired me up like Diablo did. And then I learned you could play as a team and that was it. It solidified my lifelong love of the entire franchise. I’d play online or with my brother with our computers on the kitchen table for a LAN party.

Then my future best friend entered the picture and did something crazy: for months he’d go around on trash day, collecting broken computers from the garbage of homes, stores, etc., and when the pile of parts reached critical mass, he built three other machines. The moment he hooked them all together in an ad hoc network was the moment the halcyon days of Diablo were truly born.

Ma got so mad at us always being on the table that she gave us the table and we somehow got it into my brother’s room. The symphony of the arcade came right back. Having a space to play RPGs (at the new kitchen table) and another space to play video games (in my brother’s room on the old one) was nice, but I’ll still never forget us taking everything down for a family sit-down at dinner, then loading it back up. Even Pop got involved sometimes and loved to watch us play. I remember him giving us half the money needed for a LAN card to begin with. You know how dads are: open the wallet, hand it over, tell you to figure the rest out.

And my last evolution as a gamer: the computer room/office and the chair. Due to my bulk and height, I never got a comfortable gaming chair until I was much older. I just made do with what I had and suffered through it. My first computer room at home was cramped with other people, but that made it fun – especially on Starcraft or Diablo nights. I’d continue to play multiple online games, though I never touched World of Warcraft for some reason. Just couldn’t get into it. I tried. Seemed like a bit too much work for the grind. I would continue playing Diablo just as I always had and this time able to really enjoy it with others, even if I couldn’t get together in person with my friends and family. Google Hangouts and TeamSpeak made it super easy to keep up a comms line and I’d made a ton of friends who liked the same stuff I did. The Feeling of the Arcade was back again and it filled me with fire.

Now here at Haptic we currently have Valheim, Terraria, and Minecraft – more soon! – and out of the three I’ve played Valheim and Minecraft the most. Never did manage to play Terraria, but that does seem like something I’d enjoy. As I’ve probably said too often, I like co-op. I like playing as part of a team. I like that feeling of shared victory and esprit de corps. Minecraft probably has to be my second favorite here simply because I haven’t put in a ton of hours, unlike most who have played it. Maybe 500 at most. I enjoy it. I like building things. I like gathering resources. I like working with my fellow players to accomplish something – whatever that is at the moment. I ended up getting my own server at one point, just because all my friends and family wanted to play with me, and having an async game set up was just the bee’s knees. Valheim, I admit I was really resistant to at first. It seemed a bit more complicated than what I wanted, but I got a copy anyways, played it, loved it. Oh, and hated it. Stupid !@##$$ death and losing everything. Oh, it made me so mad. But then I learned to travel with my team and things got easier. Valheim remains one of my favorite games so far and I’m pleased to see it doing so well.

What do you think about our three flagship games? Who do you play with? Do you like working for or against your fellow players? Tell us! We want to know.